The Raw High

Coffee - facts pt. 2 - DIABETES

2012-01-24T14:33:00.004-05:00

In this segment I plan to cover the controversial topic of whether or not coffee prevents diabetes. I was going to talk about this in part I, but it was too long and complicated. I assure you I do my best to keep it concise and to the point these days. Ok ready? Get your brain-boosting substance of choice in/on you, whether it's a thinking cap or a cup of coffee, or reishi spore oil.. Here we go.

Note: a lot of the talk here is on caffeine. Coffee and caffeine are different. I will address that fosho.

Coffee and diabetes: the paradox, the confusion

Almost all of the epidemiological studies tracking the effects of caffeine and coffee intake and diabetes have shown that they are inversely related; that people who drink coffee over a period of several years tend to have a lower risk of diabetes in the future. None have shown a positive correlation. The link is clearer in subjects who lose weight. In this prospective cohort study, the association was ONLY found in people who had lost weight. Caffeine and coffee may also help people lose weight. The paradox though, is that coffee causes acute insulin resistance. The consensus is that if one is healthy, coffee will prevent diabetes, but if one has diabetes, it is not a good idea to drink it. Let's see how true this is.

One oft-cited epidemiological study that you may find from googling coffee and diabetes is this one involving post-menopausal women. Women who drank greater than 4 cups a day had higher levels of sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG) in their blood plasma and 56% less risk for developing diabetes after a 10-year follow up. Make note that high SHBG and low testosterone only protect WOMEN from diabetes. In men low testosterone is implicated in diabetes and obesity. Men do not want high SHBG, it will bind to free testosterone and reduce the bioavailable amount. Despite being another epidemiological study, the type that I don't like, I cannot argue against these statistics. Maybe drinking coffee daily will create an anti-diabetic hormonal profile, at least in women, and at least when it comes to terms with SHBG, but it may not if weight is gained.

On a smaller scale of 4 weeks, where mechanisms can be better elucidated, Dam et al. found that the equivalent of 13 cups of coffee a day did not just result in 14 participants (out of 40) withdrawing from the study, but also higher levels of fasting insulin after 4 weeks. They performed a second study (including data from 45 people after drop-outs) with one group receiving 870mg of caffeine a day and the other 52g of coffee grounds a day (0.9 L), and found similar rises in fasting insulin but not in fasting glucose. The authors concluded that it's not a good idea to recommend coffee to lower type II diabetes risk. Wrong conclusion, imho. Blood glucose levels were unchanged despite such high amounts of coffee. Also we don't see postprandial (after a meal), glucose concentrations (which are better to test for diabetes risk as we'll explain below).

Dam et al. 2004

This is the difference between BAD insulin resistance with impaired glucose metabolism, and not bad insulin resistance, where other mediators such as epinephrine or free fatty acids keep insulin high, but glucose unchanged. In fact that's exactly what happens with caffeine consumption. We see transient insulin resistance because of epinephrine, but also adenosine antagonism, and other mechanisms that people are still trying to figure out.

If you want to learn more about this benign form of insulin resistance (that shows that more fat is being burned and glucose is not staying elevated), read this post on how butter does the same thing. Highly highly recommended. May just make you go "WOW."And make you eat butter to burn more fat and improve heart health.

Ok so in healthy subjects, there isn't much of a problem short term in blood glucose homeostasis. But in diabetics what does coffee and caffeine do? Lane et al. found that a 375mg dose of caffeine elevated blood glucose 21% IN DIABETICS. That's pretty significant, but for 375mg, the amount of caffeine in 3-4 cups of coffee, it may not be much? In the fasted state, there was not much of an effect on insulin and glucose concentrations, but the authors cite that this is exactly why we should be concerned; postprandial (after a meal) glucose concentrations may be a better indicator of diabetes risk they say, citing this study (you don't want high hba1c, an index of hyperglycaemia). The authors had strong data and strong reason to conclude that diabetics should not drink coffee, at least in conjunction with a high carbohydrate meal (the one they used contained 70g carbs from a sugary Boost drink). Except they used caffeine, NOT coffee. Coffee would have probably had the same effect though.

Right, so although the physiological effects of coffee are mediated mainly by caffeine, I always believe in the whole food, and coffee contains buzzwords like antioxidants and polyphenols. In fact, coffee is probably the largest source of antioxidants for an average American. Recently, as in, like last November, Cheng et al. published research examining how two other major constituents in coffee, chlorogenic acid (CGA) (as well as EGCG from green tea) and caffeic acid (CA), can reduce the formation of human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP), which can cause beta cell apoptosis (beta cells in the pancreas are what release insulin and when they are destroyed you become insulin resistant). I talked about in part 1 how amyloid proteins aggregate in Alzheimer's disease. Well they do in diabetes as well.

Caffeine had the lowest effect on preventing hIAPP formation, CGA had the largest effect, but caffeine did have other beneficial effects on pancreatic cell viability and in preventing fibril formation (there are many steps in the process for hIAPP to form amyloids and is beyond the discussion here, and my head for that matter right now). This paper doesn't directly answer my unanswered question from the first segment on advanced glycation endproduct (AGE) formation, but I suspect that if the process of AGE formation, and amyloid formation by hIAPP is similar, then these polyphenol compounds would reduce AGE formation. Now these researchers conducted an in vitro study. But they conclude that physiological levels of CGA and CA would be greater in vivo than in their study. They also talked about the various metabolites of these compounds which are all polyphenols, some of which they studied here and found similar abilities in preventing hIAPP aggregation.

Cheng et al. 2011

Trust me I'm as confused as you. Continuing with the "whole food" mentality and chlorogenic acid, Johnston et. al. found that CGA may have antagonistic effects to caffeine. Nine healthy volunteers were given either caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee, with the same amount of CGA, and the levels of insulin, glucose, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptite (GIP), and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), were assessed over a 3 hour period after ingestion. Results? Decaffeinated coffee resulted in lower insulin and glucose levels over the three hour period. Caffeinated coffee resulted in a higher level of insulin at 30 minutes, but not much higher at the other time values. The authors suspect that this is due to CGA, and the fact that levels of GIP and GLP-1 were higher. Those two hormones, classified as incretins, are anti-diabetic, they sensitize tissues to insulin. If you're a nutrition geek, you have to read that paper. It talks also about how the release of these hormones results in glucose being absorbed in more distal parts of the small intestine, due to CGA mediated Na+ electrochemical gradient dissipation.

In C57BL/6J mice fed a high fat diet (these mice are a model for diabetes), coffee and caffeine were both found to improve insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation, as assessed by inflammatory markers such as interleukin-6 (IL-6). The diet was revealed to only be 13.6% fat though.. so watch out for those "high-fat" studies implicating fat as the problem. The point is, the mice's glucose tolerance was slowly impaired, and coffee, as well as caffeine, ameliorated this. The expression of inflammatory adipocytokines, chemicals that mediate the inflammation process and are implicated as well in diabesity and heart disease, were reduced.

In humans though, this epidemiological study found that coffee drinkers, both male and female, had higher levels of IL-6, as well as c-reactive protein (one of the main causative agents in heart disease). LOL. What does this mean? Coffee can be good as part of a healthy lifestyle. I'm more convinced by the mRNA analyses than the epidemiological evidence, but the epidemiological stuff tells us what happens to normal people who behave normally. It doesn't tell us what could happen under optimal conditions. If you try to be healthy and consume coffee in moderation, you may be healthier and happier! But while being stressed out and sleep deprived, coffee may make things worse and that's not the subject of this article.

To conclude, Wedick et al. found that 5 cups a day of coffee for 8 weeks in healthy overweight subjects also raised IL-6 concentrations (may cause insulin resistance), but also higher adiponectin levels which they cite are inversely associated with T2DM (type II diabetes mellitus). There was not much of an effect on insulin and glucose concentrations after the 8 weeks. The group receiving decaffeinated coffee showed lower fetuin-A concentrations. Fetuin-a is a glycoprotein secreted by hepatocytes and higher levels increase T2DM risk. Caffeinated coffee had no effect on fetuin-A concentrations, and decaffeinated had no effect on adiponectin levels. The authors conclude that over an 8-week period, the acute disturbances to glucose homeostasis mediated by coffee do not remain. Indices of T2DM risk show that coffee may reduce risk.

FINAL NOTES:
1. Coffee contains a lot of phytochemicals and polyphenols which are anti-diabetic, through several mechanisms, including reduction of hIAPP polymerization, higher adiponectin levels, for secreting GLP-1 and GIP, and for raising epinephrine levels which may aid in fat loss.

2. Coffee taken with a high carbohydrate meal in diabetics may be a bad idea, since it aggravates hyperglycaemia. But consuming large amount of carbohydrates as a diabetic may not be a good idea anyway. On a lower carbohydrate diet, consuming coffee may not pose much of a threat to insulin/glucose homeostasis, and may aid in the fat loss process. However, if one of coffee's main mechanisms is the prevention of hIAPP polymerization, then it would still improve the function of the pancreas despite elevated serum glucose levels.. The influence of coffee on hIAPP formation in conjunction with a high carbohydrate diet has not been studied yet to my knowledge. If coffee's anti-diabetic action is mostly behind the scenes, then the glucose/insulin story won't tell us much at all. I suspect this to be the case.

3. I don't know anyone who wants to "prevent diabetes." If you are normal weight, you probably don't care about preventing it. So who cares? The studies I overviewed show that metabolically, coffee is overall good for glucose homeostasis and prevention of toxic amyloid proteins aggregating in your pancreas and brain, but that doesn't mean diabetes is caused by not drinking coffee. I think the real question is, should diabetics drink coffee? The answer is, not with a lot of sugar and carbohydrates, but surely in conjunction with a diet and exercise intervention designed to improve insulin sensitivity and weight loss. It may be best in the fasted state, before exercise for instance since Lane et al. who found increased glucose levels when coffee was taken with a meal in diabetics found no effect in the fasted state. I don't have the answer to this yet, but perhaps in the fed state, coffee could cause weight gain in susceptible individuals on a high sugar diet, but in the fasted state it could aid fat loss.

4. Add cinnamon to your coffee if you are diabetic. As in cinnamon powder, not cinnamon flavored coffee.

I hope you enjoyed this if you made it this far, and I hope it answered some questions and it was not confusing and that it was mostly correct.

-AS

Coffee: overview, misconceptions, benefits, etc. - I

2012-01-21T00:38:00.001-05:00

I think I have a good ability to see the big picture, the totality of things, just like everyone else who says that does. But when it comes to coffee, there are a lot of very big pictures, and a lot of very small pictures, and not much in between (as with all nutritional science). Also, a lot of people have an agenda; people either patronize this revered cultural symbol, while others wish to condemn the dark vile bitter acidic sewage of a product. Coffee lovers relate with the former group, and herbal tea drinkers relate with the latter.

So here are what I believe to be the truth:

1. Coffee IS neither good or bad.
2. Coffee CAN be good or bad.
3. I.e. coffee has the POTENTIAL to be good, and the POTENTIAL to be evil but is neither without understanding the context and your present health situation.

(Please ignore for now the simplicity of "good" and "bad")

Similarly, refined sugar is not inherently bad, it CAN be and most of the time WILL be. When it ALWAYS is bad, it BECOMES bad. Of course I don't recommend eating refined sugar, but the fact is many successful athletes eat whatever crap they want to eat and still win gold medals (I'm thinking specifically of Michael Phelps at the 2008 Olympics, when I learned that he drinks 4 energy drinks per day full of caffeine and sugar). It does not mean they are in an optimal state of health or will not develop health problems in the future, but they certainly are not clogging their arteries, raising their triglyceride levels, or becoming obese in the process of consuming refined sugar in conjunction with a very active lifestyle.

So in the rest of this series we will be looking at how coffee CAN be good, and how it CAN be bad, but is neither at the same time, in fact they are probably mutually exclusive but in some cases perhaps not. To sum up my opinions on this before I get into it:

1. Coffee certainly can have health benefits. Epidemiological studies have all shown inverse correlations with coffee consumption and diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, liver cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and even hypertension. Further laboratory research on a smaller scale has uncovered many of these mechanisms in humans. Coffee consumption certainly is not harming society, at least according to the studies. It's probably great for the economy. Many studies do show increased inflammation and increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

2. Coffee activates stress hormones, and too much stress increases ageing, increases your risk of every disease coffee has shown to protect against, and doesn't make you feel good. That's the problem. We must differentiate the effects of coffee on healthy subjects, and unhealthy subjects. What are the effects of 2 cups of morning coffee for instance on individuals who sleep 1 hour shy of their optimal sleep time (like when you get 7 hours of sleep and feel horrible, instead of getting that 8) for 2 weeks in a row?

3. Your cortisol levels should be elevated in the morning, so you should be able to wake up with energy. If they are not, it may be a sign of adrenal fatigue, or obviously sleep deprivation... Coffee is going to make that worse over time.

4. You don't need coffee to have energy, even to have a LOT of energy, or any adrenergic agonist (stimulant) for that matter. In fact it befuddles me why people actually use it when you could be drinking schisandra berries, goji, ginseng, licorice, green tea, turmeric, rhodiola, fo-ti, reishi, ashwagandha...

5. Once we understand the similarity between the diseases coffee prevents, using coffee to prevent them becomes unnecessary. In fact is just shows that we are trying to confirm our addiction to coffee with short-sighted scientific studies that miss the big picture.So would I still drink coffee? Yes. But do I? No. I don't drink coffee right now because I don't need it. I stress my body out routinely through vigorous strength/power training which drains my adrenal glands as it is, and coffee is just another trip down "fight or flight response" lane. Usually, I need to focus on recovery and meditation and being calm. Sometimes my body naturally goes into hyperdrive from not exercising after a while, in that case it's as if I'm naturally on coffee but way worse. I would only drink coffee if I wanted to feel extremely stimulated or if I was in a mosh pit (but cacao beans would work better anyway). For the rest of the population, by biggest unanswered question is: "how stressful is coffee to the human body, and what kind of physiological measurements can detect increased stress responses, and how could this affect long term health?"

How coffee can be good, i.e. the "benefits" of coffee:
1. Alzheimer's disease (AD), and related diseases?:
Tau and amyloid β are the main proteins that form the neurofibrillary tangles and senile plaques that constitute AD (these plaques are present in other neurodegenerative diseases as well). Causes of the buildup of these proteins may include glycation which is caused by a high sugar diet or hyperglycaemia - diabetes certainly accelerates the risk for AD."

Diabetes and Alzheimer's disease share several biochemical similarities, including oxidative stress and the presence of damaging molecules known as advanced glycation end products (AGEs)."

Weird. AGEs play a role in AD, Diabetes, even hypertension... heart disease, the latter of two which are linked, wait all four of them are linked. (diabetes heart disease connection here, again through AGEs). (note: AGEs aren't everything, I'm just saying it is one link between these diseases and one common mechanism we can focus on in order to prevent these diseases - in fact there are many cases where Alzheimer's is not-so-related to diabetes here and here. Hypotension may be more common in AD, and hypertension more common in vascular dementia patients - here is more info on the differences between AD and vascular dementia).

"Hypertension and atherosclerosis are both characterized by insulin resistance, and we suggest that this plays a major role in their etiology. The cause of insulin resistance is not known, but may be a result of a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors. In insulin resistance, alterations in glucose and lipid metabolism lead to the production of excess aldehydes including glyoxal and methylglyoxal. These aldehydes react non-enzymatically with free amino and sulfhydryl groups of amino acids of proteins to form stable conjugates called advanced glycation end products (AGEs). AGEs act directly, as well as via receptors to alter the function of many intra- and extracellular proteins including antioxidant and metabolic enzymes, calcium channels, lipoproteins, and transcriptional and structural proteins. This results in endothelial dysfunction, inflammation and oxidative stress. All these changes are characteristic of hypertension and atherosclerosis."

Ok well why is any of this important? Because coffee has been shown to protect against all of these diseases. Coincidence? Is it the same mechanism as adopting a healthy diet, improving insulin sensitivity (which some studies have found with long term coffee consumption), going on a lower carbohydrate diet, eliminating refined sugars, taking certain supplements like carnosine (read the life extension article couple paragraphs above) to reduce AGEs, exercising?

Coffee and AD mechanisms:

Caffeine and other components in coffee boost granulocyte colony stimulating factor (GCSF) which improves cognitive performance in mice with AD, while preventing those amyloid β proteins from accumulating.

In the Honolulu-Asia Ageing Study, no association was found between coffee and caffeine intake and risk of AD or dementia, except for those in the highest quartile of caffeine intake (greater than 227.5mg/d), who had reduced risk of AD. Not enough info in these epidemiological studies...

Researchers in Korea tested the effects of chlorogenic acid ( one of the main constituents in coffee along with caffeic acid and caffeine) on memory and learning impaired mice. They found that this compound prevented the breakdown of acetylcholine, a very important neurotransmitter for brain power. In fact most anti-AD drugs and nootropics seem to go for this neurotransmitter.

The Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Ageing and Dementia (CAIDE) study did find that caffeine intake was associated with much less risk of dementia and AD. In fact there was a 65% reduction in AD/dementia risk in individuals who consumed 3-5 cups per day.

What does all this mean? Not as much as it seems. Although I believe that coffee improves cognition, I do not believe that caffeine alone reduces AD risk. What else are people who drink 3-5 cups of coffee a day doing? Well why are they drinking that java in the first place? They're drinking 3-5 cups of coffee to DO SOMETHING with it! People don't drink coffee for the same reasons as beer. You don't drink coffee to relax or hang out, you drink it to prepare for something (except for coffee dates I guess..?) That may be the main reason for the benefit, engaging the brain more, or being involved in occupations that require more thinking, analysis, creativity, w/e. This is why epidemiological studies are really hogwash in nutrition, there are too many confounding variables.

Eating a high carbohydrate American diet, while sitting in front of the computer with energy drinks and caffeine, or watching a football game while eating pizza beer and caffeine will increase AGE formation by spiking blood sugar (we will see this in the next post). Most people I see who consume energy drinks are actually out of shape and overweight, don't sleep, and don't exercise. An hba1c test would probably show impaired glucose tolerance and greater AGE formation.

The best way to prevent AD is eating real food with good nutrition and physical exercise that you enjoy. That will keep your glucose metabolism healthy and prevent the deleterious AGEs we talked about from forming those "neurofibrillary tangles" in your brain. Of course we know very well how aerobic exercise increases brain-derived neutrophic factor and that may be one mechanism for the benefits. But again if the main reason AD prevalence has skyrocketed in the Western world, along with our massive per capita annual consumption of refined sugar, we should probably just take a look at our insulin sensitivity, hba1c tests, and our waist to hip ratio. (Alzheimer's has been speculated to be "diabetes in the brain" - note I do not endorse Dr. Oz).

For example, the Okinawans, a famous long-lived culture in Japan, are known for having a high amount of centenerians, and being healthy throughout their entire lifespan. They have some mottos such as "eat until you are 80% full" and they don't get dementia like we do. Do not believe that AD is merely a result of being old and the "we are living longer therefore we are getting more diseases" crap. It's a disease of civilization. Therefore, although coffee may prevent AD, and improve cognition in patients with AD, it does not address the root cause. I don't want to say it's a symptomatic treatment, because it is not, but it's a "small-picture solution." There.

This does not answer the AGEs question though. There are several proposed mechanisms, several "small picture" mechanisms that is, that may explain coffee's ability to ward off all these diseases it has been purported to work against. Our examination of the diabetes research may help us understand all of this crap. For now though, I've been spending too much time reading about coffee. I use white tea, schisandra berries (in moderation, I take a few days off every now and then or only drink it once a day), turmeric, and fasting, and dulse/seaweeds, to help me focus. In fact coffee makes me too jittery to focus, just like a high dose of cacao beans will. Too much arousal and stimulation will reduce performance. I want to keep this short so I'm going to stop here but this is just the beginning.

Random snack I ate a while ago - homemade bread, cacao beans (just a few), coconut butter, raw milk+ banana smoothie with cinnamon, some honey, and passionflower tea to reduce stress.

Conclusion: You may have seen the brief synopses of the research I presented and be wondering why I'm still not interested in drinking coffee. Clearly, coffee stimulates your brain. My beef with this in promoting AD is that it's a small solution to a bigger more global problem. Granulocyte-stimulating factor is stupid that's not reason to claim coffee is good. Stimulating GCSF while eating a standard american diet will not prevent AD or dementia. But hey, I think coffee can be fun to drink, I just don't like the small picture solutions.

We will talk about the effects of coffee on sex-hormone binding globulin and testosterone, cortisol and corticosterone and STRESS, effects on digestion and acidity, and the U shaped curve of arousal and performance, in future posts. Part II will focus on diabetes (of which research is ongoing and paradoxical and confusing) and will help us answer the AGEs question, and explain why perhaps AD risk goes down... because diabetes risk decreases with coffee consumption too! Or does it....

go to sleep,
AS

Tim Ferriss and the 4 Hour Body - pt II

2012-01-07T21:36:00.000-05:00

In this post I will highlight some of the key points regarding body transformation, but not all of the book as that would have to be broken up into a couple segments. Again, as I mentioned in the introductory post, I firmly believe it's an incredible diet book, because it caters to all the busy overweight office-workers today who do not want to add to their stress load by learning about diet and sifting through information. It's constructed like a guide, with exact recipes to follow, exact weight-lifting programs, that allow the layman to transform their body with simple rules. There are many parts of the book that stand out compared to other diet books, such as the chapters outlining nutritional myths, helping people understand calories in minus calories out, helping them understand the confusion in the diet industry, and busting most of the myths that people still believe in. The main problem is that he does not tell you everything, it's a 'guide,' not a 'how stuff works' book. He also lets you eat whatever you would like on the one cheat day of the week. Here we go.

1. The Pareto Principle - 80/20 principle:

In business, oftentimes, 80% of the profit can come from 20% of your customers. Indeed when Tim Ferriss was managing his sports nutrition company BrainQuicken, he noticed that 95% of the profit came from 5% of the customers. In the realm of all things related to health, 5% of all the things out there can help you achieve 95% of the results. What this means to someone trying to build muscle get stronger or lose fat, is that there aren't a whole lot of changes to be made in order to achieve results.

2. Minimum Effective Dose:

Tim enjoys the idea of doing as little as possible to achieve maximum results. The fact is, it works, but is not entirely correct. This builds upon the Pareto Principle by shifting your attention to the 5% needed, and nothing else.

"To boil water, the MED is 212°F (100°C) at standard air pressure. Boiled is boiled," says Tim Ferriss.

Buuuuut, the body doesn't always work like this, in fact many things are "dose-dependent." Sometimes there is a U shaped curve, with optimal values hovering around one range, and everything above and below failing to deliver optimal results.

He says "For a given muscle group like the shoulders, activating the local growth mechanism might require just 80 seconds of tension using 50 pounds once every seven days, for example"

My problem with this statement is that it's difficult to define 80lbs of tension (those are also many problems with measuring things all the time which we'll talk about shortly). I really have no guideline to visualize what 80seconds of tension looks like with 50lbs. It's a little arbitrary.

Nevertheless, there is a certain minimum dose or a certain substance/exercise that turns on the cascade of cellular responses to trigger muscle growth, or fat loss. 80 seconds though is an arbitrary figure and there was no reference. There may be a certain maximum dose, but the minimum dose as Tim recommends, may not be optimal. Here is a simple article exploring that topic in regards to strength training, where multiple sets may outweigh single sets (not very in depth but check out the references).

Single set training is usually done with a weight that may not be possible to sustain for two more sets. If the studies that demonstrated a superiority of multiple set training over single set training used the same %RM for each protocol, they are flawed, because in a single set training protocol, you will tend to use a much higher weight than you normally would for multiple sets and just go all out with it. (And many studies did make this fatal flaw in logic). You would not be ABLE to come back for two more sets with the same intensity. That one set should fatigue you tremendously.

Solution to this problem: there is more than one strategy that works. Just stick to one at a time.

3. A Calorie is NOT a Calorie:

Totally agree.

"It's not what you put into your mouth that matters, it's what makes it to your bloodstream. If it passes through, it doesn't count."

I'd argue that it's really what makes it to your fat cells that 'counts.' People with high insulin sensitivities would be able to handle a high glucose load (which would result in a lot of glucose in the bloodstream temporarily) without storing any fat, but those with compromised insulin signaling would not. After you exercise for instance, glucose is not going to stay in your bloodstream for as long as if you had not exercised.

But what he's leading into though is how on cheat days, he manages to excrete the junk he puts into his body without storing it. He does this by eating more fiber and taking a few supplements while performing squats on the toilet in the bathroom stall, about 40 of them.

4. Tracking things

"Tracking anything is better than tracking nothing."

Later he says, "Track or you will fail."

Nahhh, tracking isn't necessary, and doesn't guarantee you'll reach any of your goals. The second statement is false, but he's just trying to make a point, and this book is designed to tell the layman what to do. it doesn't have to be the best method. Stick to one method, and be consistent.

Making some conscious changes, then implementing them should come before tracking. Logging your diet for instance won't necessarily help you lose weight. Once you consciously make a change, such as eliminating refined sugar, or eating greens for dinner, or eating no carbohydrates for breakfast, or drinking green tea twice a day, or adding turmeric to your dinner, or taking cold showers upon wakening, your lifestyle will automatically change, without having to track your body fat percentage, your exact diet, your arm circumference, or even your body weight. Track using the mirror, and then track using body fat percentages, waist/hip/arm/thigh measurements, only AFTER you make a SERIOUS COMMITMENT to yourself.

I used to be OCD with tracking; I logged my diet/exercise program/mood/energy, every day for over two years. It was fun, it became a habit and a ritual, but it did not produce results magically. One day I told myself that I did not truly NEED to log my workouts. I created a MENTAL MODEL of what needed to be done and stopped logging. After that point, I saw results, and felt a little liberated. I did not have to remember everything I did and plan out my diet/workouts anymore because I knew the main gist of what I had to do and I did it.

Tim enjoys tracking because he has OCD. Don't become infected with his OCD. Step back and look at the big picture. Details and numbers can be fun to track, but are useless without a serious plan and commitment. I had a client that was OCD about tracking, but she told herself that she was probably going to gain weight during finals. In her case, tracking did not help whatsoever. My most successful clients don't obsess with numbers, they do what they need to do, and exercise for the fun of it and push themselves more than I even want them to.

Note: blood/hormone/vitamin/mineral tests are more important to track than the things I mentioned, but that does not pertain to fat loss necessarily rather than optimal health. I do recommend testing, every 6 months is probably decent.

5. The Slow Carb Diet:

His recommended diet is composed of mostly protein and legumes/beans and vegetables. This is a DIET. Not a lifestyle. It will work but for long term weight loss you need a lifestyle adjustment. You need to understand that there is something wrong with refined carbohydrates, white bread, white rice, and vegetable oils and there is no point eating them. We just need to eat real food imo. It tastes better.

I'll applaud Tim though again for telling the readers what to do. My problem with it is that it's strict, mainly because of the tracking. Most overweight people are consuming fattening foods, or a lot of everything in each meal, or are very stressed out and are eating irregularly. They don't want to track anything. Making a few changes without tracking can deliver equal if not greater results with less stress and meticulous planning.

I did not like how he viewed exercise. He said, think of exercise as a tool to help you lose weight, NOT as recreation. That is a bit stressful and may not work for long term success. But it also may. Conclusion: it works, but there are other ways that may be better. Consistency is key!

6. Dont eat fruit:

Hm. I found this pretty cool! There is actually a fruits and vegetables myth that's been going around for a while. Just because they have some beneficial chemical properties such as antioxidants (all plants contain antioxidants), bioflavonoids, carotenoids, vitamins, minerals, does not mean that they are amazing for you. Fruit does not provide many calories, it's a good snack sometimes, but you should probably not force yourself to eat fruit. This is what nutritional science has done to us. We should eat food for calories, taste, digestive health.. instinctual reasons. Nutritional reasons are important though and we should embrace modern nutritional breakthroughs but should not lose the fundamental reason for eating. We just have to realize HOW to eat food. If it's all about chemicals, take multivitamin supplements, antioxidant supplements, COQ10, and maltodextrin powder and olive oil and see how you feel.

But I would not recommend against fruit in a fat loss program. If you worked out and are starving and want some sugar, fruit is a great option. He said to save it for dessert on cheat days. He seems to think it's actually bad, based on his self-experimentation. He drank orange juice before bed and upon waking for a week and his test results came back with not so optimal results. If he drank the OJ after exercise on the other hand, maybe we would have a different outcome. There are crazy people out there who eat 30 bananas a day

7. Building muscle
He gives you a protocol to follow, Occam's protocol, and provides pictures, many many pictures. As with the diet chapters, he tells you what to do. If you're trying to build muscle and have not read too much about exercise science or bodybuilding or ever followed a program, give it a shot. Again, do your best to be consistent!

8. Better sex:
The chapter on the '15 minute orgasm' was about how to stimulate the clitoris most effectively. It is true that many women have not experienced the pleasure of an orgasm. Whatever the case, Tim views the body as a machine that can be hacked. A lot of women detest his approach (as I've read in other reviews). Females need to be in the correct mindset to orgasm according to sex experts whom I have read from, but Tim believes there is a correct way to achieve it, like a magical switch. Both mechanical and mental techniques can work though. Men tend to prefer the mechanical because they like to solve problems but women tend to live by feel so the right environment, the right touch, the right mood is more important to them (most of the time). If you do want to hack the body you have to try this technique. If you want to learn about harnessing the power of your vibes/energy to foolproof your relationships read "The Way of the Superior Man" by David Deida (that's a must read actually for any male but women will benefit as well). But hey it's all fun and games so relax and just get off with someone you like.

8. Increasing testosterone:
I found this chapter to be the most intriguing. Especially the stories that he may have made up completely, I do not know. He said that he was on a dinner date, and the woman he was with could smell his pheromones since his testosterone was so high and seemed to be losing control of herself while huffing and puffing.. lol.

He also said that he received a gash on the back of his shoulder from running into some artwork while playing with her that night and it had almost healed by the next morning. That's cool. Really cool.

It is true that fertility has been decreasing, and it's not just due to women preferring not to have as many children, but to failed attempts at pregnancy resulting from reduced sperm count, motility, and less masculinity. Considering all the estrogenic things in our environment such as plastics, tap water (laced with excreted birth control pills), and stress, it makes sense.

He tripled his testosterone by taking just 6-8 brazil nuts a day for selenium (which he had a deficiency in), taking cold showers and butter capsules and cholesterol before bed, and optimizing vitamin D3. He also ate two to three pounds of grass-fed beef for three weeks at one point and claims that was responsible for making him superhuman.

I need to get mine tested that's for sure.

In conclusion he's a cool dude. I know that other people think he's an asshole but he has refined his lifestyle techniques and knows how to be successful today whether its in improving his health, his sleep (he used to be an insomniac and corrected that), his finances, and is helping millions of other people do the same. The resources at the end of each chapter should not be taken for granted. If you want to get tested for vitamin mineral deficiencies, or perform on yourself any of the experiments he performed on himself, make sure to use them.

-AS

Tim Ferriss and The 4 Hour Body - a rational critique

2012-01-06T01:41:00.002-05:00

I say "rational" because many people I've observed in the blogosphere are very irrational when it comes to understanding Timothy Ferriss. I was too at one point, in that I dismissed him initially thinking that I would not benefit from his work. This is because he's a businessman, who cares more about making money so many people think he's a prick. (From youtube videos he seems like a cool dude and speaks rationally so I give him a check +, and I don't often do that, I've also watched one of his lectures and his prose impressed me). When I was younger I thought to myself, I would NEVER own a business related to health products and services because I'd have to lose some morality to do so by emphasizing 'selling.' Well I think that's fine now. Unless you're rich to begin with, if you want to make yourself heard in a hedonistic nation, you will benefit from those attention grabbing blanket statements at times, like the title of this book, which is not representative of everything in the book. But that's what sells. If it doesn't work, it's bullshit and a scam. But if it works, it's not at all and can help more people than if not sold with catchy phrases because it would remain in obscurity. Timothy Ferriss enjoys living life, while at the same time understanding how the world works, whether it's business, telecommunications, languages, fat loss, or longevity.

So here is a brief rating:

Content: 8

Organization: 10

Readability: 9

These are very very high ratings. He only got an 8 from me on content due to lack of references. You cannot say SHIT without references if you're interested in science. But for the layman, it works better! And that's why Tim succeeds. So although I'm mulling over putting references in everything I write, even if it's on an internet forum, Tim realizes that

a. many things work

b. you don't need to know the details in order to succeed

c. people need to follow a PROGRAM rather than understand the biochemistry of fat loss...

And so that's what I need to work on in order to help people. Unfortunately once you ask me about diet it's hard to turn my brain off and get it to shut the f**** up.

So yeah he took his revolutionary business ideas, applied them to the book, and has helped way more people than I have yet, in losing weight that is. But I haven't been working as a personal trainer for that long anyway nor is helping people my main priority. My main priority is knowledge and that's what we are going to discuss about his book, well and other things too but that will help you INDIRECTLY YAY!

I will go through many of the ideas sequentially that are either important, or controversial. IN SHORT, IT WAS AN EXCELLENT BOOK. One of the BEST DIET BOOKS OUT THERE, because it gives you, the overweight layman reading this right now, EXACTLY what you need and NO MORE, but NOT because it had the most scientifically sound advice, it's all in the organization, not the content AND THERE ARE TONS AND TONS OF REFERENCES AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER (by references not scientific journal articles, just resources for more information, testing locations, tools). He tells you how to analyze nutritional science, he tells you what to eat and what not to eat, how to think about losing weight, and so much more. He PURPOSELY stops his brain from saying too much, because he knows he will have more success without it. Seriously though, thanks for the links and tools because it allows the reader to figure out what you have by taking us to the source.

I also took all his advice for GRANTED until I started gathering my thoughts for this post. Only then did I realize that people I WORK WITH and previous PROFESSORS, and people with DEGREES AND CREDENTIALS still believe in "calories in- calories out" or that we need to "exercise more" or "limit saturated fat" and do "cardio" in order to BURN FAT. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

So Tim, you've figured it out. You're the man.

Ok ABOUT THE BOOK:

It's huge. I thought it was tiny, but it's over 500 pages long, BUT, it's a guide. He specifically said not to read it start to finish (BUT I DID ANYWAY HAHAHAHAHAHAH YOU CAN'T STOP ME LMFAO), and choose the sections you liked. There is a chapter on fat loss, on building muscle, on getting stronger, on giving women orgasms faster, on hitting baseballs further. HE IS A RENAISSANCE MAN! I was impressed because at the end, he said there were many other chapters he wanted to put in the book but didn't have space for. I like that because it shows me he is interested in a lot of different things, and is looking at life from many different angles without becoming too overwhelmed with one aspect like diet. He takes the minimum effective dose (MED), the 2.5% that gives 95% of the results. So yeah, you can spend 3 hours in the gym to lose weight, but you will get the same benefit in 30 minutes, or hell 7 minutes. Losing weight can be extremely easy if you follow just a few rules. Some people do lose weight while wasting a lot of time on exercises they don't like because they think they have to.

Also, (I'll get more detailed in the next segment), Tim believes in tracking things a lot. This is what he prefers to do, but if you're even lazier than him (hey he admitted he was lazy in the book and wakes up at 11AM on average), then I ASSURE YOU you can lose a lot of weight without really tracking anything! A lot of people like knowing how many inches they've lost from their arms and thighs, and how much body fat they've lost, but none of it is necessary (especially once you realize how hard it is to measure bodyfat accurately and how irrelevant it is for your health). Many people would become stressed out from trying to track all these variables and would rather just follow some diet, add more vegetables in there, some green tea, some turmeric, some high intensity exercise, and see the results in the mirror bit by bit.

I used to love tracking things until I realized I couldn't afford blood tests all the time and was a broke college student, so I saved that for the future and put it in the back of my mind BUT IT FELL OUT so reading this book TRULY inspired me to track things again and become a little more focused in terms of my health, all in an excited, loving life sort of manner. That's what I love about books, they really do make you go like WOAH THAT'S SO COOL. Once I can afford it I will get blood tests. I started experimenting with a "mind over matter" lackadaisical approach over the past 6 months and I definitely did not experience optimal vitality. I was not high everyday like I am while writing this. (the higher I am the more caps lock I use). But having a strong stress tolerance helps no matter what. (I will address a key point where I differ with him vehemently and strongly in the next segment).

Does it really take 4 hours?

Ok I'm going to give it away here unfortunately, but yes and no. It's honestly a fancy title that is not completely true, and not every chapter in the book is about building the best body, some of them are yes about female orgasms (clitoral ones at least which still many women have not had the pleasure to experience, I'd recommend strengthening the PC muscle), about maximizing hormones, about longevity, and hitting a baseball further.

In his book, the 4 hours referred to his experiments building muscle. After some genetic tests, he concluded that he had the worst possible genetics for building strength and muscle, AND endurance. That was funny. So he used a one set to failure protocol (Arnold Jones) and claims to have built 34lbs of muscle in 28 days. He performed eight 30 minute workouts, for a total of 4 hours.

The fat loss though doesn't necessarily take exactly 4 hours per month. It's irrelevant though. All of his recommendations will prevent you from WASTING TIME LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN THE GYM.

Here are the pros and cons of his 4 hour muscle building experiment:

Pros: Congrats. I am enamored by this guy's relentless experimenting. He poses a question and answers it. It clearly worked. He looks great in the after picture (no homo).

Cons:

He experienced noob gains. He started off extremely skinny. How much would he have gained in another month? I doubt he would gain as much in one more month because he would plateau soon but I'm not entirely sure. Nevertheless, most noobs can't even gain 5lbs of muscle in a month because they are never consistent and don't know how to train. Following this protocol can work for noobs, but if you have more time I'd do a few more things just for fun. He also uses a lot of machines, that's fine. But free weights are better for overall health imo. Machines can hit certain muscles more but won't transfer to activities of daily living as well.

He did not include rest times, not only in this chapter but many others. If you're in the gym for thirty minutes, you're in the gym for thirty minutes. The point of quicker workouts is to reduce wasted time in the gym and free up time to do other things. If your total "work" time was 10 minutes, but there were 20 minutes of rest, your workout took 30 minutes.

Also he's not natural enough for me. I like eating as naturally as possible because I'm weird but he used supplements like NO-Explode - a shitty over-marketed BS supplement that doesn't usually work. The whole concept of NO supplements are stupid. I actually just despise most things about bodybuilding that's another reason why I loathe most of the supplements.

Therefore I shun him. LOL jk. DON'T JUDGE PEOPLE FOR WHAT THEY EAT. I think I'm still guilty of this though so in this regard you can call me a hypocrite. Whatever.

LASTLY, he used hydrostatic weighing (HW) to determine his bodyfat. HW uses a two compartment model for estimating body composition, fat mass and fat free mass. This is retarded imo because not everyone's fat free mass (organs, bones, water, muscle..brain..) weighs the same DUH. Muscles themselves contain a lot of water. Those who train for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and do a lot of reps will have watery muscle versus those who train for strength and will have lighter but stronger muscles because of less water mass. Therefore it will seem as if they have less fat-free mass at the same bodyweight. Bodyfat percentage is actually a very stupid thing to measure because it's very difficult to measure fat everywhere in the body. You can't measure the amount of fat in your brain easily, but of course the differences in brain fat content aren't too high compared to visceral or abdominal or subcutaneous but it could make a difference in your health. The saturation of lipids in your cell membranes can make a difference in your metabolism, and potential to lose fat therefore, but cannot be measured with these tests. Fat cells also hold water so it's another reason why HW is flawed. Anyway, he did gain a lot of muscle in a short amount of time and you can too.

Ok this post is too long already. Next post I will go into topics in the book that I liked and disliked, separately and simultaneously. In this one I hoped to have given an overview of Tim's idea, and just a brief outline of the book sort of, and not ramble too much. Anyway,

STRENGTH OUT!

-AS

The China Study - the MAIN reason it fails

2012-01-03T23:58:00.000-05:00

I got interested in Campbell's China Study when I was vegan actually. I was becoming better though at thinking skeptically but with an open mind so I wasn't going to support data to prove my lifestyle right if the data was incorrect. I was so excited to read the book that I decided to look for some videos on it. I found a 90 minute lecture on google videos where Campbell outlined the most important research in the book. In no time at all, I was quite disappointed, annoyed, and did not see the value in purchasing the book any longer. I never did and I never will. I've read Chris Masterjohn's and part of Denise Minger's comprehensive critiques of the data, and now it's clear that some of his findings were flat out wrong. However, neither of the two really hit what I feel is the most important flaw in the China Study, albeit, in any type of nutritional research (unless I did not read it). Well the flaws of nutritional research as a whole could fill up a 500 page book. Let me explain my problem with Campbell's data (and of course, since I resolved to spend less time blogging but blog more at the same time, I won't be posting many references, but if you want the reference, I will find it in a heartbeat for you. I'm very sorry about this but once I start looking for references it turns into a journey that NEVER ends so I HAVE to do it in moderation. It's a challenge and it's impossible during the school year).

First of all, I do realize that doing all the work Campbell did wasn't easy. Science does not just involve thinking in a cave like a philospher. It involves some manual labor, management skills, planning, organization, technology skills, leadership etc. For example you have to feed the rats, or find willing interns to do it for you, gather animals, shop for chemicals and other materials, plan out the design of the study, recruit participants, have some patience... it takes effort. It's easy for me to critique this because I can just sit here and use my brain. But it would be more difficult, but better for mankind, if I set out to perform another study that disproves this study (but not with that intention because that is bad). We can all learn something from his data though and it certainly did educate us about how the body works - just not in the way Campbell intended...basically he did not interpret his data correctly. But if you want to know more about that just read this. This article is about something completely different that I have not heard other people talk about in enough detail yet. It's about holistic versus compartmentalized thinking. Mostly.

I'm not even going to discuss the exact data, dosages, populations etc, that he used. None of it is actually important for your understanding of this concept. This is what's important, and it comes from my few years of research in nutrition (by research I mean reading about nutrition on the internet as a hobby and reading scientific studies and discussing them on forums, blogs, and spending a LOT of mental effort thinking about diet, and time self-experimenting, of course 3 years is not enough to look at the effects of cancer progression and I have not had that measured...):

dun dun dun...
EPIDEMIOLOGY FAILS IN NUTRITIONAL SCIENCE.

Let me explain why epidemiology fails in Campbell's data first:

He started off with a graph in the video. This graph showed that when rats were administered 20% casein in the diet, they all got some sort of cancer. When they got 5% casein, they had no cancer. It was like a "switch" he said (performing hand movements as if he was turning a thermostat). (Note: I'm NOT going to talk about how this data was interpreted incorrectly, please please read the above link to learn about that - trust me it's killing me not to do it..)

He also looked at fat and protein intakes of various populations, and concluded that even a little bit of animal fat in the diet causes cancer to proliferate. He based this off of his own research in China and evidence from dietary intakes in other nations.

Let's take a moment to meditate upon these ideas.

Now let me pose a question:

Say casein IS carcinogenic. Say it has the POTENTIAL to cause cancer:
Does that mean is absolutely HAS to cause cancer?

No, because you could do things that reverse the causation of cancers. Same works for fat. Does eating more fat HAVE to cause cancer (please don't be annoyed by the caps/italics combo, I'm just really feeling it). Is there a way to eat casein protein and fat and animal products WITHOUT developing cancer?

The answer is of course yes. But you might ask, if they cause cancer why eat them in the first place? Well I certainly would NOT if there was any good proof that drinking raw milk from grass-fed pasture-raised cows with all it's CLA, and consuming grass-fed pasture-raised beef, and grass-fed cultured organic butter, was bad for you. That's why that question is irrelevant. Most "high fat diet" studies are performed on rats whose diet is composed of chemicals and glucose powders and isolated fat molecules with no resemblance to the natural diet. Drawing conclusions from that is tricky, but hey people do it all the time. None of these "high-fat" diets used raw milk or CLA..

Epidemiology simply does not work in nutrition because it cannot isolate variables. We can look at fat, protein, and fiber intakes across a population, and no matter how large the sample, there will never be proof that the fat caused the cancer. Just a link. The fact is, all the people eating fat in one set of data are consuming vastly different foods, and have vastly different lifestyles. If this is not true, prove me wrong. The same goes for people smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, eating red meat, etc. How can you conclude the fat caused anything then if there are so many other things going on? Here are some of the things "going on" in my body in a daily basis i.e. things i eat, do etc:

1. Vitamin C, whey proteins, sulfur, casein protein, CLA, b-complex vitamins (all from RAW GRASS-FED MILK)
2. Antioxidants from tea, raw cacao beans
3. Selenium - brazil nuts (about 3-6 a day, not too many)
4. Cinnamon, turmeric, other spices (although I've been lacking in the turmeric of late)
5. Schisandra berries, licorice, ashwagandha, sometimes other herbs
6. Strength and power training, aka. EXERCISE. Alternating exercises to keep HR up, sprinting. No aerobic training whatsoever, but we all know by 2012 how anaerobic training improves the aerobic energy system similarly (except my exercise physiology professor last semester).
7. VITAMIN D
8. MEDITATION - after some practise my stress tolerance is pretty damn high. Everyone seems to get stressed by little things that do not affect me whatsoever (just some observations ;)
9. Happiness from researching things and being passionate about health, food, and things like that, not getting too bored.
10. Laughing at random things.
11. Fast intermittently (only Saturdays now)

So yeah I drink raw milk which has a lot of casein protein. Campbell said casein protein was representative of all animal protein and thus that low-fat plant based diets were best. But raw milk also contains whey proteins which can help in the battle of some cancers (here and here.) As well as lots of other good stuff like the CLA I mentioned already.

Furthermore I think that EXERCISE has the potential to make almost all nutritional research, and probably 100% of all nutritional research focusing on single macronutrients like carbohydrates or fat, irrelevant due to its very powerful effect on the metabolism, its ability to increase immunity, brain function, relieve stress, improve psychological health, improve insulin sensitivity ...

You must ask yourself this question when looking at nutritional research that is NOT PERFORMED ON YOU (of course large sample sizes are supposed to show that the measured variable will affect you no matter what but very large sample sizes will have a lot of confounding variables especially in the field of nutrition):

How does this dietary intervention affect me in the context of everything I'm doing in my life, and everything I'm eating, my exercise schedule, my levels of stress, my sleep patterns...?

Could eating less fat really be the most important thing to your metabolism? It really depends. If you only eat olive oil as your main source of calories for its "healthy fat" then perhaps lessening it could help. But most people in America on a high fat diet are also on a high refined sugar AND high protein diet AND low/wrong types of exercise lifestyle AND high stress lifestyle. They would benefit from adding in healthy foods to replace the refined processed foods.

If you eat a whole foods diet with some nutrient rich plant and animal products, there's no point. Now defining a whole foods diet is hard; sometimes it may mean fruits, vegetables, legumes, and healthy whole grains such as in this study. Or it could refer to an abundance of rich animal fat such as the Weston A. Price Foundation suggests. I hope to see some research like the study I just posted that link to but with grass-fed meats in addition to the probably high carbohydrate "healthy whole grain" diet used in that study. That will come once the fat and cholesterol myth is buried so deep into the ground that no one ever mentions it again.

Okay and one more point:
Nutritional science has alienated our reasons for eating. We never ate for magnesium content, or carbohydrate/fat/protein ratios. We ate food instinctually; we estimated the value of a food based on its taste, energy, post-digestion effects (which include how you feel, stomach pains), bowel movements, abundance, ease of access, and things of that nature and we didn't really think about it too often anyway.

In conclusion, all of this is supposed to be about holistic thinking. It was once thought that Eastern peoples such as the Chinese and Japanese viewed the world more holistically because it was the way they were born, and Westerners tended to be more analytical. Well it may be a sociocultural thing. All I know is, we need to examine the CONTEXT MAN C'MON.

So ask yourself next time you are thinking about some new research finding how it would apply to the summation of everything in your lifestyle.

Then go back and realize how silly some recommendations are. Instead of casein protein, let's study raw milk. Instead of "high fat" let's look at the addition of grass-fed organic omega-3 butter. We may have been looking at things wrong for the past 100 years. Fuck.

-AS

P.S. I am not a cancer expert. There are many types of cancer, some are similar some are not. My argument is a little simplistic for the sake of this article; the simplicity lies in saying that one carcinogenic substance can be "cancelled out" by one other anti-carcinogen. The reality is, that one carcinogen could have a very very specific effect on ONE type of cancer, and the one anti-carcinogen could only work for one type of cancer. So it's very very complicated and I purposely did not want to address Campbell's claims of liver cancer in rats (as if that applies to humans anyway), because it would be stupid to say: "Oh I just drink green tea! It's anti-cancer yay!" Clearly, there is much more to it. The point of this article though once again, is that your lifestyle, and the additive or multiplicative or whatever effects of everything in it on cancer, have not been studied, nor have multiple variables been examined in one study in order to assess the progression of cancers, so we really cannot conclude ANYTHING from his data except that aflatoxin is lethal.

Things I ate today - pre-workout energy boost

2012-01-01T18:45:00.001-05:00

Most people find the way I eat to be interesting. I attribute this to my orthorexic lifestyle in the past, which refined my eating habits. Basically, I eat to live, rather than live to eat now. I don't eat completely bland food, but I have filed down my preferences and restrictions. I probably don't experience as much joy eating as someone who eats for taste, but I certainly do not experience as many disappointments. I've never been a picky person really so maybe it's in my genetics. Anyway the kind of stuff I ate today wasn't that weird. I eat homemade breads, with raw honey and some almond butter with a lot of raw milk. I need to reduce the breads and milk though and start eating more beef multiple times a day. But these are some of the special things I prepared specifically for an energy boost. Obviously better than coffee.

Cacao bean tea

This is a beautifully colored hot water extraction of cacao beans. I don't know what chemicals are in the aqueous portion versus the solid remains, but something in there does have some nootropic effect, i.e. boosts your brain. It's very easy to make:

1. Take some cacao beans (you'll have to order them online for something of good quality, it's worth it trust me) in your hand and then crush them into their constituent nibs. I just use my bicuspids to crack it once, then I crumble it up with my fingers before dropping them in the glass or mug.

2. Add hot water, cover.

I think it could be even better if it was ground completely, I've tried it once in a coffee maker but didn't feel anything. I think it's best to brew it, covered, then strain it out. But you can certainly eat the remains of the beans as well. I don't know much about its toxicity, but I don't think there is anything to worry about. It could be brown instead of purple if it's a different strain of cacao. It tastes mild but good.

Pre-workout energy boost:

I felt this IMMEDIATELY. It was the kelp I know it because it makes me feel a particular way in my brain.

Ingredients:

1. Some kelp flakes - you can get this at Whole Foods for like 4 bucks. I'd use the serving size, or more if you're deficient.

2. Some MSM powder -dose doesn't matter much, I estimated it to be around 1tsp.

3. Saurkraut: from Dan Allgyer's farm.

4. Some raw honey

5. A small amount of raw milk.

The honey and the milk I believe will aid absorption of all the minerals in there. Milk could block absorption of somethings, but it needs to be in a high amount. I don't know for sure. Alternately, the amazing fats in there could aid absorption of some of the minerals in the kelp.

Try it and let me know how it works

-AS

Metabolism dulse tea - thyroid health, iodine

2011-12-30T16:13:00.001-05:00

Out of curiosity, I made dulse tea yesterday. Actually, out of... laziness. Well dulse isn't that easy to chew. It's chewable but I think it's better steamed. It takes very little effort to soften it up. All you do is make some tea, and add in the dulse to the warm water 5 minutes after it has been added to your teacup. In fact you can even just dip it in the water then eat it right away instead of letting it brew in the tea. Experiment.

I felt it immediately, within seconds. That's why I'm writing about it, but also it's good for you. And that's what I want to talk about.

Fluoride is bad for you

So there is fluoride in our drinking water. Drinking tap water occasionally isn't going to kill you, but if it's all you ever drink, it may accumulate in your brain and prevent your unknowing self from experiencing optimal vitality. Just remember my goal here: my goal is to be productive, happy, energetic, and high, all the frikkin time. If it were possible for me to have uncontrollable energy everyday, that'd be awesome but it's not how it's meant to be so things must happen in cycles. Nevertheless, most people are tired all the time and it becomes WEIRD to be healthy and happy and have lots of energy. CHronic fatigue syndrome? What is this nonsense. I understand that yes we are doing much more than ever before but could nutrient deficiencies as simple as say an iodine deficiency turn around chronic fatigue? Maybe.

This website provides some links to studies done demonstrating fluoride's ill effects, which include lowered IQ, lowered metabolism, less melatonin production, neurological problems, early puberty. It was found that fluoride accumulates primarily in the pineal gland too, and that's what leads to less melatonin production. That would also mean less growth hormone production during sleep if you don't have as much melatonin. (looking at bright lights before bed also reduces melatonin.. that's another story).

Now imagine having a lot of fluoride in your brain, but not much iodine due to lack of metabolism tea and dulse and other seaweeds?
BAD. Rats exposed to high fluoride and low iodine clearly show unfavorable brain protein changes that screw up metabolism. Neat paper.

So what can you do about it? Well that's the whole point of eating seaweeds and such. Iodine REVERSES fluoride accumulation, but it depends on the dose. Rats given the highest dose of iodine showed a synergistic toxicity with the fluoridated water as compared to the rats in the lowest iodine group which had antagonistic effects.

Other benefits

Not only does iodine reverse fluoride toxicity, it improves your thyroid health if you don't have normal thyroid function already. Hypothyroidism is a growing concern but it may be as simple as iodine deficiency. Simple things are nice. It can help you lose weight if you have an underactive thyroid. Here is a well written article that I approve of on other benefits of iodine.

Dulse in particular has a lot of nutrition and bioavailability as well which makes it a great choice. So mix it with some warm food to soften or in warm water!

The power of your voice: just do it

2011-12-28T23:58:00.000-05:00

Whaddup! Wow it was a busy-ass semester. I was working as a personal trainer, and still am, while maintaining a high workload, training for speed/power/explosiveness multiple times per week, and leading one student group, while not having enough time to do so. Now it's winter break and I have plenty of new ideas and am trying to become more alive each day with things that all keep the body 'high' chronically.

I'm serious though, I will be blogging and attempting to throughout next semester by:
1. Not getting so technical: in the past I needed to do a full research paper on every topic I wrote about. This failed because a) most people don't want to read stuff like that b)it's impossible for me to research topics for hours a day for an entire week in order to write one blog post on it.
2. Posting tidbits of information that share the main point, analyzing it as necessary or not at all. In fact I hope to keep each post extremely short.
3. Continuing with self-experimentation and sharing this with readers.

On to today's story:

Before I begin, I must communicate to you that this experience today truly did generate a 'high.' This past evening, it was a high of accomplishment; the reward earned after work has been done. One of the most fundamental, and classic experiences in life.

I had a flight from Logan International Airport to Baltimore Washington International (BWI) airport today at 5:40PM. Boarding time was 5:10PM. I decided to go to the gym at around 2-2:15PM, then say goodbye to a friend before I left. I got to the airport at 4:35PM, since I had to take a bus to get there from a half-way point, which involved waiting an additional 15-20 minutes for it.

I needed to check in one bag, full of dress-shirts and hangers, nothing too important. Once I got in... woah..the lines were insane - long-and windy, like Lombard street but denser and worser. I thought to myself, ok, this will take 15-20 minutes, so I can still board on time. I did not really know how windy the lines were though, so it was much longer and worse than predicted. I also had to pee really badly. I figured that I'd drain the rest of my water from my Kleen Kanteen before I took the bus since I wouldn't be permitted to take that through security anyway.. shoulda done that later.

By 5:00PM I was like, okay, only 7 minutes left. Then I realized there was an EXTRA BEND in this line that I wasn't aware of before. I couldn't see it because everyone blocked the view of the line so it just looked like a mass of people instead of a smoothly winding snake.

By 5:18, I was like ... SHIT. I HAVE A CHOICE. I CAN EITHER THINK POSITIVELY AND PRAY, AND HOPE THAT MY THOUGHTS CAN CHANGE MY REALITY, OR JUST ASK PEOPLE IF I CAN GET IN FRONT OF THEM. By this point I was pretty close to the front, but that extra bend screwed things up. Thinking positively sorta worked, but I needed to take action.

And this is what the story is about. See, it's difficult for some people like myself to ask others for help, or for things in general. Try a job in any sales industry, it takes practise. I did not WANT to of course ask people if I could get in front of them. But I knew I had too. At this point in my life though, I had had plenty of experience forcing myself to grow balls and just do it: such as talking to random attractive young women at bus-stops on buses, on the street, waiting for things, anywhere, and getting their numbers if I desired.

So it was time to do some work:
"Excuse me sir, what time is your flight?"
"7 o'clock."
"My flight is at 5:40 in fact it is boarding now would you mind if I got in front of you?"
(I actually played a bit desperate for whatever reason, sometimes I come off more confident but I felt like acting tamer and lamer and humbler but in many cases it is better).

That's all it took and like a domino, I literally went past 8 people and halved my distance to the finish in 30 seconds (not including the security lines though, which did not matter fortunately). Some of them heard me and I didn't even have to ask them they just signaled with their hand "sure come on through." I stopped when someone in front of me said they had a flight at 6PM, I decided to stop there. But THEN, on the intercom:

"This is the final boarding call for flight 1327..."

Shit.
"Okay excuse me that's my flight can I get ahead of you" (with some intense urgency)

And bam another domino effect until this old man in the front of the line just looked at me then looked away and did not let me get ahead.

Nevertheless, that got me to the very front of the line, past nearly 20 people, when I needed it most. And that's the rub really. You need some serious motivation in order to just do it.

Or do you?

No, you don't. You just need to do it. In this example yes it was urgent and I had a legitimate reason for getting in front of people but no. I think most people's lives could be improved with more confidence. Confidence that gives you safety in knowing that you won't harm people if you just go ahead of them once in a while, or ask for things, or give things. Lack of confidence is linked with insecurity imo and can be changed in order to improve your life in every single way imaginable. But I think also that there are some personality types (although I question if personality needs to exist at all), that balance this confident all the time personality type.

Anyway, I cut through security quickly as the lines were not long and a flight attendant helped me skip past a few more people, and I made the flight on time, and took a huge piss right after I got on it. Furthermore the young woman I sat next to was really really nice. I started reading a book, then the lights turned off as we got ready to take off. I kept reading it even though I barely could and she bemusedly chuckled and encouraged me to use the light. I consented and she hit the switch for me and it really helped me read. She even said she'd turn the switch off if I wanted it back off but I told her I figured out how to use it.

Moral of the story: DO IT. JUST DO IT. SERIOUSLY.

-AS

Saying Hello (can make you high)

2011-11-05T22:24:00.000-04:00

I created a while ago 'The Hello Movement.' It's a fun facebook group I created on a whim, but I did a lot of thinking about it beforehand. I am copying and posting the lengthy description I wrote for the group, and I want to post it here because I feel like not many people read over that description since that's not supposed to be a long article... it's very very important. Yes I'm serious, and you very well know how social interactions can make on high. A nice pat on the back, a football game, or a wave from a cute chick, can make one high. This is why I created The Hello Movement, and this my letter to you:

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have a serious concern regarding the current state of this nation, if not the entire planet. We walk past people everyday, sometimes just a handful, sometimes a dozen, sometimes hundreds. Do we say anything? Certainly, there is no obligation. Especially if one lives in a crowded city and passes hundreds of people a day, more than the eye can capture in a stride. I am more concerned with the one person we pass by at a time less crowded; in the lazy afternoon, or at the break of dawn when early risers head to work. Still, there is no obligation, per se. We don't need to acknowledge anybody.

But then why do the majority of people have to look at you?

When you see a fellow human being approaching you on the sidewalk, what do you want to do? You want to look. Prove me wrong, please. I strongly wish I had some scientific evidence to back up this claim, but for now, this claim comes from my own life's experience. We want to . . . look; sometimes we are checking out this person, comparing him/her to ourselves. Other times we are lustfully eyeing. Other times, well, there is no simpler way I can verbalize this, but we just have to look (in italics).

But we do not always follow up on this desire. I certainly suppress this intrinsic burning desire to just LOOK these days, but for what reason? Many of us who have suppressed this desire are more rational folk, we say to ourselves, what's the point? "I do not know this person why do I just want to look at everybody?" Nevertheless, I hope we can agree that there is indeed a desire to look at other people we pass by on the street, for what reason, I do not have the faintest clue.

What concerns me then is the lack of spirit in people today. When I look at my peers at my University's campus today, very few people acknowledge the fact that we just looked at each other. I swear most of the time it seems as if they looked at me first. So I look back, and they look away before I have enough time to give the 'watsup' head nod. In this case, the nodding of my head, saying hello, and acknowledging the glance are equivalent. Sometimes people have an angry or busy look to their face, even though they are doing nothing but walking (although more and more people text and walk so there is no opportunity to say hello anyway).

Just today I went for my morning lap around my apartment complex barefooted, and I acknowledged (made eye contact in the hopes of saying hello) this one man smoking on his balcony on the ground floor. We made eye contact for .25 seconds, he nodded his head while looking away, and continued to do absolutely nothing but smoke a cigarette early in the morning. He was also frowning at the same time . . . haha I've caught myself in the same act, and I have no idea why.

CAN'T WE JUST SAY HELLO, WITHOUT FROWNING, AND WITHOUT LOOKING AWAY AT THE SAME TIME AS IF WE'RE SPEAKING TO AN INVISIBLE ENTITY OR ARE EXTREMELY BUSY WITH OUR INNOVATIVE THOUGHTS?

In contrast, I was picking mulberries one day on this trail, and this european woman speaking loudly in a foreign language on her cell phone, beamed at me and waved with her entire arm as she passed. I beamed back and felt truly amazing. I'm not asking everyone to start waving at people using all the muscles in their arms, but it's certainly a new flavor.

What I'm merely pushing is acknowledging our fellow human citizens, looking at people in the eye and respecting them as human beings. The lackluster non-existent spirit in people's eyes today shows me that love is truly escaping the world.

When I look at elderly people, they always say hello. Not only that, it's as if they are ready to say hello, to everyone even before I look at them. For me, it's still an acquired taste. Most of my life I thought looking at people was stupid, in fact my life has been governed by what my irrational quick to anger ming thought was 'stupid.' Now I've changed, simply acknowledging other people and giving them the 'wastup' head nod. I still don't know why exactly this will help, but it's going to add positivity to his planet.

Let me take a step back to put this into perspective. With everything in life, every risk, every decision, every action, there is an investment of energy. We invest energy hoping for a particular return. We don't invest energy if we expect no return. When we invest energy, in looking at somebody in the eye for .50 extra seconds, enough to nod the head or say hello, we will receive a good reward. This reward is ethereal, and it makes you feel good. I wish we could somehow pick up with our hands or our devices the overall positivity to negativity ratio in the air around us. My suspicion is that it would not be very good. See, there is not way to quantify this. I cannot give you numbers, which have immense persuasive power. All I can tell you, is that you will be happy. I know that whenever I have taken an extra 0.50 seconds to say HELLO, I have made at least two people feel good. I mean it couldn't be bad . . .

Are we afraid to say hello? Yes, I certainly was, and still am sometimes. I have a few reasons as to why, but that's beyond the scope of this already lengthy description. Please, consider nodding your head, or saying hello to people more often, unless you are already doing so. Men, this is a call to you especially, since you are more aggressive at times, and perhaps lacking in the love necessary to say hello. If you want to frown and say hello, that's a good start honestly.

Furthermore, the problems facing this planet are at an all-time high. We have conspiracy theories for each problem, such as the climate crisis and CO2 pollution, the AIDS epidemic, the recent earthquake in Japan, the healthcare system, the illuminati and politics, the pharmaceutical industry, cancer cures, etc. Perhaps if saying hello to random people you walk past becomes second nature to all of us, and if that hello carries with it an air of dignity, confidence, love and compassion, we can dissolve the world's problems with a little more love, and a little less war.

I'm creating this movement to keep myself motivated, because I am guilty of being the unfriendly type of person who walks and does not acknowledge anybody and sometimes frowns to say hello, pretending I am in deep thought, which I am sometimes. In my efforts to improve myself, I've felt great joys in saying hello, to bus drivers, to people I think are wearing cool clothing, to attractive women especially who have incredible hellos sometimes, to old people with their friendly innocent harmless nature, and spending an extra 0.50 seconds in their gaze... let's bring some love back into this world,

Hello,
Avishek Saha

P.S. if you made it this far and understand the movement, add yourself to it (even friend me on facebook) There's a lot of reason to do this and I need everyone with me. Also I'm way better at saying hello now, and people say hello to me more often as well and I enjoy it.

How to interpret information and become an effective debater part 1: skepticism vs. disbelief

2011-10-16T11:46:00.005-04:00

The title of this series of posts is way too long, but there's nothing I'm gonna do about it so DEAL WITH IT. I'm basically just talking to myself, right now and in this post. But anyway this series (I hope, if I have time to organize my thoughts coherently enough), has been inspired by my encounters with people, in debates, in a classroom setting, with professors, from reading blogs, hanging out with friends, and basically from living life.

Firstly I need to define a few things. This post is about becoming an effective debater, and NOT about how to win a debate. If I am in a debate, defined as any argument or conversation where two parties differ in opinions or beliefs or sets of knowledge, my goal is NOT to win the debate. No that is STUPID. My goal is to understand the topic at hand, interpret all the information correctly, and arrive gallantly at the truth. If you 'won' the debate but you're wrong in the end, you're a MORON. Ok calm down buddy.

I've thought a LOT about how to think, especially in the last year and a half. And I've noticed that very few people take time to do this, as evidenced by their failure to interpret information and engage in debate. I can detect right away if you are practising information interpretation and debating, according to my beliefs on thinking. Here are two simple indicators that you are not a great thinker, or you are not being mindful or aware and practising the art of debating and interpreting data:

1. You form an opinion right away.
2. You become defensive of your ideas.

This is what I can think of off the top of my head as the two most glaring and more common things that happen in a debate (remember how I am defining debate in this post). Another good one is emotion, which tends to get in the way, and is linked to both of the points above. Also the debater tends to outtalk the other because he or she thinks he is actually correct on the issue.

As with everything, we need to find the root cause of these two issues. I cannot say my reasons are comprehensive enough, but I believe skepticism to be at fault for number one, and a milieu of things for number two. We'll focus just on the first one since this post is about skepticism.

So what is skepticism, should I look it up in the dictionary? I guess:

skep·ti·cal [skep-ti-kuhl] Show IPA
adjective
1.
inclined to skepticism; having doubt: a skeptical young woman.
2.
showing doubt: a skeptical smile.
3.
denying or questioning the tenets of a religion: a skeptical approach to the nature of miracles.
4.
( initial capital letter ) of or pertaining to Skeptics or Skepticism.

(from dictionary.com)

Alright, yes skeptics show doubt. Well why DO they show doubt? And here is the crux of everything right here and right now: a skeptic who shows doubt due to beliefs in their head or prior knowledge is NOT an effective debater. A skeptic who is open to new suggestions however, is different. Man language sucks and is so complicated why can't I just post a picture of my thoughts..I'll stick to the definition in the dictionary, because you can have doubt and be open minded... So basically a skeptic usually shows doubt based on the eduction they've given themselves, and the knowledge they think they have, as opposed to forming doubt because there has not been sufficient evidence....so forming doubt because the new paradigm doesn't fit the old one is the bad way.........get it?

For example, I might say something like "herbal medicine ftw!! F*** YEAHH . . . VAMOS!"

And someone from the CSPI might be like: "Herbs are toxic and the FDA does not regulate them. So many herbal medicines have been found to contain toxins such as lead arsenic and mercury. They're also a waste of your money."

Compare that to someone else who says: "why, young lad, do you like herbal medicine?"

Vastly different types of skeptics. The former individual forms an opinion right away and is defending their thoughts. The latter individual simple asks WHY, withholding his or her beliefs.

ASK WHY. ASK WHY.

JUST.

ASK.

WHY.

FUCKKKKK.

And that is the CURE to closed-mindedness. I cannot put it into words. But by asking why, you are putting your opinions that you are so eager to shout out and defend to the side. This is a challenging task that most people do not undertake. Some people do it naturally, but most should work on this.

Lastly, what I like to do is neither believe new information, or disbelieve it. I am not casting my doubt like a fishing pole jesus ch***, who the hell came up with casting doubt. Probably some poet.

I am silent in mind, without thought, absorbing the information and adding it to my repertoire of data in my head, because yes, it's not knowledge, it's DATA.

The concept of knowledge would fill up another 100 pages, but categorizing information as knowledge is generally too quick for everybody, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN NUTRITION, HEALTH, THE BRAIN, FITNESS, LONGEVITY, MEDICAL SCIENCE. It's not knowledge, the stuff in your head, it's DATA. This approach is good because it is done in the efforts of once again, arriving GALLANTLY at the truth, rather than rushing there. Trust me I want to rush there too, but I can't because I'm not entirely sure it's true yet.

A few other things, some people don't require much to believe in truth. For example there was a recent development where this professor ate twinkies for a few weeks and lost weight. He did this to attempt to show that when you eat fewer calories than you burn, you lose weight. Some people thought this to be inconclusive proof that calories in minus calories out was IT. But it's not, since that caloric restriction strategy stops working for most people all too soon. And since, I already posted on this before but in logic there are contrapositives, inverses, and converses of a statement. The contrapositive must be true for any given statement. Inverses and converses must be true. The contrapositive is if you don't lose weight, you didn't restrict your calories. This has been DEBUNKED. There are people out there eating 5000 calories of fruits and vegetables and losing weight, check out the raw food diet. Eating a heavy starch based diet can do the same things. The Japanese eat way more calories than we do (about 2700 last time I checked), and are slimmer than we are. The reason is that lower protein in the diet activates the same molecular signals as caloric restriction without actually restricting calories. Maybe that's why low protein diets can work for curing some cancers and a host of other diseases created in this country with excess protein and excess everything in general. That was a very hasty discussion since it's off-topic, but it's an example of arriving too soon at knowledge.

I mean go back in time 500 years ago, at that time things were true that aren't true today. How about 1600 years ago in China. Some people believed that emotions were the root cause of all disease. Today we mostly ignore that notion and separate diseases into those of psychology and those of physiology despite there being plenty of research demonstrating how psychology affects physiology.

IN CONCLUSION
The reality is that you can have all your preconceived notions of a certain topic in a debate, and if you do have enough evidence to back up your ideas, and have more expertise (w/e that is), you can really DESTROY someone in a debate by asking WHY. This is because when you ask why, you seem innocent, as if you do not really know, but you slowly ask more and more questions, backing them up with your research, so that in the end, you make a fool out of the other debater. This strategy has the ability to make someone cry and wipe them out of the gene pool. I am in the process of forming a secret society, kind of like the illuminati, to practise these tactics to destroy people in debates on nutrition. You really do have to have done a lot of research though. I am not providing any more examples because I'll have to go in depth and I have too much homework to do, but just absorb this information, ask why, and take it with you on the road.

-AKS

P.S. I've been drinking Shizandra tea a lot and I'm definitely feeling it. It's amazing!

P.P.S. I'm not actually trying to KILL people in debates and make them cry unless I'm feeling really aggressive and they are defending their ideas and need to be humbled. Like I said, if you're trying to WIN a debate, you will probably commit the sophomoric errors that I outlined, such as outtalking an opponent, defending yourself, forming opinions right away, and most importantly you won't be asking why; once again, asking why is the cure to all these problems.

Final Update on the Raw Food Week

2011-10-07T20:06:00.003-04:00

This post is long overdue, but finding time to blog is very difficult with a full course load and a job. But nights like these are nice, I have some free time to meditate, listen to Armin van Buuren whom I will go see this November in DC, and of course write, since I love writing and talking to myself and just constructing imaginary conversations in my head on topics I like or with women I like but haven't talked to yet.

So, here are my thoughts on the RAW FOOD VEGAN DIET.

1. You pee a ****load. Raw foodies will tell you, oh that's a good thing you're waking up at night two times to pee, it means you're hydrated! Yippie. While other people will say it's a stress to the kidneys. Let's simplify this here and bring in the concept of balance. Once in a while, or in unbalanced situations like cancer or diabesity, an unbalanced approach will shift things back into balance. That's what Dr. Atkins said about his diet. People who were obese got there from living an unbalanced lifestyle. His unbalanced diet would help return the host to homeostasis. Makes sense. The Hippocrates Health Institute is one clinic that uses a vegan diet to cure cancer and other degenerative diseases. A low protein diet may be beneficial in that case.

In other cases excess fruit can cause one to gain weight. That was the best link I found but there was a recent study that found that overweight people gained more weight on a high fruit diet, but lean people (without insulin abnormalities), did not.

2. It feels weird...
Ok, the first day of the week, I only ate fruit and vegetables, practically no fat, and I felt no different. But by the third day, I was craving the fats, and I turned to coconut butter, almonds, and almond butter. My body NEEDS something other than what's found in fruit and vegetables, that's for certain.

That's all I need to say really. The cool thing is that I felt AMAZING, the week after the raw food diet. However, the main reason for this I believe was the lack of any strenuous physical activity in a while, especially the sprinting which I took a mini break from. So my body was dying to get that energy out so I just had a lot of energy in general and literally ran to class and everywhere in general. Maybe I did become more alkaline and so had more energy, or maybe it's a combination of not sprinting and being alkaline. During the week, I felt best on the 6th day, when I ate 6 avocados. No, not mini avocados, like medium to large sized ones. That felt amazing. I'd like to try Dr. Young's approach one day; he has his athletes eat 12-18 avocados a day.

I don't know what else to say really. Fasting right now is a huge plus for me, I fast during most days mostly because of convenience now, and my body feels great. My workouts are great. I just need to sleep a little more and get back into the rhythm and I'll be all set.

So all in all, if you are crazy like me and want to eat fruits and veggies for a week, DO IT. But in reality, if you're already on a real food diet, you don't have much more to worry about. Some people are milling over grains (loll, I mean it's a serious issue for some people but I don't have too many issues with wheat), and others are arguing over healthy fats while some people have no fat to eat. If you're on a junk food omega-6 diet, your brain chemistry will change significantly. But if you have a strong mindset, meditate, and believe in mind over matter, then throw your diet journal out the window. Then pick it up and compost it. I'm glad I'm eating cultured raw grass-fed butter and honey sandwiches though now. I just ate 5 of those. Damn life's good. (Eating copious amounts of butter with copious amounts of raw honey with bread is actually not fattening at all for a lean person like me with a high level of physical activity. In fact if I used peanut butter or other nut butters it definitely would be).

-AKS

Day 5 of Raw Vegan Diet

2011-09-10T21:55:00.004-04:00

It's so interesting to see the differences in the way people respond to the same approach. My friend Candace on the diet is sick right now with a fever, low appetite, and looks quite pale and deathly and lost quite a bit of weight. I do not think she ate enough calories, and one of the main tenets of this diet is getting more and more of your calories from fruit. The other kid, Corwin is also doing fine, but is having trouble with the ascetic aspect of this diet, eating blander foods since he is used to eating tastier delicious food. I know since I'm living with his family and they are connoisseurs in taste combinations, but this comes at a price, greater intolerance for things that don't taste good basically. I am doing absolutely fine though, I feel no different really (probably the mental attitude that I think is more important than diet). Let's talk about a few parameters of health and how I feel so far this week:

Energy levels:
Don't notice much difference, except for the fasting. I do not feel tired while fasting and skipping breakfast in the morning, as if my body can handle it better somehow. Recently from fasting I have been feeling a little sleepy, not physically tired, but a bit sleepy as if I'm overstressed.

Cravings:
I just don't feel balanced; I would gladly drink some raw milk, eat a steak, or add 1/2 a pound of nut butter to my fruit. But I am not eating much nut butter. We bought a small jar of almond butter and I had maybe 4tbsp, which is very little fat compared to what I am used to.

What I would like to try is a high fat raw vegan approach with my fats coming only from coconut, cacao, and especially avocadoes. The coconut butter I have eaten a good amount of but I don't count it as a nut butter because the fat content is so much different and it digests so much more quickly than nuts do.

The first day of this diet I was able to eat very low fat with no problem. In fact I may try eating incredibly low fat just once a week, high fruit. Perhaps low fat vegan or raw vegan. But now I am sitting here munching on way too many schisandra berries. I am satiated but again I feel unbalanced, and indeed my opinion of this diet and vegan diets in general is that they are unbalanced. What is my evidence for this? My cravings and instincts. I WANT FAT. EVEN FATTER WOMEN. I really like women with slightly bigger legs, not huge, but bigger than the standard promoted image in most magazines. I kind of almost like seeing those fat rolls in the legs. I also like it when women eat fat it tells me their hormones are craving something that will increase their reproductive capacity.

Anyway vegans who don't have this craving may just be genetically suited to low-fat. On the second day I ate more fat in one meal and I felt SO MUCH more energetic all of a sudden. Usually this type of testosterone energy makes me want to throw something as far as possible, at a thick tree so it breaks, yell swear words, yell mating calls amongst other things, and I like it. Stuffing myself with fruit doesn't feel good or give me energy. It's funny though, the people on 30 Bananas a Day believe that when you stuff yourself with fruit, you feel better. I tried this the first day and most of this week and it definitely pales in comparison to stuffing yourself with raw cheese and meat with barbeque sauce. When I'm fat deficient, 4oz of raw cheese basically makes me high. I have a short story about this (check the right hand side column for cheese). I think saturated fat is a huge mood enhancer, but I have no data on this right now. Just try eating lots of saturated fat and see if you feel good. This would mean cheese and butter and raw milk with some meat.

But to give carbs credit, if I decide not to eat many carbs for like I don't know even 14 hours, I feel AMAZING upon carb reintroduction.

Libido:
Also about the same. I practise seminal retention (and british english), for vitality, virility, and athletic performance enhancement, so it's usually high since I don't get rid of it through wasteful ejaculation. So basically no differences. I am not taking any crazy supplements or anything so I don't expect much really. Of course without lab testing I cannot be certain what's going on in my body.

PEEING:

I HAVE TO PEE ALL THE TIME. I WAKE UP 2 -3 TIMES A NIGHT TO PEE. Yeah so obviously this is not in accord with what I want and is another reason why this should only be done short term imo. I really wonder what's going on in my body and if I am actually "detoxifying."

Body composition:

Well this is me after eating 1 huge cantaloupe and just four bananas less than 3/4 one tablespoon coconut butter some raw chocolate spread that I normally wouldn't eat if it wasn't there and it didn't taste good with the bananas anyway, and some chia seeds. Got some carb bloat and this sometimes makes me look leaner.

Yeah I basically look the same. I haven't lost muscle mass though I don't think! I certainly have not gained anything though. I don't perform much bodybuilding type exercises. I did do the bench one day this week but with a lightweight (95 lbs), and lifted it explosively throwing it in the air. The next day I felt no increase in mass, when usually I would expect to feel more mass there the next day.

I'll get another pic Monday morning because that's basically the end of the seven days. Right now in terms of body composition all I want is larger pecs and deltoids. But not that large, hehe. But as you know my main goal is explosive strength as measured by vertical jump and sprint tests. The last post on this diet will sum up most of my opinions on it. So I'll see you in one or two days I don't know yet.

Oh yeah and here is my housemate for just a few more days and another friend and me a couple days ago:

Ciao,

Avishek

Going on a Raw Vegan diet for 1 week

2011-09-04T19:48:00.000-04:00

So ME and a couple of my friends are going to be eating raw live foods, and vegan food for one week. I personally want to limit my fat intake, and go low fat raw vegan (LFRV), but I may snack on soaked nuts only at work. I'm doing this spontaneously for fun really, but I have a feeling it's going to be helpful to my body. Unlike other bloggers who need to explain why they do everything, I have no explanation for this.

Some other paleo bloggers for instance need rigorous scientific evidence to back up their philosophy. If they didn't have this evidence, then their self-worth would be diminished (or so they think). They feel comfortable being on their diet knowing, or at least think they are knowing the reasons for being paleo.

All of us like comfort. Getting OUT of our comfort zone is harder, teaches us more things, results in greater pleasure, and is probably associated with longevity. So right now we have to get out of our comfort zones and try new things instead of sitting on the same seat on the bus everyday.

The only rational reason I have for this diet is that it may be helpful to cycle proteins in the diet. Once again I have no evidence for this but check out protein cycling. Regardless, we need to fix the mind first and foremost, and always.

Here is a before photo

And one more:

Things I'm considering right now and letting go of:

1. Muscle mass. I am going into the diet with a irrational belief that I will maintain all of my muscle mass. But I think I will probably lose some but I won't be taking any spirulina or vegan protein supplements.

2. Strength Gains:

I am definitely going to gain strength eating kale and watermelon with dates. Strength comes neurally, and from the elastic properties of tendons and muscles.

3. Detoxification:

I hope my BO smells good. Eating eggs and milk makes my BO not smell to dandy. Parsley, kale and bananas should do the trick.

So my diet will just be a huge smoothie in the morning consisting of melon, bananas, dates, and KALE.

Nothing fancy is going on here. No superfoods, no expensive supplements. In terms of herbs and teas, just schisandra berries, and green tea. The bulk of my calories will come from FRUIT. That is the key here.

I will be sprinting and keeping a high level of physical activity, and will post some of my workouts and recipes on this diet. Stay tuned and smell good,

-Avishek

Do you do this in the gym?

2011-08-15T23:03:00.006-04:00

I have not written an in depth post on anything the past month since I've been busy as a personal trainer finally. The next post I said would be on how to protect yourself from the sun with diet, I had a briefer to that but did not yet follow-up. That will be done sometime in the future. For now though let me just ask you if you are doing this in the gym.

1. Are you on level 3 or below on the elliptical?
1b. Do you bounce up and down on the elliptical or other similar cardio machines?
2. Do you spend over 1 hour in the gym?
3. Do you change your music on your Ipod or mp3 player IN THE MIDDLE OF A SET?
4. Does your exercise program contain things that it didn't contain when you once WERE in shape long time ago like at the age of 18?
5. Are you lifting really really light weights in the belief they will tone your muscles?
6. Furthermore, do you try to lift weights to reduce fat in particular areas? (i.e. performing crunches believing they will help you burn abdominal fat).
7. Do you work out your back at all?

I'll briefly elaborate on each question before I head to bed.

1. Most people on the elliptical machines are chillin on level one, two, or three. When it's on such a low level, it's easy to bounce up and down or side to side. If you are bouncing, THEN THE MACHINE IS MOVING YOU AND YOU ARE NOT MOVING THE MACHINE. THEREFORE YOU DO NO WORK. And by work I mean

"In physics, work is the amount of energy transferred by a force acting through a distance in the direction of the force" (wikipedia link)

If you're bouncing, you're not doing work since you're not applying force into the footpads because if you were you would not be moving as you would displace the footpads a certain distance with that force you applied. So if you're bouncing, the machine is applying force into you and you are not applying force to oppose that force. Something like that.

Almost every cardio machine, but not the bikes, allow this to happen since they are on automatic and have the potential to move you. On a treadmill, the floor moves out from under you and you do not apply as much force into the ground and perform less work (here's a good article on treadmill versus actual running). That's what I would think although I may be incorrect. It's probably right though.

To make the elliptical more challenging, try to keep your eyes focused on a point, and reduce all hip movement. Only move your arms and legs and you'll see what I'm talking about. Then turn it up to level 18 and you'll lose more weight and even feel better, until you burn out so then go to level 15-17.

2. So a lot of people spend way too much time on the cardio on level 2 and then proceed to weight lifting. Kudos to them, they realized they should lift some weights. The problem is the lift very light weights, and this just takes more time and doesn't provide as good results. AMP YOURSELF UP AND LIFT HEAVY AND LIFT FAST. THEN CHILL OUT AND LIFT SLOW FOR A BURN. DON'T JUST LIFT SLOW AND LIGHT. You'll go home sooner anyway.

3. IF YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR MUSIC WHILE DOING A LEG PRESS, YOU NEED TO QUINTUPLE THE WEIGHT YOU'RE USING BECAUSE IT'S WAY TOO EASYYY.

4. Many many people get fat after a period of work and stress and I suppose living in the "real world." They were fit in college, but then got fat and worked all the time. So they come back to the gym but they decide to do a bunch of treadmill and elliptical workouts!

Let me ask you this: DID YOU HANG OUT ON THE TREADMILL FOR 40 MINUTES WHEN YOU WERE IN SHAPE? DID YOU EXERCISE ON THE ELLIPTICAL WHEN YOU WERE IN SHAPE WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER?

If yes, damn you got me. If no, then realize you erred in logic or intuition or reasoning. You're not fat now because you're 20 years or 40 years older (although that will play a small but insignificant role imo). You're fat from not exercising correctly and being too YIN. GET AMPED, AND DO SOME SPRINTS THEN GIMME 56 PUSHUPS. That my fellow readers, is YANG. You need more yang. No eat less exercise more bullSHIT. That works for a very short time. But I encourage you to try it and let me know if you achieve long term results. If you do, email me (asaha@terpmail.umd.edu), and I'd love to know what you did. (Even though eating less and exercising more is yang in nature, you feel energized in the short term because you're running on adrenaline, it becomes too yang and you can ruin yourself).

5. Man oh man. The BIGGEST MYTH EVER IS THAT LIFTING LIGHT WEIGHTS FOR HIGHER REPETITIONS TONES YOUR MUSCLES.

HEAR ME OUT ONCE AND FOR ALL ON THIS ONE. LIFTING LIGHTER WEIGHTS FOR HIGHER REPETITIONS TRAINS THEM FOR ENDURANCE. YOU NEED AN INCREASED LACTATE THRESHOLD FOR ENDURANCE. SO YOUR MUSCLES WILL STORE MORE WATER AND LOOK 'PUFFY' AND FAT. THAT'S NOT TONED. THAT'S PUFFY AND WEAK.

If you want toned dense muscles, lift heavy weights for 1-6 repetitions for a few sets or until you're mildly fatigued, then do a cool-down with a lighter weight for 20 reps to create a hypoxic environment, challenge the lungs, and drive blood and healing nutrition into the region. The heavy weight low rep style results in muscles containing less water but more proteins so that look more striated like a sprinter's muscles. You will also get stronger. Look up "puffy muscle syndrome" and you'll know what I mean.

Now if your goal is purely to build muscle, realize that this message is not for you. Most people in the gym want to look 'toned.' The problem is that the individual creates an image in his or her mind of this 'toned' utopia and so there is no universal definition. Even my definition is not right.. so basically you can disregard this entire section. You should still aim to lift heavier weights for sets of 1-6 as that builds denser muscles that I hope people would include in their definition of toned. Find a balance though. I don't do much high rep training, but I'd recommend a few sets of 12-15 to warm up, a set of ten, eight, six, three, then six, then twenty. Something along those lines. On other days I may use a five sets of five reps protocol, or three sets of three for conditioning the nervous system.

I am not as naive anymore. Not everyone wants to train like me at extremely high intensities. So you SHOULD go slow if that's what you really like and get that slow burn going. I'm more of a fan of short and intense. Just make sure to add in sets of three with quintuple the load you are using now. (I'm exaggerating...not quintuple but a lot more, you'll be surprised at how much weight you can lift).

6. Spot reducing DOES NOT WORK. You can't workout your abs by doing 100 crunches and except to see a six pack anytime soon. You cannot reduce that tricep flab women by doing tricep extensions. (Your tricep flab is there because you have more ESTROGEN). WIll not work but if it does email me because I'd like to learn more. THERE ARE ONLY TWO THINGS YOU NEED TO DO TO LOSE WEIGHT:

1. GET YOUR HR UP REALLY REALLY HIGH.
2. BREATHE HARD, SO THAT YOU FEEL IT IN YOUR LUNGS THE NEXT DAY.

(this needs to go hand in hand with not eating the Standard American Diet the SAD diet of fast food, vegetable oils rich in polyunsaturated fats, packaged chips cookies and mixtures of poly fat and sugar, pizza, and things that you don't instinctually even like but have conditioned yourself to just because of the taste and nothing else and DON'T GIVE YOU ANY ENERGY ANYWAY). Don't worry it will be reversed.

You do that and you're good. In terms of overall health we'll add more things into the equation.

7. So yeah people like to work out their front, they like to do bench press, biceps, and crunches. Guess what, sitting is bad for you, and it shortens your hip flexors, which can inactivate your glutes, and cause knee problems, back problems, and puts you in a kyphotic (hunched over) position, perhaps exacerbating most people's tendencies to hunch. IF YOU'RE SITTING DOWN ALL THE TIME, AND YOU ARE DOING CRUNCHES, STOP, INSTEAD DO the opposite for your back.

Fixing posture is important for several reasons. Read more about why bad posture caused by sitting too much is bad for you.

This exercise with a bosu ball or a swiss ball has really been opening up my lower back. It has helped wonders for posture and the bounce of the bosu or swiss ball adds another neat element teaching your nervous system to recruit muscles in a more explosive fashion (I'm guessing), and I hope that means more strength gains and more posture fixing since I feel the benefits after just one workout . . . which means you can fix this stuff rather quickly.

To do it my way which is much more effective than this version, lock your hands or your heels. I will either keep my heels under something, perhaps another machine, or any bar any where, and lift a medicine ball or any weight up with my hands keeping my arms straight (instead of having them behind my head, you could do that as a beginner, don't use the weights yet).

An easier version is you can hold onto something near the floor, you could use the squat rack, the leg raise machines, and make sure your arms are below your head, and just lift your heels up while keeping legs straight. You will feel this in your LOWER BACK and glutes/hamstrings too and maybe your arms. It's amazing where beginners feel certain exercises.

The faster you accelerate your hands or legs downwards, the more weight you will feel like you are lifting; you'll feel more tension in your lower back. It's my favorite exercise right now actually. Start slow though, then add resistance and go faster.

AFTER EACH SET GET UP AND FEEL YOUR POSTURE. YOU SHOULD FEEL A LITTLE MORE UPRIGHT. Also if you have a workout partner, you can have him or her push down on your hands or on your feet depending on which one is locked for an isometric hold. It's challenging man. These variations all helped me out a lot and I feel more upright, even while sitting down. I usually complex it with a leg or knee raise on the bosu ball to balance things out. If a client has a severe anterior chain dominance, we will not do any direct ab work or trunk flexion as that may exacerbate the problem and BE BAD FOR YOU. Regular barbell squats and deadlifts will workout your rectus abdominis more than plenty.

HERBAL MEDICINE FTW,

A.K.S.

How much does exercise and nutrition play in weight loss?

2011-07-20T23:19:00.003-04:00

This post isn't research oriented, but rather a quick write up after hearing from a client the following myth: "I heard that nutrition plays 70% and exercise 30% in weight loss."

I told her, this is not true at all; there are instances where exercise plays 100%, nutrition 0% and nutrition 100% and exercise 0%.

Examples:

Nutrition 0% Exercise 100%: The P.A.C.E study.

Dr. Al Sears prescribed different exercise programs for a pair of twins in order to compare results. He instructed them not to make any changes to their diet.

With one twin, he prescribed slow cardio, running at a longer pace. For the other he prescribed short sprints on a track, as fast as possible, 8 times repeated.

The twin performing the sprints lost like 3 times as much fat, and went down to 10% body fat (very low for a female), and the other dropped just 5 percetage points down to 19% and they both started at similar percentages. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So diet played no role. Brilliant results, brilliant findings.

Nutrition 100% exercise 0%:

Low protein/vegan/raw food vegan or low carbohydrate diets: These have helped people lose a lot of weight, especially in those who had 100+ pounds to lose anyway. Low protein diets work effectively by activating AMPk (k for kinase) which sheds fat. Low protein diets work in many cancer patients (Gerson Therapy, Hippocrates Health Institute). For healthy people there is a fine balance and just because somebody lost 160 lbs on a raw food diet (Angela Stokes) does not mean it's the healthiest. Just because something worked in a diseased patient does not mean it's good for a healthy individual.

Gary Taubes, author of the revolutionary "Good Calories, Bad Calories" said that exercise wasn't really necessary for fat loss at all. Lowering insulin was his main thing. He recommends and follows himself a very low carbohydrate diet, and is quite lean and has a very healthy cholesterol profile with low triglycerides and low vLDL. But most long lived cultures consume a high carbohydrate diet anyway. But that's not evidence to disprove the a low carbohydrate diet is bad in the long term, we simply don't have the evidence yet. People have followed his advice and some have lost unwanted weight easily. We just need to avoid excess stress. There are people whose metabolisms go downhill after restricting carbohydrates for too long.

So those are two examples where this myth is busted. Furthermore the percentages are totally arbitrary. There is not way of telling how much percentage exercise contributes to weight loss or nutrition even if like in the P.A.C.E study nutritional variables were not changed. So it probably was not 0% nutrition, I exaggerated that, but since variables were kept constant I put it at 0%.

How about some meditation? I think your main priority after exercising is to take some deep breaths and meditate to prepare yourself for digesting your meal. That post workout meal can make or break fat loss. If you're watching TV, reading a book, you are not fully activating the digestive processes and your parasympathetic nervous system and you may end up storing unwanted calories.

That's all for now.

Peace and fortitude,
Avishek

Diet and sun protection part 1

2011-07-14T23:34:00.001-04:00

I LOVE this topic. I think it's so cool that a healthy antioxidant rich diet can protect one from the sun. Well Chris Kilhaim says it well. I've actually met this guy he's a cool dude!

My favorite is the watermelon. I think watermelon + beach is the ultimate chill time.

Yeah off the top of my head I remember researching in the past and finding that a wide variety of antioxidants helped. However there are certain chemicals in herbs and foods that make you MORE sensitive to UV radiation. Such as St. John's Wort. So I hope to get some good research on this that doesn't take too too much of my time and post the results here!

STRENGTH,
Avishek

Meditation and blood glucose part 2

2011-07-11T11:40:00.003-04:00

I read over the full text here of the effects of diaphragmatic breathing on antioxidant status after a carbohydrate rich meal, insulin and glucose levels, and heart rate. I will summarize what they say and provide the some of the same references they do to sound smart, but the point of this is to make it simpler to understand and provide the main points which I will.

The authors studied endurance athletes, knowing that they eat a lot of carbohydrates. If deep breathing is beneficial to athletes, then it could be beneficial to diabetics (it actually has been shown [1]), who we know have higher than normal blood glucose levels. The significance of this study is that high blood glucose has some bad consequences; reduced antioxidant potential [2] and therefore greater free radicals which damage blood vessels [3]. LDL is also oxidized more, as in diabetes [4], and this is bad for the heart [5] (read about the cholesterol myth here by brilliant blogger Chris Masterjohn [6]). The authors measured the amount of reactive oxygen metabolites (ROMs), molecules that become damaged by free radicals, as well as insulin levels, blood glucose, heart rate, and antioxidant potential, comparing the values obtained in the diaphragmatic breathing (DB) group and the control group which was assigned to reading a magazine.

The subjects concentrated on their breath for 40 minutes following the big meal. Oxidative stress was measured by the amount of ROMs. I'm not entirely sure how accurate that test is; especially since it does not mimic bodily processes. But it's difficult to measure free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in vivo because they react quickly. Nevertheless, the mechanisms are similar, and here is the chart of the differences between groups.

Not much of a difference. The authors suspected that in normal individuals "the excess levels of ROS are promptly neutralized by the antioxidant barrier before production of ROMs."

The effect on biologic antioxidant potential (BAP) was however statistically significant, even 2 hours after the meal.

This BAP was measured by incubating the subjects' blood with iron, and waiting for a color change, which would indicate a reduction of iron. Cool, but again I wonder if there is a test that more closely mimics the body's processes, just for fun.

Here is the figure on insulin levels, pretty big differences:

And blood glucose, not that big of a difference at all:

DB had its greatest benefit on increasing antioxidant potential. This means less wear and tear on the body. It's not surprising that just sitting and breathing won't lower your blood glucose too much, nor is it too surprising that it increases insulin. The authors stated: "This study's explanation of the DB effects is that the pancreas is controlled by the PNS, which, among other functions, promotes the secretion of insulin and increases tissue sensitivity to this hormone, thus promoting the storage of glucose."

Activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, the branch that is associated with resting and digesting, the sympathetic is fight or flight, also lowers heart rate. And indeed that's what happened here:

WHAT IF, meditation was performed before the meal? It may even be a better idea, more preventative in a sense. My experience with it is this:

Person A: Comes back from work, mind is scattered, is thinking about what tv show to watch, and what to do. Immediately opens the fridge, and starts drinking some milk, while putting something in the microwave.

Person B: Comes back from work, sits feet flat on floor and closes eyes, and reaches a blissful deep meditative state. Then slowly prepares dinner.

When I'm person A, I eat more, eat quickly, and probably don't digest as well. When I'm person B I eat less, and feel satiated quicker, and take quick poops. I'm doing a lot of research on stress right now, and I think we've all heard how stress can store fat. Well stress can also make you want to eat more. Corticosterone is one hormone that may work this way. I think many of us have experienced stress eating.

Anyway, deep breathing is good for you. I suspect that a truly deep meditation is even better, due to a greater degree of parasympathetic nervous system activation, greater feeling of well-being, and greater stress reduction. It takes some practice, but once you start, you'll soon realize what a deep meditation is. Good shit.

Aum,

Avishek

References:

1. Chaiopanont S. Hypoglycemic effect of sitting breathing meditation exercise on type 2 diabetes at Wat Khae Nok Primary Health Center in Nonthaburi province. J Med Assoc Thai 2008;91:93–98

2. Ceriello A, Bortolotti N, Crescentini A, et al. Antioxidant defenses are reduced during oral glucose tolerance test in normal and non-insulin dependent diabetic subjects. Eur J Clin Invest 1998;28:329–333.

3. Yano M, Hasegawa G, Ishii M, et al. Short-term exposure of high glucose concentration induces generation of reactive oxygen species in endothelial cells: Implication for the oxidative stress associated with postprandial hyperglycemia. Redox Rep 2004;9:111–116.

4. Ceriello A, Bortolotti N, Motz E, et al. Meal-induced oxidative stress and low-density lipoprotein oxidation in diabetes: The possible role of hyperglycemia. Metabolism 1999;48:1503–1508.

5. Holvoet, P. Oxidized LDL and coronary heart disease. Acta Cardiol. 2004 Oct;59(5):479-84.

6. Chris Masterjohn. High cholesterol and heart disease - myth or truth?

Postprandial hyperglycaemia - meditation

2011-07-08T13:56:00.001-04:00

After you eat a lot of food, your blood sugar rises. If you eat too much, especially too much fat or sugar or in combination with each other, you can increase your chances of glycation, where sugars in the blood bind to proteins. This is bad for ageing.

It's been recommended since ancient times to take walks after a big meal to solve this issue. Some people exercise. But meditation also works.

J Altern Complement Med. 2011 Jul;17(7):623-8. Epub 2011 Jun 20.
Diaphragmatic breathing reduces postprandial oxidative stress.
Martarelli D, Cocchioni M, Scuri S, Pompei P.
Source
1 School of Pharmacy, Unit of Experimental Medicine and Public Health, University of Camerino , Camerino, Italy .
Abstract
Abstract Objectives: A number of studies suggest that postprandial hyperglycemia produces oxidative stress, leading to complications associated with diabetes. However, hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress may affect groups of people other than diabetics, such as smokers and athletes with specific diet plans. Based on previous reports that seated breathing meditation reduces hyperglycemia, the present study was designed to determine the effects of diaphragmatic breathing on postprandial plasma glycemia, insulin, oxidative stress, and antioxidant levels in athletes with normal glucose metabolism. Design: Data collected before and after consumption of a 900-calorie breakfast composed of 80% carbohydrates, 10% proteins, and 10% lipids were analyzed. Ten (10) minutes after the meal, 8 subjects spent 40 minutes performing diaphragmatic breathing in a quiet place. The other 8 subjects, representing the control group, spent the same time sitting in an equivalent quiet place reading a magazine. Subjects: Data from 16 amateur male cyclists age 30.12±4.9 years (±SD) were analyzed. Their mean height and weight were 177.81±5.3 cm and 71.40±5.2 kg, respectively. All subjects underwent a physical examination and were determined to be in good health. Outcome measures: Blood samples were collected immediately before the meal as well as 1 hour and 2 hours after the meal, and plasma levels of glucose, insulin, reactive oxygen metabolites, and biologic antioxidant potential were determined. Heart rate was also recorded. Results: Results show that in normal subjects, acute hyperglycemia induces free-radical production while reducing the antioxidant levels (p<0.05). Diaphragmatic breathing reduces heart rates (p<0.01), increases insulin (p<0.05), reduces glycemia (p<0.01), and reduces free-radical production as indicated by the higher antioxidants levels (p<0.05). Conclusions: Diaphragmatic breathing, likely through the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, increases insulin, reduces glycemia, and reduces reactive oxygen species production.

Sometimes if I meditate after I eat, I need to take a shit right away. It definitely improves digestion.

This is some fascinating research!

Close your eyes and stop thinking for a couple minutes!

-Avishek

Mulberry superfood, and RESVERATROL amazingness

2011-07-04T18:07:00.007-04:00

Ok, this is the final post in this series, fitting since mulberry season is over. It's funny that I barely even wished mulberries were still around, I just accepted they weren't because there is nothing I can do. I just surrendered to Mother Nature. Blackberries however are starting to ripen, in massive amounts and they taste like candy too.

So today we'll talk about using the Mulberry plant as an herb, and other constituents of the berry. The bark, leaves, fruit, stems, and root can all be used. Unfortunately I don't have any very good resources on this, so I'll just share what I found online. We will also look at anthocyanins (blue-red pigments found in blueberries, mulberries, and tons of other healthy foods), and resveratrol, which perhaps extends life span similarly to the way caloric restriction does, and some other stuff.

So according to TCM (traditional chinese medicine) basics the mulberry fruit is sweet and cold, and benefits the heart, liver, and kidney meridians. It replenishes yin.

Most people are depleting yin, from overworking themselves, or building excessive yin through an inactive lifestyle. So yin herbs are always of benefit in today's stressful world. In many cases, sweet foods tend to restore yin, like in this case. And I'll tell ya, when you eat mulberries straight, before eating anything else, they are sugary juice bombs. Some people say mulberries are bland. Well they need to get off the refined sugar. However, I noticed that they lost their flavor if I consumed them after consuming other fruit, like watermelon for instance. I still devoured them though by the handful.

Mulberries also promote the production of body fluids, and moisten the intestines to help elimination. Yin foods will generally help production of body fluids, whereas yang things will deplete the body of water; exercise, diuretics, stimulants, and stress all dehydrate. On this website they prescribe a dosage, but I mean, this is FOOD. Don't restrict yourself to 10-15 g of mulberry fruit. That's ridiculous, eat until your face stains purple.

So yeah carbohydrates and sugar are generally seen as yin building foods. I've been reading Matt Stone lately (180 degree health), and he's been interested in eating lots of carbohydrates and sugar to promote a healthy metabolism. Many people he has worked with, and he himself, have experienced health problems due to low carbohydrate dieting, and dieting in general, especially when combined with more exercise. This is a form of chronic stress to the body; in the short term, it feels good because you will be running on adrenaline. After a while you become insensitive to it and get fat. Yes many people get fat after dieting for long periods of time.

Guess what folks. Eating less and exercising more is a BADDDD idea the long term. Why is this? Simple, it depletes yin, as excess yang (adrenaline and cortisol released from eating less and the heat of exercise) eats up yin. It's stress, and causes weight gain, as much as you want to disagree, try it. The only way to achieve long term weight loss on a low calorie diet is by messing with your hormones. You could probably use human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), leptin, epinephrine, insulin, I don't know. Bromocriptine, I'm no expert on hormones, but I think it could be possible with modern technology. Matt's recent advocacy for a carbohydrate rich diet is really meant to help rejuvenate a body that has deteriorated from the stress of dieting. However, following his advice forever will create its own problems which can be viewed in terms of yin and yang. Building up so much yin by eating a lot of carbohydrates is not healthy, so periodic breaks from a yin-building diet, such as fasting, heavy exercise, low carbohydrate dieting, and other yang activities, will keep the body balanced, which is what it's always gonna be about. Annnnnd of course most people kind of do it already.

Okay so goin back to using this plant as an herb, the bark can be used in the winter for colds and coughs, and it's works on the lung meridian. The twigs benefit the liver meridian and expels wind-heat from the body. Here is a good brief explanation of what that means.

Now back to the leaf. Last time we talked about it's role in diabetes. It's really not a cure, it's a very symptomatic treatment. Well who knows, maybe long term consumption could improve insulin signaling. It's just that people so easily hop on the cure-this-disease train. I will still use the leaves and document what effects I feel from it, because some websites claim it contains GABA, an inhibitory amino acid that chills you out, helps promote growth hormone release, among other things.

I wish a had a little more on herbal uses of mulberry fruit. I think like other fruit, and berries, it is best for restoring yin, like the Goji berry. In addition to that mulberries are rich in antioxidant compounds, flavonoids and polyphenols, particularly, anthocyanins and resveratrol, carotenoids like Zeaxanthin, and vitamin C. I want to focus on resveratrol for the rest of the article, but I also want to briefly talk about anthocyanins and zeaxanthin.

Anthocyanins

Anthocyanins protect plants from UV-induced damage. They are found in the flowers most often, but also fruits, stems, and roots [1]. Food sources include berries, black rice, eggplant, avocado, red cabbage, cherries, red wine, spirulina, grapes, and tons of other plants as protection. One common type of anthocyanin, cyanidin 3-glucosides, have been shown to be really delicious for your health. From this article here:

"Clinical studies involving C-3-G have shown various improvements in ocular function. Specifically, people ingesting C-3-G have said that the compound reduces eye pain, fatigue, can lead to improvements in night vision, and even reduce occurrence of blood shot eyes.* Additionally, animal and cell culture studies have shown that C-3-G can reduce the size of atherosclerotic plaques (this buildup of plaque formation in your arteries is what leads to heart attacks), as well as reduce total cholesterol levels, prevent excessive weight gain on a high fat western style diet, and maintain proper serum levels of glucose, insulin, and leptin preventing diabetes."

This compound is found in mulberries for sure, and has been shown to protect against lung cancer [2]. There are hundreds of other types of anthocyanins. Actually let me backtrack for a second. Without getting too confusing here, there are anthocyanidins, and anthocyanins. Both are good for you. They are based on the flavylium ion.

Anyway, anthocyanins are another reason to eat berries. I'm going to summarize this scientific article here [3] on the benefits of these compounds.

1. Boost cytokine production (good for immune system)
2. Protect DNA from oxidative damage by eating up free radicals for breakfast lunch dinner.
3. Improved visual acuity, eyesight, better night vision (by regenerating rhodopsin, a pigment responsible for monochromatic vision in dark - so not color vision)
4. Reduce proliferation of cancer cells, reduce tumor growth - has been shown many many times, through a variety of mechanisms, although the mechanisms of anthocyanins is not too well known I think
5. Good for heart: vascular protection (good for blood vessels, relaxes them), enhance nitric oxide production, enhance capillary strength and permeability, reduce inflammation and platelet activity
6. Control weight. Rats fed high-fat diet did not develop as much metabolic abnormalities when supplemented with anthocyanins. Less lipid peroxidation.
7. Protect brain and even reverse declines in cognitive and motor abilities.
8. Antimicrobial.
9. Delicious

So they are awesome. Also they act in synergy usually, not only with other anthocyanins, but with the thousands of other types of flavonoids flavanols flavanones, poopytoopy, flavan-3-ols, and stuff like that. This author of the article said that it's beneficial when the plant can defend itself in a synergistic manner because then invaders will not become resistant to a single chemicals. They just have no way to fight the tremendous army of anthocyanins in sweet sexy fruit.

Lastly, on anthocyanins at least, they are pretty bioavailable [4], more so than other flavonoids. Some will breakdown into a variety of other chemicals, many with beneficial activities, and some will remain intact. The mechanisms are f****** crazy, like this really cute cat, it's just confusing.

Zeaxanthin
Zeaxanthin accumulates in the central macula of your own eye, and may prevent macular degeneration. It seems to be found in a LOT of foods; wikipedia lists theses foods: eggs, spinach, goji berry, kale, turnip greens, collard greens, romaine lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, kiwifruit, corn, garden peas, swiss chard and Brussels sprouts. I know goji berries have a high amount, they are a superfood and they deserves their own book.

This article says: "From the many carotenoids in the diet, the human retina selectively accumulates only two: zeaxanthin and lutein."

"Retinas with low concentrations of zeaxanthin had suffered severe light damage, as evidenced by a very high number of apoptotic photoreceptor cells, while the group with high zeaxanthin concentrations had minimal damage. Apoptosis is programmed cell death, the final common pathway for photoreceptor death in retinal degeneration."

"The eye is selective and preferentially places dietary zeaxanthin in the very center of the macula, the most critical area for central vision with the greatest need for protection."

Sounds awesome. Berries are definitely a rich source. Lutein can be converted to zeaxanthin as well. The same foods that contain zeaxanthin contain lutein too. Kale is like the top in the list in the amount of zeaxanthin it contains.

Resveratrol:

This is a polyphenol, one of the most fascinating and most studied, due to its ability to mimic caloric-restriction (CR) through the sirtuin pathway [5,6] and by stimulating AMP kinase [7,8]. Sirtuins are a class of proteins that may have been evolutionarily conserved in order to protect life during challenging times [5].

Caloric restriction itself is mediated through the sirtuin pathway. Sirtuin overexpression increases lifespan, in flies, mice, and nematodes. In nematodes, and flies, the sirtuin of relevance is SIR2, but in humans the equivalent, or orthologue, is SIRT1. Resveratrol indirectly activates sirtuins. When animals without the sirtuin protein are given resveratrol, or caloric restriction regimens, their lifespans do not increase. When resveratrol is combined with caloric restriction, no extra effect is seen, because the protein cannot be expressed anymore [5], whereas if they occurred via two independent pathways some synergistic effect may have been seen. If you want the awesome details, check out this article and this one.

Other chemicals such as the flavonoid quercetin also stimulate SIRT1, although about 2.5 times less with quercetin. This compound is found in dark berries such as blueberries and bilberries, so probably is found in mulberries as well, in addition to in black and green tea, apples, tomatoes, red onions, and many other plants. This flavonoid is just another reason why fruit and vegetables are good for ya.

It is difficult to tell how much of these compounds is needed to see a significant effect on lifespan though. First of all, these scientists use a single chemical. The chemical in addition to the whole food will probably have a more significant effect on the independent variable than just the single chemical. It's a complete fallacy when you hear people say, "oh well you need X g of this to see a clinically relevant benefit, and you only get Y g in the food." Too bad the whole food is not studied often, or ever, to validate a statement like that.

Also it's not easy to come up with a way to detect how much of these proteins are being acetylated or what not. The first study I talked about just studies one pathway of life extension, when there are other mediators, such as AMP kinase (AMPK).

There does seem to be evidence though that even at low doses, resveratrol has the ability to ward of some cancers. I think David Sinclair (one of the leading researchers on sirtuins, along with his former mentor Guarente) and Joseph Baur summed it up well in this review article: [9]

"The efficacy of low doses (for example, 200 g per kg (body weight) daily in a rat model of colon carcinogenesis15) suggests that even the concentration of resveratrol obtained from dietary sources, such as red wine, could be therapeutic in some cases. At higher, but pharmacologically achievable doses, protective effects of resveratrol are more frequently observed, and the results are more dramatic. For example, a daily dose of 40 mg per kg (body weight) increased the survival of mice with subcutaneous neuroblastomas from 0% to 70%16. Although most in vivo studies strongly support a chemopreventive effect of resveratrol, there are notable exceptions in which no benefit has been observed. For example, administration of 1–5 mg per kg (body weight) daily of resveratrol failed to affect the growth or metastasis of breast cancer in mice, despite promising in vitro results17. Dosage, delivery method, tumour origin and other components of the diet could all contribute to the efficacy of resveratrol treatment."

Resveratrol, who we'll nickname Rtrol (are-trol) is cardioprotective [10], neuroprotective [7], due to activation of AMPK, and burns fat [11] from SIR2 activation, which we talked about earlier being essential for producing lifespan extension.

I'll summarize some more benefits from this article [9].
Cancer prevention:
1. COX inhibition:
"Epidemiological evidence shows that long-term inhibition of cyclooxygenase significantly reduces the risk of developing many cancers and deletion of the gene that encodes cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2) is protective in a mouse model of colorectal cancer18."

2. Inhibits angiogenesis. Tumors will often cause new blood vessels to form in order to feed themselves. Things that are good for you stop this.

3. It is pro-apoptotic. This means it can cause certain cancer cells to go kill themselves.

Heart disease
1. Vasorelaxation (like the anthocyanins we talked about earlier)

2. Inhibits platelet aggregation (just like the anthocyanins). Inhibits COX-1 more than COX-2:
""Thromboxane A2 (TxA2), which is synthesized by COX1 in platelets, is a potent inducer of platelet aggregation and a vasoconstrictor82, 83, whereas prostacyclin, which is synthesized by COX2 in vascular endothelial cells, is an antiplatelet aggregator and a vasodilator84. Selective inhibition of COX1 therefore promotes blood flow and decreases clot formation, whereas drugs that selectively inhibit COX2 could create an environment that is conducive to thrombus formation and increase the risk of cardiovascular complications85,86."

3. Vasodilation, and more nitric oxide.

4. Prevents oxidation of LDL, by chelating copper, and through its direct antioxidant capacity. Oxidizing your LDL particles can lead to atherosclerosis. Simply having high LDL though isn't enough, since some foods will cause big fluffy LDL to form and others like refined sugars will cause sticky small LDL cholesterol which is oxidized more rapidly.

Inflammation, Immunity
1. Reduces osteoarthritis

"Resveratrol could present an attractive alternative to current treatments for chronic inflammation as long-term use of aspirin can damage the stomach lining123, and selective COX2 inhibitors developed to avoid this problem have been linked to cardiovascular complications85, 86."

Brain damage
1. "Rats given intraperitoneal injections of resveratrol for 21 days, showed less motor impairment and significantly smaller infarct volume after middle cerebral artery occlusion8."
2. As a result, it was concluded that resveratrol easily crosses the blood-brain barrier

Phytooestrogenic activity:

"Although the effects of resveratrol on development are relatively minor compared with other potential phytooestrogens or similar molecules, more extensive studies will be required before high doses can be recommended for children or pregnant mothers."

"Oestrogen replacement therapy has been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women110. Resveratrol has been reported to act as a phytooestrogen in some systems111, and it has been suggested that this property might mediate its cardioprotective effects112. However, both the oestrogenic effects of resveratrol in vivo and the cardioprotective effects of oestrogen replacement113, 114 have since become subjects of debate, and a firm connection remains to be established."

Other random effects:
"In addition to its other properties, resveratrol is reported to act as an analgesic148, 149, 150, protect against hearing loss151 and enhance lipopolysaccharide-induced anorexia in rats, although it has no anorexic effect when given alone152. Resveratrol has also been shown to reduce injuries to the kidneys153, 154, spinal cord155, 156, liver157, lungs158, intestine159, 160 and colon24. These additional results indicate that the protective effects of resveratrol are not limited to the heart and brain in vivo."

It's amazing. Unfortunately though before you grab the next resveratrol supplement, realize that it has an extremely short half-life of about 8-14 minutes before being metabolized into other compounds, some of which will still activate the sirtuins [9]. Despite this, the in vivo evidence clearly lauds resveratrol's efficacy; it works. The paper says that "resveratrol has been shown to synergize with both quercetin and ellagic acid in the induction of apoptosis in human leukaemia cells187, with ethanol in the inhibition of iNOS expression188, with vitamin E in the prevention of lipid peroxidation189, with catechin in the protection of PC12 cells from -amyloid toxicity190, and with nucleoside analogues in the inhibition of HIV1 replication in cultured T lymphocytes191."

So it's probably better to get it from food.

But I read the book "The Carnitine Miracle" a while ago, and the author, Robert Crayhon, made an important point regarding supplementation: oftentimes, one needs to take a therapeutic dosage to see a really big effect. This is a much higher dosage that can be achieved from food alone. As much as I would like to achieve optimal vitality from food alone, supplementation may really offer the next edge. I will definitely supplement with this in the short term to see if it has any interesting effect on me, but for now I'll just eat wild berries and make wine/kombucha out of it.

let's go gather berries,
AS

References:

1. Anthocyanins and Anthocyanidins. http://www.food-info.net/uk/colour/anthocyanin.htm

2. Chen PN, Chu SC, Chiou HL, Kuo WH, Chiang CL, Hsieh YS. Mulberry anthocyanins, cyanidin 3-rutinoside and cyanidin 3-glucoside, exhibited an inhibitory effect on the migration and invasion of a human lung cancer cell line. Cancer Lett. 2006 Apr 28;235(2):248-59. Epub 2005 Jun 22.

3. Mary Ann Lila. Anthocyanins and human health: an In vitro investigative approach. J Biomed Biotechnol. 2004 December 1; 2004(5): 308-313

4. Tony K. McGhie, Gary D. Ainge, Laura E. Barnett, Janine M. Cooney, and Dwayne J. Jensen. Anthocyanin Glycosides from Berry Fruit Are Absorbed and Excreted Unmetabolized by Both Humans and Rats. J. Agric. Food Chem., 2003, 51 (16), pp 4539–4548

5. Konrad T. Howitz1, Kevin J. Bitterman2, Haim Y. Cohen2, Dudley W. Lamming2, Siva Lavu2, Jason G. Wood2, Robert E. Zipkin1, Phuong Chung1, Anne Kisielewski1, Li-Li Zhang1, Brandy Scherer1 & David A. Sinclair. Small molecule activators of sirtuins extend Saccharomyces cerevisiae lifespan. Nature 425, 191-196 (11 September 2003)

6. E Morselli, M C Maiuri, M Markaki, E Megalou, A Pasparaki, K Palikaras, A Criollo1, L Galluzzi S A Malik I Vitale M Michaud, F Madeo, N Tavernarakisand, G Kroemer. Caloric restriction and resveratrol promote longevity through the Sirtuin-1-dependent induction of autophagy. Cell Death and Disease (2010) 1, e10

7. Biplab Dasgupta, Jeffrey Milbrandt. Reseratrol stimulates AMP kinase activity in neurons. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 April 24; 104(17): 7217–7222.

8. Eric L. Greer, Dara Dowlatshahi, Max R. Banko, Judit Villen, Kimmi Hoang, Daniel Blanchard, Steven P. Gygi, Anne Brunet. An AMPK-FOXO pathway mediates the extension of lifespan induced by a novel method of dietary restriction in C. elegans. Curr Biol. 2007 October 9; 17(19): 1646–1656.

9. Joseph A. Baur, David A. Sinclair. The therapeutic effects of resveratrol: the in vivo evidence. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 5, 493-506 (June 2006)

10. Jin-Taek Hwang, Dae Young Kwon, Ock Jin Park, Myung Sunny Kim. Resveratrol protects ROS-induced cell death by activating AMPK in H9c2 cardiac muscle cells. Genes Nutr. 2008 February; 2(4): 323–326.

11. Frédéric Picard, Martin Kurtev, Namjin Chung, Acharawan Topark-Ngarm, Thanaset Senawong, Rita Machado de Oliveira, Mark Leid, Michael W. McBurney, Leonard Guarente1. Sirt1 promotes fat mobilization in white adipocytes by repressing PPAR-γ. Nature 429, 771-776 (17 June 2004).

Meditation misconception(s)

2011-06-29T23:33:00.001-04:00

Hello,

I was meditating just now, and came upon an insight. Today I was reading the unreleased version of "Fringe-ology," an unbiased presentation of paranormal events from a scientific perspective, and the author thought meditation was "mystical." I am really enjoying the book, but sometimes I find his overly objective viewpoint a bit, well unconfident. Most people in the scientific community are afraid to talk about the paranormal, things like near death experiences, ghosts, meditation, alternative medicine, etc. So is the author. He does provide so much evidence for the existence of paranormal things that you cannot agree with the skeptics, who are religious in their own right (their atheist scientific beliefs being, well, just beliefs).

Well is meditation really mystical? It's actually like sprinting hills, or going on a Paleolithic diet. Let me explain.

When you start to eat higher vibrational foods, food that contains more nutrients, digests better, and increases the metabolism, functioning of the thyroid, immune system, balances hormones, etc, you have more vitality, and energy. Therefore, you may start moving around more. Some people interested in nutrition as a result, aren't as interested in exercise, because they think that eating clean food causes one to move around more, and I suppose accrue the benefits of exercise. False.

Some people who exercise a lot think they can burn off unhealthy processed garbage. True, and false.

When we combine both perspectives, we realize there is a benefit to organizing diet, and organizing exercise. You do not accrue the benefits of exercise by eating cleaner food that raises your metabolism. You will not automatically start seeing the massive increases in growth hormone following some interval training for example, from any diet or supplement (that I know of, maybe deer antler). You certainly will not raise your levels of healthy testosterone from any diet than you will from lifting some weights, or achieve the same type or degree of detoxification from diet. Any you certainly will not see the benefits in cardiovascular health from any diet compared to some sprints up and down a hill, although diet can totally prevent heart disease from ever occurring in one's life I believe.

So you CAN see some of the benefits of exercise overlap the benefits of following a healthy diet, which I'll define as one consisting of foods that you have proven to yourself digest easily, thus energizing the system, balance hormones, and mood, prevent sickness, and make you feel like you have a purpose. Exercise can do the same thing. However exercise clearly does not taste like anything, unless you have synesthesia or something and can connect various senses together, and it certainly won't take care of all your health problems.

SO what people have done over the years is organize all of this. Even meditation.

Most people do some form of rudimentary meditation, just like rudimentary unorganized physical activity, or unorganized conscious eating, when they feel the need. We may work hard for an hour, and then decide to take a short walk. Or we might like to take a breath of fresh air. Those are both rejuvenating activities, that needed to be done because you sensed you needed a break.

When we organize and study these rejuvenation practices, we end up with an exercise that offers tremendous benefits, just like an organized exercise regimen can, and an organized diet.

In this regard meditation is no more mystical than the Paleolithic diet, or interval training, both higher orders of organization intended to offer a superior advantage to us. It's a culmination of the same process of logic and reason.

Voila,
Avishek

P.S. I've been doing a ton of research on meditation and the brain so expect to hear something about that soon

MULLLBERRIES ARE IN SEASON! Benefits of the berries, and leaves pt. 1

2011-06-19T12:00:00.002-04:00

Woohoo. I am super duper excited! I usually don't say woohoo or super duper, so that should IMMEDIATELY tell you that something is going down.

SO I was walkin down the street, and I saw this tree with these berries on it! They stained the sidewalk underneath it, in purple splotches, and I was like, "woahhhh! BLACKBERRIES OMG OMG!." But I later realized these were mulberries, and I was even more excited, because many health food store sell them under the Navitas brand as a superfood. I believe they received an honorable mention in David Wolfe's book, "Superfoods."

Reasons mulberries are a superfood and why you wanna eat em.

1. They are so sweet, they gush in your mouth. They taste like candy to me. However that is most probably because I am not accustomed to refined sugar anymore so it is the sweetest thing in my diet right now. If mulberries are not sweet to you, I highly recommend you drop your sugar intake, to re-sensitize your taste buds to naturally sugary foods. Read some of Stephan's posts at Wholehealthsource (on the right) to learn about food reward and how that can influence weight gain/obesity.

2. They ooze and are juicy

3. Ants, birds, squirrels, and other life eat these berries since they're so nutritious.

Ok ok, those are the most instinctual reasons. Of course I did some research and tried to find some rational reasons for eating these. Now I think instinctual reasons for eating food are very important, only when applying to whole, pure, unprocessed foods however, because they force you to use cortical processes that we have abandoned in today's societies and allow us to listen to our bodies. For example, if you try to survive on your own in a rainforest, you won't be thinking about hitting your daily intake of magnesium, will you? Well if you're used to doing that you may try to eat this way, but what are you primarily going to be looking for?

1. Calories.
2. Tasty calories.
3. Healthy digestion and energy.
4. A cramp free stomach

So as a result, you won't be using your rational mind to find food. If you do you may die. Of course, when applying instinctual reasons for eating food to a processed baked goods diet, you may end up eating muffins day and night because they are sweet, fatty, and satiating and this is a misunderstanding of the instinctual eating I am promoting.

Anyway, food needs to be rewarding, otherwise we would not eat it unless we could not find any rewarding food. Eating activates the pleasure circuit in the brain, in a group of dopaminergic (dopamine producing) neurons in the ventral tegmental area. Actually, anything pleasurable will activate this group of neurons. SO food must taste good! The point I'm trying to make is, we need to look beyond vitamins and minerals in our search for the optimal diet. Nutritional science is a rational endeavor, that can take us away from the unrational, instinctual reasons for eating food. Fortunately, most people eat instinctually, eating when they are truly hungry, fasting for long periods of time, gorging on food when necessary, and not subscribing to 6 meals a day, or 150g carbs a day or other rational things. However, many people cannot imagine eating fruit straight from a tree! I argue that in many many respects we need to go back to eating instinctually, and this starts with the process of acquiring food, as well as acquiring tastes.

Nevertheless, eating rationally has its place in a world with depleted soil, pollution, toxins, pesticides, stress, artificially ripened fruit, radiation, mercury poisoning, the Federal Reserve (lol), laundry detergent, a move away form natural living, loveless orgasms, Lil Wayne and hip hop wearing skinny jeans, Obaminationcare, and of course 80+ hour workweeks. Even paying attention to these disease promoting agents in society and being aware of the need to fight them can create stress. I believe though that too much rational eating can cause stress-related issues as well. Bodybuilders for example are the unhealthiest rational eaters on the planet. Some of them even weigh their food. And many end up crashing so hard they never come back for a competition ever again. Charlie Abel talks about that on his blog sometimes.

The instinctual reasons these berries are food is because they are rewarding due to their sweet flavor, and satiating quality. They made me come back for more, period. However, in the search for calories, I would need to eat a milkgallon jug-ful of them to really satiate me after some crazy sprints and parkour training. So it's more of a nice appetizer and nutritious berry that adds flavor, just a few calories, and plenty of purple to my life. Enough chit chat, I will summarize some research now that will make you want to find a mulberry tree, for its nutrient rich dark-purple health giving berries, and palatable leaves useful for making teas with its own milieu of health benefits.

First though let me explain something. There are three common species of Mulberry, Morus spp. The red mulberry, Morus rubra, the black mulberry, Morus nigra, and the white mulberry, Morus alba. The leaves look different on each species, but may vary in just one tree of the same species. I've seen some seven lobed leaves, and no lobed leaves. I'll have more pictures of this variety in part II. The black mulberry is the most liked in terms of taste. it is very sweet, and contains just enough tartness, although I've noticed that the riper they are, the sweeter and less tart they really are. If you are picking the berries off the tree, they are likely to have some tartness, but if you pick them from the floor, after they have naturally fallen, they will be riper and sweeter with no tartness. Try this, pick the berries off the tree with your middle and ring finger. If they are truly ripe they will come off with ease, literally with a touch of your finger, but if not ripe, you will have to apply some force to pluck them off.

I have actually seen a white mulberry tree just 80 meters from where I am currently, and the berries were indeed white but tinged purple. They were a little milder. Also the berry is actually an aggregate of berries; each little spherical juicy thing contains its own seeds, so botanically the mulberry is not a true berry some people say. Red mulberries are red when unripe, then turn dark purple to black. Black mulberries are white unripe, turning red and then black. I'm not too sure about all this identification stuff yet.

I found this well written article here talking about its use as feed for ruminant animals. Goats, rabbits, and lactating cows seem to do well on the leaves. It has great digestibility, protein content, and mineral content, although there are many species of Mulberry so it varies. Animals fed leaves and stems gain more weight.

The leaves are very digestible, and don't seem to be toxic in rats [1]. They are super-duper nutritious too, containing lots of calcium. In fact let's do a compare contrast with spinach for some nutrients. I found some websites making claims like mulberry leaf tea contains 25 times the calcium in milk and more iron than spinach, but not too many legitimate sources.

One study in India [2] looked at zinc, iron, and calcium, as well as protein, tannins (an anti-nutritional factor, prevents absorption of some nutrients), vitamin C, beta-carotene, and some other stuff. Here are the values for the tested minerals:

Fresh leaves, per 100g:
Iron 4.70-10.36 mg
Zinc 0.22-1.12 mg
Calcium 380-786 mg

In the dried leaves, per 100g:
Iron 19.00-35.72 mg
Zinc 0.72-3.65 mg
Calcium 786.66-2226.66 mg

Now for spinach, I found this data here, and I converted the values to match 100g:
Iron 2.66 mg
Zinc 0.66 mg
Calcium 98.9 mg

Now it's easy to say here that mulberry leaves, whether fresh or dry contain way more of these three nutrients than spinach. Unfortunately though, I cannot come to this conclusion yet, because I really am not versed on the different methods in testing for nutrients. I don't know what nutritiondata uses, and I did not have access to the full text of the study here on mulberry leaf so I don't know what they used. The leaves aren't that palatable honestly, whereas spinach has a nice crunch. SO it doesn't matter, the leaves don't even taste good. I think young leaves are more edible for humans, not sure yet.

I read stories though while googling this that some people's dogs had cravings for mulberry leaves. One story I read said that whenever her dog had a grumbling stomach from indigestion or the like, it would go find some mulberry leaves next time it went for a walk, but would not use them if it felt good. Then this dog ate a rabbit one day, and again went for the leaves. Weird.

It doesn't seem like people are eating these leaves. Rather, extracts are being prepared from them because of this compound they contain called 1-Deoxynojirimycin. It looks like alien language. But it's great for lowering blood glucose. It is an alpha-glucosidase inhibitor. Glucosidases are enzymes that break down our dietary carbohydrates into sugars. They are located in a part of your small intestine called the brush border.

What does this mean? It means you don't absorb some of the carbohydrates you eat. Personally, I'd like to absorb every carbohydrate I consume for my metabolism. Sprinting, parkour, boxing, and jumping around and stuff make me really hungry for carbohydrates. Also, the undigested carbohydrates move to your large intestine and could cause flatulence as the gut microbes digest em intead. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it could be. You also breathe out more hydrogen gas, which is measured to test the effectiveness of the leaves in many of the studies on it.

This may be a red mulberry tree judging by how lobed the leaves look.

These Japanese researchers [3] said that this effect is like a prebiotic. Prebiotics refer to substances that increase intenstinal bacteria, and so are good generally. I can't tell though how much to take. I mean, in the past I've never been concerned with exact mg and dosage amounts. I'm usually like, just take it, and eat it, and see how it makes you feel. And I'm going to stick to that here. The full text is available though so you can try to figure out how to make the powder they made. I actually drank a bunch of the tea last night, and could not stop farting. Placebo? Not sure.. but it kept me up late.. just so you know. I've only tried it once though so far.

Regardless, check out this figure from that study:

The top line is the 30g sucrose solution, the next one is 30 g sucrose + 1.2 g of the mulberry leaf powder (abbreviated ELM), and the bottom-most line is 30g sucrose with 3.0 g ELM powder. I saved the picture from the full-text article so maybe that's why it's so blurry.

Clearly, glucose was released much more slowly in the bloodstream than in the control group. What's also cool is that glucose never reached the low with the powdered solutions as with the pure sucrose solution. So not only would this help a patient with diabetes use less insulin, it could prevent that crash a couple hours after a meal that causes type 1s to much on sugar to prevent fainting. Instead of fainting, they'll just be farting.

Another study from Thailand [4] looked at how effective the alpha-glucosidase inhibiting activities of 1-Deoxynojirimycin were from brewing tea. They used near boiling water, 98 degrees Celsius and infused the leaves, and compared that to some other mulberry leaf products. The fresh leaves were the most effective in the inhibition of sucrase and maltase, when brewed for five minutes. For whatever reason, brewing for any longer did not inhibit the enzymes any more, but actually less. I think for now, after a big meal, I'll try making some tea and note my chi levels.

Now let's move on to the berries. They contain anthocyanins, polyphenols, flavonoids, and resveratrol. Resveratrol is amazing, and it makes you live forever, it activates the same proteins that caloric restriction, and protein restriction do, two other things that have been shown consistently to extend lifespan. I will talk about that in the next post because the research is controversial as always. I also found out that it has been used as an herb with chinese medicine, specifically as a yin tonic, this is great for a population that is depleting yin through chronic stress. It also contains tons of minerals, and we'll look at that first.

- I pick berries off the ground because they're so ripe, here you can see them clustered ready for me to eat by some animal dung. I think these berries are also a mild laxative, so the animals eat the berries after they fall, then just poop pellets.

Researchers in Turkey found this [5]:
Highest mineral content in mulberry fruit: per 100g
Calcium 187.365 - 443.752 mg
Potassium 1.0860 - 1.5269 g
Magnesium 90.448 - 103.311 mg
Sodium 11.529 - 25.233 mg
Phosphorus .1831 - .2329 g
Sulphur 49.335 - 64.225 mg

Mineral contents from the Pekmez samples:
Calcium 13.576 - 57.584 mg
Potassium 0.5853 - 0.8146 g
Magnesium 18.796 - 38.986 mg
Sodium 2.040 - 4.355 mg
Phosphorus 28.510 - 51.772 mg
Sulphur 12.121 - 30.357 mg

Another group of Turkish researchers had these values (per 100g):
Calcium 139 mg
Potassium 1141 mg
Magnesium 109 mg
Sodium 60mg
Phosphorus 235 mg
Iron 4.3 mg
Copper 0.4 mg
Manganese 4.1 mg
Zinc 3.1 mg

So here is a table I constructed and I added information from nutritiondata on bluberries and milk.

From this table, it seems like Mulberries contain astronomical amounts of any mineral compared to spinach, milk, or blueberries. However I found data on nutritiondata on Mulberries, and the values were very low compared to those from the references I have. So since we are probably dealing with completely different methods in analyzing the mineral content, we cannot say that Mulberries are really blowing bluberries out of the water, both are excellent for ya.

Still, they contain very high amounts of nutrients. According to nutritiondata, they contain 11% protein, a high amount for a fruit.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, or whatever the phrase is. Whatever the exact mineral content is, you can be assured that mulberries provide high amounts of calcium, zinc, magnesium, manganese, and phosphorus to your diet, along with other things we will talk about next time.

Strength,
AS

References:

1. Miyazawa M, Miyahara C, Satoh S, Sakai A. [Ninety-day dietary toxicity study of mulberry leaf extract in rats. Shokuhin Eiseigaku Zasshi. 2003 Aug;44(4):191-7.

2. Srivastava S, Kapoor R, Thathola A, Srivastava RP. Nutritional quality of leaves of some genotypes of mulberry (Morus alba). Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2006 Aug-Sep;57(5-6):305-13.

3. Mariko Nakamura, Sadako Nakamura and Tsuneyuki Oku. Suppressive response of confections containing the extractive from leaves of Morus Alba on postprandial blood glucose and insulin in healthy human subjects. Nutrition & Metabolism 2009, 6:29

4. Chanida Hansawasdia, Jun Kawabatab. α-Glucosidase inhibitory effect of mulberry (Morus alba) leaves on Caco-2. Fitoterapia Volume 77, Issues 7-8, December 2006, Pages 568-573

5. Mehmet Akbulut1 and Mehmet Musa Özcan1. Comparison of mineral contents of mulberry (Morus spp.) fruits and their pekmez (boiled mulberry juice) samples. Int. J Food Sci and Nutr. 2009, Vol. 60, No. 3, 231-239

6. Sezai Ercisli, Emine Orhana. Chemical composition of white (Morus alba), red (Morus rubra) and black (Morus nigra) mulberry fruits. Food Chemistry
Volume 103, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 1380-1384

Attorney Jonathan Emord's Speech at the Raw Milk Rally

2011-05-21T16:46:00.004-04:00

Last Monday, May 16th, I protested for food injustice in this country on Capitol Hill. We had a rally not just for freedom in choosing what we eat, but freedom for farmers to produce what they want. It was called the "Rally for Food and Farm Freedom." Here is the story.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/dc/raw-milk-protesters-gather-on-capitol-hill-051611

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/reading-ingredients-tales-health-conscious-mom/2011/may/17/raw-milk-activists-protest-arrest-farmer/

The FDA raided Rainbow Acres Farm in Kinzer Pennsylvania because Dan Allgyer was selling raw milk interstate, in Maryland. In the first article someone mentioned that depending on how you look at it, he was not really "selling" it in Maryland. The checks are actually mailed to him from Maryland. The law can be interpreted in many ways. Nevertheless I was here since I started purchasing some of this milk last month. Dan Allgyer's beef I tried for the first time yesterday and it is up there with the best beef I've ever tried. It tastes more than grass-fed, as if the cow was raised well and lived happily ever after.

Anyway here is the video of Jonathan Emord's speech. All I can say is this: my approach to fixing what's right is mostly rational. But politicians obviously use their emotive capabilities for support. I've been pretty unemotional for a while, so this type of speaking was very refreshing. Now some people who know me would counter that I am pretty emotional, but what I mean is my demeanor during debates, or discussions, or activism even. This really really moved me and I learned how this raw milk issue is more than just a silly law that needs to be overturned; this is about upholding the principles on which this country was founded. That is profound.

Here is part II another great speech on raw milk:

"Thank you very much for inviting me to speak today. You know, if you look at the capitol dome over here, you'll see the statue of freedom that's on the very top of the capitol. It is the pinnacle of the capitol and it is supposed to epitomize what this great nation is all about, that is that this government would value liberty and would not take from individuals the rights to life liberty and property without due process of law. It is also important for us to recognize, that that statue, 19 and a half foot tall statue up there, is armed with a sword and shield that symbolizes the defense of liberty, and symbolizes the peoples commitment to the founding principles articulated in out declaration of independence. And that is that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights to life liberty and property. And the just governments are instituted among them to protect the rights of the governed. Well we assemble here today precisely because the rights of an individual have been violated, based on majoritarian principles that have been adopted by the Food and Drug Administration against a minority that is doing nothing to cause injury to anyone else; in this case, Dan produces a safe product, he has healthy cows, he makes sure that the product is safe, he refrigerates it, he delivers it to people who have consumed it, not only in his community, his Amish community safely for decades, but also elsewhere in the country. But despite the fact there is no actual proof that anyone has ever been injured, by milk from Dan's cows, he is being treated as if he were a drug lord by our federal government, he is being treated as if what he sells is contraband that will cause injury to anyone who gets near the substance. And this is fresh milk! Now, if the government had a point here, if Dan sold something that injured someone. I certainly wouldn't be up here, and I doubt you would be here either. But the fact of the matter is that he is selling something that is being safely consumed. So why interfere wit the freedom of choice, of those consumers, when what they are consuming is not causing them injury. I defy the FDA to show a single instance in which Dan's milk has caused injury to anyone.

Now what we have here in the case of Dan is a rather interesting story and I will relate it to you and it's outrageous that the government would take an Amish farmer and treat him as if he were a part of the many drug cartel. But that's what they've done here, they've put him under investigation, for a year, a clandestine undisclosed investigation, of his farm and his practices, what they hope to find other than cow's being milked, I don't know, but actually it was cows being milked that they were interested in. You see Dan Allgyer, an Amish farmer from Kinzer Pennsylvania, has become an enemy of the state, not because he is a violent man, not because he performs actions that threatened the lives and liberties of other people and their property, not because he is involved in some plot to overthrow the government, but because he dared to sell unpasteurized milk.

On April 20th, 2010, before sun-p, two black SUVs with tinted windows, meandered up the dirt pathway, his road, to his farm. Dan was milking cows at the time, he came out he noticed that there was something strange, because here these black SUVs are coming up without their lights on, and it's not sun-up!. So he knew something was definitely up. He's not accustomed to seeing black SUVs in his Amish community. So there he is, watching, tending to his cows, but he's a non-violent man. he didn't resort to any measure of self-defense. He simply continued with his chores. And then all of a sudden a federal agent approaches him, he turns to see the person and the question is "Where do you keep the milk?"

And that brave atrocity of having raw milk, was why they sent these federal agents onto his property, why they expended 10s of thousands of taxpayers' dollars on a clandestine investigation, why they purchased from us from a safe house in Maryland, 23 units of milk from Dan, and have him transport it across state lines to deliver it and refrigerate it, to make sure the customer would be safe, and unbeknownst to him, that customer was a fraud. It was agents of the federal government in trying to entrap him in the sale of unpasteurized milk in interstate commerce. Well they inspected Dan's coolers and they looked at all the milk and ah ha there it was the contraband they were looking for the fresh raw milk. And now Dan is in federal court; [he] continues to be viewed as an enemy of the state, this Amish farmer this Yeoman farmer not unlike those who founded this country; who themselves consumed raw milk. Raw milk has been consumed for over 2000 years by man. And you know it's rather difficult to distinguish raw milk from such products as sushi, chicken, poultry products, raw oysters, the question that we have to focus on in the case of foods when we have n intelligent government not a knee jerk government is on the safety of the food as it is supplied to the consumer. There is no objection to testing the milk to make sure that it's safe. There's no objection to protocols to ensure that the milk is made in a safe way, or that the animals are clean and free of tuberculosis or any other disease. There's no objection to t hat. Everyone here who believes in raw milk endorses that and would only consume a safe milk product for them self and their families. And so we have a situation where it's not a question whether the government can ensure the safety of milk, it's a question of whether the government can protect the large dairy farmers, the large institutionalized corporate dairy, from competition arising from this burgeoning movement in this country for organic products, for food that is safe, but made in a natural way, and WHY should our freedom of choice be denied! What power does this government legitimately have when the product is safe, to deny access to the american people to that product. That is an oppressive government, that is a tyrannical government.

Well, the FDA should be ashamed of itself, of all the things that they could prosecute, of all the people they could invest money in going after who are harming the american people, they choose an Amish farmer from Kinzer PA with no criminal record, whose done nothing on this life but raise healthy cows, they make him an enemy of the state! What's wrong with this picture; what is wrong with a government that does that? How can we possibly stand in defense of the food and drug administration that takes our tax dollars and devotes it in this way to ruin the life of a simple Amish farmer form Kinzer pennsylvania?!

And when you look at the government's complaint, the government goes after Dan not because he sold a contaminated product, they go after him because his product was not pasteurized. They have no proof that Dan's product was harmful. All they have is proof that it didn't go through pasteurization. There's a distinction. Not every raw milk product is unsafe. If that were the case we probably wouldn't be here because our ancestors who drank it would be dead.

Now when it comes to paseutirzed milk, you know, pasteurized milk is not a panacea. The government stands in the position that if the milk is pasteurized it's safe to market. Well that's rubbish. Every year in the United States, pasteurized milk, pasteurized cheese products based on pasteurized milk, is sold and is contaminated periodically and results in thousands of people becoming ill and people even dying from those products. So it is not the case that it is the mere presence of pasteurization that creates a iron wall of safety to protect the American consumer. It the case that the handling, the care, the testing of the product determines its safe, whether its sushi, whether its raw milk, whether its chicken poultry, eggs.. Certainly there will be those who sell an unsafe product, but shouldn't the law focus like a laser beam and attack those individuals instead of condemning honest hardworking farmers in this country who've done nothing wrong who pride themselves on the quality of their products?

(click on the picture and read the awesome signs)

What is it about this government, what is it about this congress that it prefers the method of prior restraint, the assumption that everyone in a class is guilty until they're proven innocent. This country's founded on the opposite proposition, this country is founded on the proposition that we are innocent until proven guilty, that we have a right to the fruits of our own labor, that we have a right to intercourse with each other in the commercial market place, unobstruted unmolested by a oppressive federal government. We had a revolution in this country because of this kind of activity!

We have a right to demand protection for our liberty.

The use of a prior restraint and unthinking mechanism by this federal gov't is causing injury alright, its causing injury to these innocent farmers. If they sold a product that does not cause injury, what right does this government have in law, or under our constitution to condemn these individuals as if they were criminals selling contraband? What right does the gov't have to do that? Is it a govt that makes the statue of freedom the pinnacle of the United states capitol? Does the statue of fredom mean anything in this country? Is this a government that makes liberty paramount or is this a government that makes regulation and the wpero of politics paramount to the individual liberty of the american people?

Now not everyone is deaf. Not everyone is deaf to our cries for justice, not everyone is deaf to the plight of the hardworking farmer, of the organic farmer in this country. Not everyone is swept up in a majoritarian craze that will deny indivuals the right ot sell a safe product. On may the eleventh, congressman Ron Paul, introduced HR 1830, the unpasteurized milk bill, which would prevent the Food and Drug administration from barring the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk leaving it with the power that it should have, the power to go after those who sell unpasteurized milk or pasteurized milk that is unsafe. But for those who make a clean product that is safe and uncontaminated, this bill will defend their right to sell it in the marketplace and the right of consumers to obtain it. We must demand the passage of this bill to end FDA tyrrany. We must pass this bill to protect organic farming. We must pass this bill to protect the rights of small farmers to bring their produce to market, unmolested by agents of the federal government.

You know Thomas Jefferson reminded us of something very important he said: "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for peole of good conscience to remain silent." Do not remain silent. Eternal vigilance is the price of our liberty in this country. There are many instances where our rights are under seige in this nation. And we must defend our rights, we must restore a constitution of liberty in this country. We must demand justice for Dan Allgyer. We must demand an end to FDA tyranny. We must demand a restoration of the original American constitution that founded this republic. We must stop desecrating this great statue of freedom that is the pinnacle of the nation's capitol, and remind those that occupy this House and this Senate that it is a pinnacle that freedom must be defended, that the rights of the innocent must be defended that we must be presumed innocent until we are proven guilty, in a country that is just, a country of law and not of the arbitrary will of man. We must demand that they stop desecrating this great statue of freedom this basic defencse of individual liberty. We must restore this principle of liberty that led us to make that statue the pinnacle of this nation's capitol.

Thank you very much."

Pretty beautiful. Both speech and cow, her name is Morgan by the way, and she was milked ON Capitol Hill. That's awesome. YEAH I'M AN ACTIVIST HAHAHAHA LOLOLOLOLOL. I got this shirt:

and I think I'll walk into a nutrition class or some health center or something on campus next semester to generate some quirky looks in my direction. That will be great.

MUNCH LIKE A COW,
-Avishek

RARE: An orgasmic recipe by Avishek Saha

2011-05-20T22:25:00.002-04:00

Generally I'm not a recipe person because I do not enjoy life or pleasures or material things (hee hee). I like meditating and being unmaterialistic and unmoving. Stoic, and strong, like a bull. Hardheaded like a sheep, but slick as a fox.

Enough of the metaphors. GOD. I'm just kidding, but it's fairly true, my hypothesis I just presented about me not being into recipes I mean. I usually don't seek food for taste, but rather for sustenance. Generally I can be a very lively person, but at other times I try to be very stoic. I am starting to be more easy going about my lifestyle, relaxing more, and simply savoring the things in front of me naturally without suppression. My next project is exploring what the effect of truly good food does to the body. I'm especially interested in stress. Here are a few questions I want to answer:

1. Does eating really tasty food reduce stress more than not eating tasty food? Which tastes do what and how so?

2. In relation to the above question, what if the subject was eating not so tasty food to begin with (aka me), and thus desensitized his or herself (and as a result hyper-sensitized his or her taste buds; what happens when you start eating blander food is it actually starts to taste better as your taste buds compensate, this is a good thing for weight loss and food enjoyment and stress. I don't actually try to eat blander food rather I spend less time preparing my food and I suppose others find my food more bland but to me it's not really and I do not crave delicious restaurant food).

Compare this with someone who seeks food for taste, and is accustomed to eating out, eating fast food, and dishes that combine many flavors and textures at once.

I wonder how much more stress the picky eater who seeks taste from their food perceives from eating blander food from the person who is used to eating as a side-thought and simply for nourishment. I also wonder if there are advantages to getting accustomed to blander food; say there is a food shortage, will the picky eater die sooner because the body is starved not only of nutrients but tastes that have become ingrained in the reward system? Conversely, I wonder if not seeking food for tastes at all poses a detriment.

Where I'll start is with the notion that I've read somewhere that eating blander food actually in the long run heightens your sense of taste and improves your appreciation of food. Think about it; the picky eater will become upset when something didn't taste good enough, and will thus be stressed out, whereas the more resilient eater won't be and may therefore have better health outcomes. Just a thought. I've never been a picky eater.

Anyway, I made an ORGASMIC SALAD because I was really craving something tasty beyond anything I had ever prepared on my own. Let me describe it to you like this first in my attempt to be metaphorical:

'Twas bit sharp and thorny, slightly dangerous but not too much. Uneven surfaces, but excitement is abound. There is some anticipation with each forward slash into the thicket, as the path is not to be found and there is much biodiversity in this rainforest. A snake hisses, but you creep on, experiencing the unknown wilderness. Suddenly, something stings you, but alas what is this creature? Fascinating. The foliage is a rainbow of colors and sounds, and you think you are going to find a pot of gold it's that enchanting. You start to hear waves, you are close to a body of water and a magnificent view. Your hard pioneering work has sweat dripping off your forehead, and snot running down your nose, and endorphins providing a sense of relief. You stop to catch your breath for a minute and take a swig of water, observing the pretty flowers. And alas, you keep moving and the sound of the waves near, you can even begin to see some blue. With one more slash, there it is. You are stunned and embrace your compadres. The crystal blue of the water blinds you. The waves provide a mirror of light that literally jolt you to the ground. Hats off, jackets off. You have arrived. You won't settle here for too long, but it will fulfill your every desire while you need it to. Eventually you'll have to find new land, but for now there are unlimited resources to sustain your colony. You have just done, what no man or woman, ever has. You have discovered the holy land.

Wow that was fun. See food does amazing things, tasty food that is. The point of this orgasmic salad was the SOURness that I was craving. So I got some kombucha but I also craved, unusually, some sauce or something. I walked into Whole Foods and I saw some shrimp and I wanted the cocktail sauce, so I got some shrimp, but didn't find any pure enough for me cocktail sauces so I got some Worcestershire sauce and horseradish. 100% worth it. Anyway, I'll let you figure out this above allegory on your own after you try this deliciousness.

So here is the recipe. First off I was fasting all day, and I was pretty damn hungry. I also walked around a lot so I was even more hungry, but since I didn't do any vigorous exercise I really was not too hungry for calories, but rather a specific taste, and nutrients. So this dish won't provide too many cals, rather it's a good appetizer in my opinion, a good condiment as well.

Main tastes and textures in this dish:
1. Sour, crunchy, light, salty, spicy, tart, juicy, succulent, nom nom nom.

Ingredients:

1. Cabbage, or some other crunchy vegetable
2. Limes and lemons (I only had one but next time I will douse this in lime juice, I think a hint of orange would add even greater taste, a tomato based sauce would also be delish)
3. Something tart, like a granny smith apple. Worcestershire sauce is somewhat tart due to the vinegar, and so is horseradish sort of. Balsamic vinegar would probably work mm. I may need to start researching how to use that. I think chinese style fermented sushi ginger would work great. Fermented cabbage, or sauerkraut would probably be even better.
4. Salt.
5. Spices: cayenne, chili powder, curry powder, in small amounts. Ginger is also necessary.
6. Kombucha, mainly because it is sour. But you connoisseurs out there can probably do better.
7. DULSE, or some sea vegetable.
8. Now that I think about it, some avocado would have been delicious!

Remember the essence is SOUR. The crunch is a huge plus. It's basically like chips dipped in sour juice and some salt and tanginess.

So this is what I did.

-Dice the cabbage. Cook some if desired, but I wanted it cold and crunchy. DOUSE it in lime/lemon and kombucha (I purchased it but it's easy to make on your own too and it's nice and fizzy that's why I liked it). Add a little worcestershire sauce. Add some horseradish and mix. Peel and slice some ginger onto it. Dice up a granny smith apple (real tart that's what I wanted) and drop it like it's hot. Mix. Add cayenne, chilli powder, or whatever you prefer. Then put some dulse flakes on there for a real kick of explosive taste. The Worcestershire sauce would have added enough salt, but freely add what you feel is necessary.

Bam that's it. Most of the sauces can be adjusted accordingly. In fact I think there could be replacements for almost every ingredient, as long as the essence, sour and crunchy and tart and juicy remains the same. For example you could use tomatoes, drop the horseradish and use garlic, drop the worcestershire sauce and use something else I don't know.

So I hope you can figure out the metaphor. I portrayed it as if it tasted a bit harsh at times, and it did if you can imagine all that dulse (kinda strong tasting) and horseradish with ginger or garlic and cayenne that's an extreeeme kick. My sinuses certainly cleared up a bit. But it was DEFINITELY what I needed, at least I think. Saliva was pouring out of my mouth. The story I presented pretty much exactly describes how I ate this salad. After that I had some shrimp and delish grass-fed beef with more worcestershire sauce that was amazing. I was as a result of this mild effort in seeking out tastes able to orgasm from 4PM - 11PM.

thank your food,

-Avishek

The resilient mindset

2011-04-13T20:04:00.000-04:00

It is the mindset that allows you to say "whatever" or "it's okay" or respond in silence to something that others would respond to with stress. Or allow you to respond as you would to any frivolous matter, or even not respond at all because it was nothing. As a result you are in control of absolutely everything in your life.

The benefits of doing this are most notably reduced stress I would say. This is a concept I came up with, just like other philosophies on life which can be invented by anyone who wants to think. The cons of this mindset are that less is done. The benefit of that however is that sometimes more is done in that the natural way of things takes place. This is what Lao Tzu meant when he said "do by not doing." It made immediate sense to me. You don't always have to step in and DO something to make it happen.

Take this earthquake in Japan for example; most people want to donate money, help out and what not. Other people such as myself just say that it is a natural part of our destiny; the deaths that is. Others say it is karma and there really is no point helping. Still others say it is a conspiracy. I am all for helping out, but this is an example of letting things take their place, and and in this case, their toll. Suffering sometimes cannot be avoided. Yes this is one of my "dark" views. It makes me feel so good. You may be trying to understand why I'm thinking like this but I think that's not a good idea. We're always trying to figure out how others are thinking it's natural but not always productive.

So anyway this video is what prompted this post:

Raw foodies eat fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds like sunflower seeds, cashews, sesame seeds, some people do not eat peanuts because they are really a legume but some people do. Usually it's vegan, I'm not sure what this family's exact diet is but it's certainly raw and they certainly believe that they must follow a strict diet to be healthy.

The belief that plagues them is that cooked foods, foods heated over an arbitrary 118 degrees F (no research ever I have found to back this up) are poisonous because they deplete the body of its enzymes. Eating raw food to prevent losing digestive enzymes is an example of the band-aid effect in medicine: treating the symptoms. Our digestive abilities do not wither from eating cooked food, but rather stress. Therefore this is a stupid reason. However band-aids are still useful in medicine because they can correct problems. Being raw vegan for a week can have interesting and beneficial consequences on your metabolism. For a lifetime, it has other consequences like reduced bone mass, muscle mass, brain mass, hormones, and digestion probably gets worse. There are certainly ways to prevent those being raw but you really must fight your instinct to eat meat. I do not rationalize what I eat, instead it's all based on instinct. And these instincts do not like eating tons of plant matter for too long.

So after watching the video what did you think? These children have as their role model the father, who is getting upset over some damn burgers and fries, which other people would joyously eat and celebrate around. He is teaching his kids to be upset over something that is not a big deal in my opinion. I think I could eat a burger and wake up the next morning with a raging wood and tons of energy. This is because I work on having a resilient mindset.

3 hours of sleep? No problem I'm so excited for the day that nothing can really drastically affect my metabolism . . .

Examples:

Say you lose your wife. A person with a resilient mindset will say. Hmm, shucks. Alright let's go watch some tv.

Or their grandma dies. Normal person cries for a bit because death is a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE thing isn't it. Resilient person keeps reading his book on shapeshifting (i found a book at borders called shape shifting so it looks good can't wait to read it).

At borders I ask the guy: "so what happens to you in six days...?" (there were signs everywhere saying 6 days left!!)

He says: "I find a new job." his face looks smushed and emotionless.

Someone with a resilient mindset says: "YEAH I GET TO LOOK FOR A NEW JOB I LOVE DOING NEW THINGS IN MY LIFE AND BEING IN CHALLENGING CIRCUMSTANCES ALL THE TIME BECAUSE I JUST LOVE LEARNING OMG I LOVE THE WORLD SO MUCH ITS SO BEAUTIFUL I'M SO THANKFUL FOR EVERYTHING LALALALALA"

Resilient mindset + natural crack. Perhaps some cacao and spirulina. Maybe a calf's liver in there. All those vital minerals.

Say you're walking down the street and someone says: " . . . . *cough* faggot . . ." Most people cannot handle things like that, but someone with a resilient mindset says nothing because it means nothing.

Now here's an example where this could be less useful.

Say you're about to get this raise. But last minute you lose your job instead. Awesome right? You would think from these examples the resilient mindset would be like "okay haha it makes no damn difference in my life in the greater scheme of things." But this is only if you truly have no desires and live entirely in the present moment (I think at least). You can however have goals and manifest things with this mindset. I guess an easier way to understand is that you have nothing to lose ever.

Nothing to lose because nothing to gain and nothing to be attached to. Non-attachment begins with our own beliefs, because these are our strongest attachments. If we get rid of these, we end up with a more resilient mindset.

So you can still do things and get plenty done without doing as much. With this mindset there are NO OBSTACLES. That is KEY. And I just thought of it while writing this post. I guess in that sense nothing can bother you or stop you.

That's about it for now.

AKS

The Cheetah training program to feel like a beast, plus a special rant

2011-04-01T00:51:00.000-04:00

6 days ago, I would have told you I do not rant. I believe it is a materialistic attachment to something that causes us to rant with a lack of inner faith and confidence. Also a lack of control over ourselves, which I view as a highly desirable trait. It's mental strength if you'd call it. The ability to not say something when a normal person would. Telling someone the exciting news even is materialistic.

I still do believe this, but I rant. Starting last sunday, I've felt incredibly more . . . passionate. You could say angry. However the anger didn't make me fatigued or stressed out, rather it was highly energizing. I've been taking Fo-ti root. But a stupid fu***ing herb isn't the major factor in my metabolism. I took yohimbe, okay that has a big impact. Fo-ti is subltle, but It may be giving me much more energy.

So I just acted opinionated, but I'm open to the idea that this Polygonum multiflorum is turning me into a bear + cheetah.

More big than that is probably the changes I've made in my exercise routing. In fact, I'm most certain. This is what I do.

I go to the gym and f*** sh** up. For 10 minutes. No fatigue. I'm energized after the workout, and my brain is highly focused. I'm also not hungry so I eat low carb. Which I don't think makes me happy, it makes me more angry. Anyway.

It's the fastest twitch training you can do. Generally the slower twitch muscle fibers kick in after 10 seconds of maximal activity. Here we are doing maximal activity for aobut 1-5 seconds. This equates to a powerful Muay Thai kick. A few hard punches on the heavy bag. A 40 yard sprint. A vertical jump. An all out deadlift on your heaviest weight. 2 reps of bench press throws.

Each rep is perfect. 100% quality over quantity.

This requires much focus, but it isn't as difficult as doing endurance and focusing, since the duration of each movement is going to be up to 10 seconds. Preferably 5. Since you do not fatigue yourself, you have plenty energy.

This morning as I studied for my chemistry exam in 11 hours, I started feeling jittery. It was time to let some things out. I performed some heavy single legged deadlifts, shoulder exercises, both for a couple reps at a time only. I also jumped a lot and tried to reach high objects like the clock on the mini-indoor track. My lungs are not fatigued. I miss that feeling for sure. But right now, I am doing this for one main reason, to cure my overtraining.

The endurance I did in the past was really strenuous. Last week I couldn't workout much because my body was weak from it. I would do say 3 reps of heavy deadlift, with 20 seconds rest. Lifting heavy and resting little is very difficult to do three times a week. I did it too often. I'm still lifting heavy now as it is natural for me, with my high cortisol and what not, but lowering the volume. I've felt a lot more passionate. And my libido has been . . uncontrollable. Mentally I've been so sharp. My knees just still hurt. I thought that was overtraining but I guess it may be as simple as an overuse injury.

Try it out. Take a week off from your usual program and just go to the gym for about 15 minutes and do some maximal speed or maximal weight lifting. Go to a punching bag and do only 2 kicks or 3 punches at a time. Quality not quantity.

Time for a rant:

I don't CARE about curing cancer. It is not any more noble to treat cancer or heart disease than talking about pu**y like Lil Wayne does or riches like most idiotic rappers. Death is inevitable. Why do we hate it? Because we're so materialistic perhaps. Get over it . . . reduce your attachment to things, people, food, habits, your thoughts, your daily routines, and death does not matter.

Now focusing on prevention is a different story. Obesity and heart disease do not exist, or Alheimer's, or any preventable diseases of civilization. The only thing that exists is living naturally healthfully, working for a purpose, eating normal food and not being defined my what you eat at all, in fact not even thinking about what you eat because it's just in the ground and healthy, exercising as is natural, and bam it does not exist. What the hell is obesity? Huh? Cancer is different. It's a human thing to get cancer. SO as we are living longer, it is true we are getting cancer, but due to completely different reasons than the conventional wisdom states. It has to do with action potentials and positive charges that feed cancer, well according to "The Body Electric." Less encephalized beings like salamanders do not get cancer, and have high amounts of negative charges. It is inversely correlated.

So why? It's okay to die. . . right? Why do we have to "fight" cancer and obesity? Let's just live happily ever after and eat goji berries. Which I just got an order of. Yum. But I'm unnattached so I don't care if I never see them again. I'm completely serious. Rice and eggs for the rest of my life . . . could you do that? I can tell you this, if I watched you eat, I can tell how attached you are in general. I think, it's scary. You have to put the pepper on, lift up your sleeves, read a book, add some ginger, sugar and molasses. When you don't get it you're grouchy. Get over it and move on. Find the ability to activate the pleasure centers without any stimulation from material things. It's hard but you'll get there.

The orienting response and the web browser effect

2011-03-25T14:07:00.001-04:00

I am writing this to think. It's more of a question.

The orienting response is this: it is to divert your attention to something important. It helps that Gazelle peacefully eating grass divert her attention to the blazing cheetah accelerating towards her with the spring-like action of her spine. Just look at it:

It's so CUTE! Wagging its tail while eating that grass, looking around innocently. But unfortunately, she was quite foolish venturing out by herself. It takes almost no time for this mommy cheetah to pop a cap in that ass, well its a gazelle but I bet asses are easier to hunt.

After it breaks a leg, it's just too easy. The mommy (her name is Honey I believe) lets her cubs in on the action. What a fun time. Watch them licking each other in the end a few times, it's awesome.

This next video is my absolute favorite. But the end upsets me because I was hoping after all that dramatic action and the music, the cheetah would live happily ever after. NO. Some really fat hyenas come by and just snort their way into the scene, taking the cheetah's prize. But then I say, wow, you gotta put up a harder fight than that. See these animals are totally using instinct. Cheetahs don't think too hard, they act. They usually will walk away from their prize if hyenas, lions, or tigers come by because they're tired, and not too apt for the fight.

:/ Advantages come with disadvantages.

I found a couple papers (this one and this one) on cheetah anatomy, I will read them if I can hopefully get the full so that I can train myself to run 110 km/h. Gonna be a blast.

Anyway. In this day and age, the orienting response is hyperactivated; whether you're online, driving in a city, at a shopping plaza, at Whole Foods, watching television, searching for a job, at the gym, or whenever you're buying something online, or buying something anywhere.

Let's artfully delineate the city scene walking down the street on a gorgeous sunny day.
A car honks to your left, it's a taxi. There is a colorful sign with exclamation points to your right in the window. Music is playing from the restaurant you just pass, and an italian man asks you to try their canoli. You tell them you're on a diet. A woman is waving her arms and talking on the phone as she walks by you. A dove poops from the sky. A sexy silver Infinity M35 is double parking to your left. A motorcycle goes vhhrroooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Niketown to your left. BORDERS EVERYTHING MUST GO. 30-50% OFF SALE. Walk sign turns on. A homosexual man is wearing pink. Pretty sweet outfit. You smell diesel and hear truck behind you.

Enough. I've had people tell me they like sleeping in the city to these noises. So I think there is a degree of adaptation that prevents such noises from becoming stressful, but still studies show being in the city with noises is more stressful. I'd say its less for someone accustomed to being in the city than someone accustomed to a quiet peaceful area.

Things are constantly trying to grab our attention. Advertisements are the biggest. As a result we have ADHD neuroscientists say. Especially with the television; it causes children to constantly divert their attention rather than focus on one thing for an extended period of time.

I noticed I fall to the same plague when I'm on this macbook. Right now, I will count how many tabs I have open including this one.

19 tabs on this page.

48 more in 9 separate windows. (That's like 67 articles to read)

I also have some other pdfs open, full text scientific papers, and Imovie.

The 'spaces' feature on this mac allows me to basically have 9 laptops at once. I think it can go up to 16 even. Uh oh.. shouldn't do that. When I first got this macbook, I tried never to use the spaces but I became corrupted so easily. Usually, this macbook would shut down and crash and I'd restart the cycle. But it has not yet. Mainly cuz I use google chrome now :)

So. This is what the post is finally about.

We lose information. Think about the knowledge that existed 7000 years ago in the Vedas. I don't call it knowledge, it's information and beliefs to me, but they thought it was knowledge. I don't think the majority of people are using those ideas today. Vedic sciences knew so much about astrology, the world, physics, way before the West did. But look at us. We don't use it. I didn't learn it in high school.

There have been cures for heart disease since forever. Thyroxine (thyroid hormone, T4) for instance was used back in the day. Dr. Robert O'Becker mentioned this in his rants in "The Body Electric." I thought it was a fantastic book until the end when he started ranting. I told him to get over it. But most people cannot not rant. There are indeed a lot of things to fix if you have the desires of advancing the state of current affairs, and knowledge. Even O'Becker's own research has been shottily rejected. He explained a mechanism for acupuncture that seemed faultless (this was in the 70s). Now people think acupuncture has no explanation. The NCCAM is trying to find 'evidence' for this stuff event though it has existed. I'm really generalizing right now, but it doesn't matter. Here's the point:

I was eating and just thought to myself: well maybe this web browser effect of mine is similar to why we forget information coming down through history. There's just too much going on, and not enough meditation, or calming down-ness. Mostly just too much orienting response. Science Daily, Regional conferences, meetings and such are a great way to prevent this. Still, what happens is that certain types of research get more time spent on them. And then it forms the forefront of our consciousness.

Such as saturated fat. The history behind why saturated fat still to this day is believed to cause heart disease (although in 2010 plenty of studies came out to disprove this, the 2010 guidelines still advocate low sat fat), follows this type of pattern. We diverted our attention to a select few studies. Ignored everything else, and then the NYtimes came in, and BAM, it's been our consciousness for 70 years. For the full story read "Good Calories Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes or just watch his lectures on youtube or google videos.

Anyway that's enough. Do you think that this web browser orienting effect is responsible for losing information and research with the passage of time? Or is it mostly the other factors such as hidden agendas, ignorance, and whatever else?

Meditate right now for ten minutes you have nothing to lose if you think you do you are in illusion,
Avishek

I NEED HELP !! AND update on me and my future in this universe we see in front of our very own eyes

2011-03-23T21:48:00.002-04:00

This is going to be shameless sorry

http://apps.facebook.com/pwcvideocontest/contests/91023/voteable_entries/list?ogn=facebook&order=votes&page=1

I'm in this contest. Entered 3 days ago. It started like last month... so I've been trying to rally as many votes as I can. Just hit the pink button for me PLEASSSSSEEEEE. The prize is 5k. Yes I'm materialistic still. I'm a broke college student. I AM A BROKE COLLEGE STUDENT. Yes I got a job though as a personal trainer in the citay. Haven't started. I may create a separate website later iono. SO anyway, I'm going to turn this into a philosophical post, and say as much as possible while saying as little. Always a goal of mine.

First though let me go over the contest so you know.

You walk in an elevator, and BAM, the head CEO of this company you want to work for is there. You break a sweat, but you have about 30 seconds to make your 'elevator pitch,' so that this guy or gal likes you and considers your talent. Thats what the videos are about.

I watched most of the videos. Honestly, they are mostly very cliche. I all labeled them as this because people tended to talk about the past. The one good one, talked about the present. And a couple other good ones did too. The worst ones were like this . . . well h/o I'll get there.

In business your feelings, and likeability matter way more than whatever you've done in the past. That right-brained, or subconscious or whatever instinct, feeling you get about someone, their Hado, their Jing, contagious energy, is what is most important. People will analyze occasionally, and weigh their options, but the best business owners, feel then act.

Analyzing things provides a degree of certaintity. It makes us comfortable. We can rationalize options. Take this for example.

You hear about some crazy powerful herb for more ENERGY YEAH. Person A (for analytical) will do a bunch of research on it. This makes her comfortable. She never buys the herb. But she accumulated some knowledge on it.

Person I (for iono and instinct) says, ok let's try it. And then researches. He's uncomfortable because he does not really know what could happen. But he lets go. This is crucial.

People want to be comfortable. Well people need to let the freeeeeeeching screechign freak go of it. Step onto the ledge, live as if you'll die. Self-preservation is like hardwired in us. We ain't ever trying to die. But here's a great quote on this:

"Just take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step." - MLK jr. MY MAN!

So many people don't really realize this at all. It seems to hold a lot of truth from what I hear in interviews and what not. So they tend to divide and conquer. Well I interned here.. I did this.. I did that.. blah blah blah.

I've been hearing in these videos people's resumes. At a young age, like high school, we're taught for some reason that we need to bulk up our resumes. What I've noticed from my peers as a result, is the tendency to do things for the ultimate purpose of improving our resumes. Not for the purpose of enrichment.

And an important side note. SO medicine is a problem in this country. We believe there is a French Paradox and we cannot eat foods that are nourishing satiating. Well here is something that will make it worse. People doing things in order to have a sexy resume. My peers man, they are like this. Going into medicine because they want money. We need moral habits at a YOUNG AGE! Otherwise we create a generation hooked onto money and profit and material desires. I sadly think that when I'm 30 and I see my peers, they are the same people in this regard as they were in high school..but not all not all.

So as a result of doing things to look good, we assume that people hire us because our resumes look great. Ultimately, most people will disagree with me here, even though they'd agree that optimally, enriching ourselves, and being morally great people, is best. But with so many people around, in this capitalistic society where we are trying to 'get ahead' for whatever reason (monetary post probably you think?) the resume is an extension of those material things. The immaterial things that are more important to me, are my personality.

I started to really become critical these days, but lovingly, of everyone around me. If I see some flaw, I bring it up IMMEDIATELY in conversation (most of the time at least). Even to professors and adults. In the Tao te Chine, something that resonated with me was this:

"Do not esteem great men."

I really don't know. (this is a quick side note here). So if I hear some 30 yr experienced doctor tell me that eating carrots is good for me, I will seriously question him if I disagree. Or a better example, that low carbing is going to help me live longer through reducing insulin's ageing effect on me. I don't care who is who, all I want is the evidence. As a result. I believe in absolutely nothing. I have data and information in my head, that is not pieced together. I can share it with y'all though ;) Nevertheless, I've gained tremendous respect from those elders whom I've critically questioned. It's beautiful.

So the resume . . . watch the videos and see if you agree. The worst ones, and there are many like this on that page (don't now how long it'll last honestly so you may not be able to view) say this: "Since I did this internship, I learned to be hardworking and determineded...." Sorry that is cliche.

Now let's connect here a couple dots. In a debate here are some indications to me that help me categorize you and find ways to criticize you and change the subject entirely to a philosophical one.

1. Bringing up a label such as a degree, certification, experience, etc. It's not evidence for an argument that you have a degree. It MAY show you know something. But only presenting the evidence to me is what counts.

2. Bringing up something up from the past. Oh I know all about this. I've researched this soooo much. No you haven't. Give me evidence.

3. Being emotional: I label these frames of mind, or dialogues, as reactive thinking. That deserves a blog post on its own. (Wow I should write out my thoughts here more as well as food..). You may not be aware of it. Getting angry, or any emotional state makes you an emotional/reactive thinker. Even becoming excited about a medical breakthrough, is bad. It promotes attachment to the idea and makes it hard to let go when evidence takes a dump on it. Also talking before someone else finishes means you're a reactive thinker. It is not rational and deviates from the present moment.

So all of these DEVIATE from the PRESENT moment. As I've been thinking about this, it's sooo helpful for me to be in a healthful stimulating debate with someone. Usually I'll bring up this reactive thinking if necessary, especially to my closest friend with whom we discuss this all. In my own evolution, trying this out, I'm in a profound sense of calm during good debates.

Now to connect the last dot. Talking about the past; it deviates from the present moment. If you're in an interview, tell me what you can do NOW, and tomorrow, for our success lies in the future. When relevant, tell me if something you did do in the past will help with NOW AND IN THE FUTURE because that's the most important.

So in the Elevator Pitch, I didn't say anything about my past. It's implicit that I'm interested in something here, and maybe I have done some homework (in the past), and I talk about the future. But if you do talk about the present, and say you have done some relevant things in the past, its IMPLICIT that you have the experience.

Please post a comment. These ideas are subject to change, as are all of mine. I think this is what I'm goin with currently. But it's difficult to articulate these thoughts. Habits such as these do not form with words in our minds. But when I break it down, this blog post comes out. And I'm glad I just typed this up. Anyway think about this past/present/future thing.

And also I didn't really talk about it, but being moral. Doing things to make your resume look good unfortunately is immoral to me. We do things to get somewhere... Why can't you just strive to be an amazing individual? If you do that your energy flows to everyone else and you get mad job offers and opportunities. Quantum physics will prove it. I should start college over and go into physics... I will study this think while becoming a yogi. The Law of Attraction you could say too is at play. Although that is for materialistic people. Another thought for next time. Maybe this weekend.

OH - here are videos of me at this conference three weeks ago! About Food Justice. I do not know if I explained what I'm doing in my future, so briefly this. I decided I need something to fight. I've been introverted, happy, ignorant, researching, philosphizing. The power of this material world is in the hands of very few. People do not have food. So I'm into that more now. I think I need to be out there because I have the ability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjxQ1bvyV7c

Merry merry christmas,
Avishek

P.S. I do not believe in saying sorry anymore except for false humor and false energy. So I take it back. I still say it though if I need something (how immoral). But seriously I have stopped seeing the need. No one need be sorry to me, but not everyone thinks like me. Think about it...do you need to feel offended and have someone apologize to you EVER? LOVE YOURSELF ALWAYS AND BE GRATEFUL!

And please, vote for me :) Its till march 25th...

p.P.s OH, I was going to say. Just remembered. I'm not going for doctor of Naturopathic Medicine anymore. Not immediately at least. My vibration is more of a philosopher type. I don't help people directly, more by accident. Like I'll say something stupid, and cure someone's ulcer. Lol jk. But contagious energy is what I'm goin for. And education. Doctor of Philosphy. Dr. Richard Bartlett is like this, I was inspired by reading his book. Check him out at matrixenergetics.com. <3

I just ate two raw worms

2011-03-10T22:41:00.000-05:00

Yeah it was definitely gritty, metallic, salty, kinda tasted like sweat and blood with the metallic thing going on, but an amazing sweet aftertaste was there.

So I want you to think like this.

I believe that the first man to milk a cow, was a funny man. Or a woman. Maybe there was no first, it could have happened across the globe at different times, but those people were funny and creative. It's like, "woah, we were raised on breastmilk . . . what about milk from . . . ANOTHER ANIMAL! WOAH HIGH FIVE! LET'S DO ITTT YEAHHHH."

So it's a creative adventure. I really have no evidence to back up any of these thoughts. Instead I'm just trying to invent a way of living that is natural and sustainable. I see a source of food, and I try it out. Other animals eat it, can we maybe?

Worms are food. They're slimy for sure, but it seems satiating to me for some reason. I do not know why. There need not be words to describe this instinct. So it's like heck, let's try it out.

And that's what I did. I ate two pretty small worms. Next time I'll go for the monsters. We may cook them briefly as well. I'll make a vid. On youtube you'll find some pretty crazy human wormeaters though. 2 worms is nothing.

Always bless the soul of the animal too. If you believe that. I liked what Don Juan said to plants as he picked them: "today you are food for me, one day I'll be food for you."

insect eating,
Avishek

Ganoderma (Reishi) updates, and schisandra update (exciting)

2011-03-09T23:34:00.001-05:00

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Pft-tht-tss-tht
Pappu- tht-tsst-thi

Ok the above two lines were me beatboxing. After workouts I noticed I tended to beatbox a lot. I should record a video of this! Wow ok I will, the time is right now, usually it's best to do things now... oh well there is too much else to do. I will though. I just thought today that I was getting especially creative, but if I sat down and practiced, I could make a fun CD or something. I'm thinking techno. I also discovered some tropical overtones that sounded like animals and also bamboo flutes.

Anyway, I got me some schiz balls again (schisandra berries), and I feel HAHAHAHAHAHAH. That's how I feel. But it evolved to that from more of a animalistic energy at first. Schisandra does contain aromatase inhibitors (OMG WE'RE THINKING TOO MUCH SOMETIMES), so that might make me angry because it raises my testosterone but the effect of that is totally uncertain. I do remember one time I became especially prone to anger after a big cup of schisandra . . . I would definitely say that I took the energy of this herb to a happy state. But in the gym it was much more neutral, and present.

First off it was pretty awesome when I popped two schizballs in my mouth when I first got them last saturday. I felt an immediate boost in mental clarity, and WARMTH, from only two. Now the effect is so so subtle; in that sense I do not even know if the schisandra berries are working, but I'm guessing they are. These subtle effects I've experienced the last week in the gym remind me of those I've had on cacao. In this long post you may find what I'm talking about if you look for the exercise section. The similarities lie in the fact that my body told me I could do more. The difference was kind of like this:

When taking a solid dose of cacao: "KEEP RUNNING AND DOING FLIPS. YOU ARE GOD. YOU ARE A CHEETAH HUNTING THIS GAZELLE RUN FASTER. LIFE IS SO AWESOME WOW I WANT TO LIKE THROW THINGS EVERYWHERE TO CELEBRATE AND DESTROY FURNITURE."

On schisandra it's like this: "__________(basically there isn't too much thought in the mind, but during an exercise my mind is in the present moment).Eh, I've been in the gym for a while, but I kind of want to squat a little more. Eh okay, I'll do it. How long have I been here for . . .hmm, whatever let's do some more benching and maybe some jumping afterwards."

It's as if I didn't even notice I had more energy. But my work capacity increased so much. I will do more research on this and make a follow-up post. By the way, I do not do much endurance exercise, including the weight lifting. So I don't have much opinions on that. Mainly I could keep going back to perform high intensity, heavy weighted, and fast exercises. Schisandra energizes me kind of like the morning sun, rising slowly, in harmony, with consistency. Cacao is more like a volcano erupting. Hm, those are some decent analogies for this . . .for now. I also think my beatboxing is improving due to the schiz. That would be interesting. I DEFINITELY do NOT feel tired after my workouts, and I'm there for longer. I feel more energetic now in this past week while munching on them during after and even before the workout.

Updates on Reishi:

So it's been about a month or more and I said I'd update on how I feel.

Here are some things I noticed:
- happiness and sociability increased occasionally
- fatigue if taken during the day, and also straight up sleepytime sometimes hit me
- more mental clarity
- cool dreams if taken before bed
- not much difference if taken in hot or cold water

I'll expand on each one.

1. Happiness: I did hear before that Reishi opened up the heart chakra. I rarely felt this. usually I felt it from a tiny tiny dose, like a couple pinches worth. I felt more social, happier, wanted to reach out and help people, and hug people. It felt really really awesome and I wish I could have experienced that more.

2. Fatigue: this was a bigger problem. See, I took reishi in the morning, in the afternoon, before working out... I knew that is could lower blood sugar, and I'm fairly certain it did. This morning for instance I took some reishi and just wanted to sleep, so I did for twenty minutes. In the past I noticed that if I took sedating herbs when I was already fatigued, it could have an opposing effect. Well that really depends on the herb; most of the time this can put me to sleep if taken in high doses. It actually stinks because I like having tons of energy. Others may prefer to stay calmer during the day, and this is great. But when I'm fasting for instance during the day, reishi just slows me down. It's definitely not a great idea before a workout, unless that workout is yoga, or other calm exercises integrating the mind and body. I felt pretty weak and lethargic if I took it before a workout. It lowers blood glucose; simple explanation there (or so it seems . . .)

3. Mental Clarity: The times when I was feeling stressed, from having too much to do for example, reshi mellowed me out and put me in the present moment. One way to think of the "increase" in mental clarity, a bunch of vague terms anyway, is a decrease in mental fatigue. I did not necessarily feel like my brain waves slowed down to more alpha or something, as it does with white tea, or sedating herbs. Instead I just felt like I could keep going. It's subtle though. I was definitely more "in my head," and in the present moment. I definitely did not feel stimulated or agitated. Actually on very small doses I did feel slightly more physical energy at times, but that was rare.

Also at first, I had a tremendous mental boost in the front of my head. I've described this many times. I believe part of that is dopamine. I found many studies showing that reishi increases dopamine, even in the front of the brain. I will make another post on that later. Recently though I have not really felt that. I may though off of much higher doses. It's okay (I think, and according to some herbalists) to take reishi, and some other tonic herbs, in high doses. That would mean a tablespoon or two of this powder. Usually I take a small amount on a fork or knife and dissolve it in my mouth. I will talk more about those high doses I guess in the next update, I kind of forgot about that.

4. Cool dreams: yes before bed I slept more peacefully and had better dreams. A pleasant slumber. It's not good ot have too much REM or too much deep sleep. Some supplements will increase deep sleep, like GABA or melatonin, reducing REM, and vice versa. I've noticed that in the past and it did not feel as refreshing sometimes to wake up. For example, a small amount of cacao powder would give me dreams before bed, but I'd feel tired after a few days of continued use before sleep. With reishi I did not take it everyday before bed so I cannot say what long term effects are, but once in a while I slept really great if I happened to throw some on my tongue.

Oh yeah, I also mixed some reishi in some vodka. A small amount less than a third of a shot I'd say. Yes I was at a party, other than that I did not drink. Basically I went straight to sleep. I was very tired anyway. I wonder what a good tincture would be like however.

5. preparation. One day I'll find a resihi fruiting body in the woods and make tea. But this time I just used powdered herb. I find that I have the greatest effect just dissolving and mixing with my saliva the powder on my tongue. Mixing in water is cool. Hot water is also cool, but I like the immediate boost on my tongue. Unfortunately it usually gets all over my clothes and I look a little dirty. It's quite fitting for me anyway so whatever.

What I didn't really see: in the past from reishi tea, prepared from a tea bad with extracted reishi I believe, I noticed the slower alpha brainwave thing. I did not get too calm and steady on this reishi powder however. I was either tired, or just less stressed. The second part I really liked though. The preparation of these herbs is crucial. Maybe I should try keeping it in warm water for 4 hours, or hot water and simmer for a bit. Who knows.

Next questions of followup. I rarely mixed reishi with things. Occasionally I did a little ashwagandha, and that was more energizing. But I did not experiment much with that. I'd like to have the mental clarity effects, and slightly mentally relaxing/present moment effects, without falling asleep in the morning when I usually have more mental energy. I will try it with green tea, coffee (I actually did do that but I did not mix enough to notice anything), more ashwagandha, and maybe some ginseng. I'll update again soon!

dream and sleep at the same time and then remember,
Avishek

The Present Moment

2011-03-01T23:00:00.001-05:00

This is a quick post before I pass out on my laptop.

What is the present moment?

It is sensation. Devoid of perception, but simply sensation. Perception is the integration of sense data, to higher structures in the brain. It tells us what our next plans of action are. But here and now in the present moment, there is only what is in front of us. Without any words attached.

It's like being a snail. He moves, shifts his eyes around. That's it. He competes from time to time, is burdened like us, but does not have words. He may plan his next meal, but the present moment is so much easier to obtain without the noisy stressful barrage of thoughts.

If we could stay in that present moment, without words, I was wondering if suffering would decrease. My hypothesis is yes indeed. But as I mentioned, the snail experiences much stress. The cheetah whose prize after a successful hunt is taken away by a pack of Hyenas, may be irked.

Here's an example:
If I see a beautiful girl sitting at this coffee shop (OMG I DON'T DRINK COFFEE HAHAHA, ok trying to be relevant here, I could say herbal exotic tropical tea shop, but then I'd obviously talk to everyone there, and actually I'm trying coffee on my body again to gain more perspective) . . .

I could do a couple things.

Walk up, tap her on shoulder, and say, hi, what's your name?

In the present moment, I see something I like, and act. It's not even a desire, it's a basal need, instinct, animalistic, like picking a banana off of a tree. In that moment, very little exists besides basic animalistic trains of thoughts, but not real articulated thoughts. I've been doing this a lot, and it's fun.

In a more "normal" situation, I may stare a little, envision myself going up to her, but have a lot of extraneous thoughts, such as "it's gonna be awkward, she's going to think I'm weird." What is awkward anyway? Last time something was awkward for me . . . But yes, much noise.

So that's the present moment.

We should cultivate it in times where our thoughts stress us out. Of course not all the time. Our perceptions help us plan for the future, based on knowledge of the past, or complex analysis. But sometimes, too much perception is clouded by the words in our minds, and it hurts us. So this time, let's just be animals.

This past week, I've been trying to live on animalistic action, not desire, but instinct, without so many words, coupled with the enlightened non-attachment I've been working on. It's simple, but evolved.

here and now,
Avishek

Ginger to make you tip top

2011-02-10T19:00:00.003-05:00

So I'm going to a friend's house tonight, where the residents hold a lot of potlucks and stuff and share the experience of making great food. They wanted to do something with ginger, and asked me to go and "talk about it." I was like yeah! But I don't even know anything really about ginger. (I don't really know anything anyway and that's another philosophical topic for another time). I know it's great for digestion, colds, and boosting testosterone. It's hot and pungent which is good for kapha types in ayurvedic medicine who are basically people who develop a lot of congestion and mucus problems and weight gain and are more loving. Now I've never felt a raw high from ginger, but we cannot always look for those immediate results. As much as I like immediate boosts in energy, I accept that there are things we can do for ourselves that work under the surface to keep us healthy in the long term. So here is some research that I could find in like half an hour while drinking some leftover reishi and ashwagandha.

In this one Ayurvedic book I read, ginger is recommended before meals to stimulate digestion. In Ayurveda, digestion is paramount for overall health. if you digest your food well you are healthy. If you have gas, acid reflux, constipation, and other digestive problems, you should look to fix up the diet a little bit. The reason why people eat raw food diets is because uncooked foods contain greater amounts of enzymes, and therefore digest easier. Also since the amount of digestive enzymes decrease as we age, eating foods with enzymes should prevent that decline in digestive ability. I do not agree with this because it does not address the cause of the decrease in digestive capability. One doctor told me stress plays a large role in this decline, especially with reducing acids in the stomach. Other than that I do not understand what the root causes are and will learn in many years. Maybe decades, but the point is . . .

Ginger stimulates digestive enzymes in the pancreas, as well as increasing bile flow. Now that study actually used a bunch of different common spices such as coriander, cumin, turmeric. Actually they are very indian in nature, and the study comes from India. Anyway if you think your digestion is important for your health take some spices!

This book called Ginger: a Versatile Healing Herb says ginger stimulates saliva and gastric secretions, and contains enzymes that increase gall bladder functioning. Actually that book looks great I should purchase that.

This study shows how a few constituents in ginger may bind to a certain serotonin receptor, improving anxiety, as well as reducing nausea. The book I linked to earlier pointed to several studies that documented ginger's anti-nausea effect. This may be why you were given ginger-ale during sickness. Fresh ginger root is better though :).

This study looked at the ability of ginger to decrease a type of coagulation, via fibrinolysis. The point is that after feeding 50 grams of butter to people with toast, fibrinolytic activity decreased quite a bit. With ginger the fibrinolytic activity increased. That's cool! In this study ginger at a dose of 10 grams helped patients with coronary artery disease prevent platelet aggregation. A dose of 4 grams daily did not do anything though!

What I did know was that ginger is anti-bacterial. I heard it does prevent the good bacteria in your system from being wiped out. That same book I keep referencing says that it reduces amounts of E. coli and Staphylococcus while increasing Lactobacillus, one of the major strains of bacteria in our gut! This anti-bacterial effect does hand in hand with stimulating the immune system and the circulation. Ginger helps with cold hands and feet, says this almighty book on ginger.

There are many many many more benefits to ginger. I'll keep researching but I'd rather not get too carried away at the moment. It has benefits in relieving cough, flu-like symptoms, and studies show it has potential use with arthritis. I'm very surprised in finding that anti-anxiety effect. I will pick up a huge bulb of it tomorrow! It looks like its a staple almost to have in the diet, except for maybe in the summer times when your digestion is generally better.

How to use

Eat it raw. Take a sharp rock, and peel the root, then take a nice bite out of it before your meal to improve your digestion! YAY! To cook with it, I'd think that it might be nice to add it in the last 5 minutes left of cooking because it will go soft very quickly. Sometimes this adds new properties to the food, but it will dampen its power. I've heard that cooking pungent spices and foods like onions and garlic and ginger give more anabolic, or building properties. This definitely makes sense because if you have ever steamed vegetables, you may have noticed they just feel more satiating. So that could be a good use for ginger in certain cases. I read that mixing a slice of it with lemon juice is even better for digestion. You could dip it in honey too, which is great for digestion as it is actually considered hot and drying, good for removing impurities from the system before eating a meal. I'm gonna eat it raw mostly, and maybe make some teas out of it. It's going to be interesting carrying around ginger with me on campus.

Sleep,
Avishek

Reishi, Ganoderma

2011-02-08T20:10:00.000-05:00

I will be experimenting with the medicinal mushroom Reishi for a month or so. It's name is also Ganoderma lucidum. It is considered an herb of immortality. I felt immortal yesterday when I took it for sure.

I will try it during my fasts, before working out, after, upon waking, before bed, on a low carb diet, before meditation, before studying, and many other things and I'll report what I find.

So far, I noticed heightened focus. The same type of feeling I usually get in the front of my head, similar to that produced by fasting, cacao, hemp seeds, good food in general.

In the past though I remember an epic calmness emanating from the back of my head. I feel more energetic than calm as of now taking it, but I will vary the dose. I've taken light doses so far. I will boil it, steep it, or take it in cold water. Will not make tinctures. Maybe I'll cook with it?

Anyway, I have heard its great for spirituality, as it's so calming to the mind. I also heard it opens up the heart. I felt that yesterday I know, just an elevation in mood and sincerity combined with the immortality. I really liked that.

So in a short while I'll make a more in depth post on Reishi, the herb of immortality. Until then

sleep
-Avishek

Intermittent Feasting Update

2011-02-01T11:06:00.000-05:00

Last week, the first week of the semester, I attempted eating 1 meal a day for the rest of my life. At this point in my life I learned to recognize my inherent tendencies to the extreme. I knew I would probably run into a problem, but I still wished to proceed.

I talked about this feeling in my head of more blood flow accompanied with increased attentional focus, memory, cognition during a good fast. That stopped after Wednesday. I am not sure exactly what it could be. A hypothesis could be the lack of carnitines in my system to transport the fats to my brain, from not eating any meat. I would like to follow a paleolithic style diet, I have been for a while, but usually I do not have enough money to spend on so much meat. I did get a job so that should change soon.

So I'd like to explain a not so good fast. The absence of that mental focus in my brain has an interesting impact. My mind is more focused on food during these times, but with the ketones and carnitines (probably those) in my brain, the mind is focused on doing something. From trying to learn the language of my instincts so much, I decided that it probably was not a good fast. Truly though, I am not sure what the levels of ketones in my blood were. When I have the money I'll purchase some ketone strips and have more updates.

As of now, it is relatively easy for me to eat only once or twice a day. So that is what I shall stick to, but if it doesn't feel great I won't. Today for example, I decided to eat breakfast at 15 hours into a fast, only because I didn't have that feeling in my mind. I did have abundant physical energy however, and I got this interesting jittery feeling I sometimes have when fasting, a desire to move around. Anyway, these are some simple things to look for.

I feel as if fasting in the morning helps promote alertness as well, because the body may still be digesting food particles from before. Eating in general turns on a brain chemical called orexin, which stimulates sleep. This is trivial though because I feel as if eating a good meal should make one more energetic always. But still in fasting mode, the body will crank out more adrenaline to keep you awake, so I guess it is better than coffee. I don't drink that stuff..don't need to.

Rest,
Avishek

Being healthy is so affordable, and more on Intermittent Feasting

2011-01-26T20:47:00.004-05:00

Here are pictures of my meal yesterday. I've been eating what you could call a "subsistence diet" or something. Brown rice cooked in turmeric, and sunflower seeds was my diet monday and tuesday (which consisted of only one big meal). I decided to add some beans in yesterday. Today I got a small bag of pecans and ate that along with brown rice cooked with turmeric, black beans, a garlic clove or two raw, soaked sunflower seeds, and meditation. Of course I drink herbs such as ashwagandha, ginseng. Right now I'm using tea bags, so that might be more expensive, but if you're using bulk herbs that's pretty cheap. I also actually had some leftover meat so I included that. But if you do not include that it's basically pretty subsistence. It's also vegetarian, actually it's vegan if you did not notice. Today I was vegan, yesterday not, monday and tuesday almost vegan except for a tiny bit of raw cheddar mmmmcious cheese. It's not by my choice, but because my mind is over my matter and I focus on needs and necessities instead of getting hung up about food and the diet my genes are necessarily meant to eat as determined 500000 years ago.

Brown rice: 1.XX a pound
Beans - 2.XX a pound
Sunflower seeds - 2.99/lb

Generally, these are NOT foods that I normally eat. It's only because since school has started I have not gone shopping. Mind over matter, again. The Avishek 1 year ago would have been freaked out I was eating beans because of all the anti-nutrients or something. Now I would rather not eat sunflower seeds too because I'm trying to eat more saturated fat and less polyunsaturated. But then I realize I subscribe to nutritional science, or nutritionism. Therefore I realize again there are some great things in those seeds that provide high nutrition. The post I just linked to is a must read; Stephan puts a huge concept in very succinct abstract sense.

Why do many people give up on eating healthily because it seems to be more expensive? Because many are in a comfort zone and are not ready to change their diet to foods that are obviously cheap and nourishing? Of course. Honestly the past few days I've eaten a much lower amount of fat than ever before, but I feel surprisingly great. That's out of my comfort zone which includes copious amounts of cheeses and meats and butter and FATTTTTT for my TESTOSTERONEE. I hope I detoxify something today. I pray. During the fast my body is burning so much fat there probably is no hunger for fat. (don't know if I interpreted that right). I think basically if your body is burning a lot of fat hunger for fat is reduced.

Also many may not eat more affordably because they're addicted to the food served in "on the go" places and fast food places. I had a revelation about this the other day as I voraciously CHOMPED on a soft glob of cheese melted in the fresh hot rice I made. It was like masturbation and sex. I am so so serious right now. Often times during sex, or masturbation, these is a desire to hit the big O, for men especially. This results in going faster to climax. Have you ever tried going as slowly as possible? Not slow enough to fall asleep, but slow in that you feel the source of the pleasure, control it, and enjoy it with complete control. The big O is usually better that way anyway. That's why there are thousands of years of research on that (Tantra).

With chewing food, we also sometimes chew fast because the flavors are pleasuring. The aroma travels to the limbic system and become part of some reward circuit in the brain, just like orgasms and having sex too fast. I realized that that pleasure I experienced from chewing the cheese and rice at the same time was happening in the same place as from masturbating too fast. When I say I realized it, I would equate it to an epiphany. It just felt like I was going through almost the same experience, in a different way. Immediately I began to eat and masturbate as slowly as possible and really focus on where my pleasure was coming from. Once you can make these changes a lot more things are possible.

Here is what I ate after my 23-24 hour fast yesterday:

6 handfuls of rice. Normally if I do not fast I eat 2.5-3 after a regular workout. With a bit of the ground 2/3 grassfed beef some sunflower seeds and some pieces of garlic finely chopped by my bicuspids. If you're good at I Spy you'll see em.

Just a couple handfuls of black beans cooking. My first time cooking straight up black beans I think..didn't really know how to do it.

After I very very slowly devoured four handfuls of the rice I cooked, here are the beans on top. Oh I forgot, there are some chunks of cheese I had leftover. Today however there was none of that. Cheese really drains my bank account...

And that's how you eat cheaply, it's really not that hard. I think most of it comes down to getting over addictions to food. Eating at McDonalds is not as cheap as eating what I'm eating. The only reason I keep talking about eating cheaply is because it is relevant to poorer urban areas and poorer families in general. Often times they feel as if it is not possible because fruits and vegetables cost a lot. Yes those will cost more, unless you grow them, especially vegetables which you could use more of, fruit not as much needed with staples like rice and beans and potatoes and quinoa which provide plenty of glucose. Also many poor people who do not exercise should probably watch their sugar consumption. This is not a post on urban gardening however and the ins and outs of eating cheaply and the problems of eating healthy in urban areas.

Although not all the nutrients I need are in my food, my body has a good store of fat soluble vitamins, some of which I'd find from vegetables and dairy and meat, which I have eaten a lot of. Check out the potato diet guy. He is not going to die.

That's about it. And also, I will be fasting 22-24 hours every day for as long as I possible can. Been three days so far and I feel just wonderful. Oh yeah, and in the future, I want to try to subsist on even less food. Right now athletic performance is my goal, but in the future, its gonna be rice and lentils, e'er day.

New CHALLENGE: Intermittent FEASTING

2011-01-24T21:44:00.004-05:00

It's actually intermittent fasting, but you might as well call it intermittent feasting. This might give those who are unfamiliar with running on no food for over 16 hours at a time some extra motivation. I have been following Martin Berkhan's blog for a while, and I've read up on some of the science. Combined with the Raw Highs I've felt while IFing, I've made it a major addition to my lifestyle. It is also convenient to not eat when I have classes in the morning non-stop. It's also nice to just relax and eat a ton of food at night when the day's work is done.

It is simple to feast intermittently. You eat a lot one day for dinner. The next morning, you may have slight hunger in your stomach, which is totally natural, but all you have to do is skip that first meal. An hour or so after the time you would have eaten breakfast, you may feel more energetic. As the sun peaks, you may have even MORE energy. I will explain this in a second so you can determine how to gauge how good your fast is. After a few more hours, during mid-afternoon, you may be ready to break the fast. It's a great time to hit the gym, or jungle, and lift stuff, run, workout. After that, you FEAST. I'm not always that hungry though, so I don't gobble down food anyway.

First, some different ways you can IF.
Martin Berkhan advocates 16 hour fasts. He recommends this because it seems like a safe way to diet without burning off muscle tissue, since that is what our culture seems to be very interested in. You can certainly gain strength and muscle mass IFing, because you can maintain a caloric surplus and still burn fat, due to the physiological changes that occur during the 16-36 hours or so you choose to fast. I will refer you to this excellent post on the topic. I could link you to many more but I must head to bed and hopefully wake up at sunrise. Check out any of the posts under "research."

16 hours though is way too easy. It's like level 1 fasting. The benefits of fasting are very great. I have not studied it however, or read any books on it, but from what I've heard, especially from the doctor below, it's "THE GREAT HEALER," that will allow you to TRANSCEND CONSCIOUSNESS. Seriously though, I respect Dr. Gabriel Cousens. He claims to have cured three cases of type I diabetes. He makes fasting sound wondrous. I'm more interested in the detoxification benefits I can get from fasting. I'd like to learn in detail how the organs are functioning during this time.

Considering that people go on water fasts for 20 days, some people for 40 days or even more, then 20 hours is not that hard. It can become very spiritual. The worst thing you can do during a fast imo is get stressed out. Trying to reach X amount of hours while you're starving is hurting your body. Sit in a room quietly with eyes closed and thank yourself for trying something new, and thank your body for its incredible ability to handle no food for a short period of time.

The reason I'm doing this challenge is because I myself have been IFing so much lately, I thought it would be a nice slightly painful challenge. I was thinking for my next challenge I wanted it to involve pain, and stress. I was thinking I'd start a challenge to see how many nights in a row you could deprive yourself of sleep while taking adaptogenic herbs. I think I may still do that. If you're a silly goose and you eat all the time when your stomach hurts, then this will involve some pain. After a few hours though you may get accustomed to the hunger and realize you think better and have more energy.

During a fast your body burns ketones. They are fats that are not stored anywhere in the body, so if unused, you pee them out. To detect levels of ketones, people often use ketosis strips to detect for the presence of ketones in the urine. Ketones burn very very quickly, like glucose, unlike regular fatty acids. The brain can also burn them. I found a paper a while ago titled "acylcarnitines: role in brain," which is probably free online. It talked about briefly how during a fast, carnitines transport the ketones into the brain. I noticed that I felt very focused in the front of my head when fasting. I also felt the same way in the past on carnitine supplements! Especially the acetylated version, acetyl-L-carnitine. Even if you take regular carnitines, some your body will probably acetylate anyway. At least that's what I think because I always felt very mentally focused from carnitine supplements that were not acetylated. It could just be my genetics of course.

So, there are many days I do NOT at all feel the heightened pressure and focus in the front of my head. Fasting can be a stressor to the body, so if done improperly, you won't have as much of a raw high.

So this is what I do to decide if I should fast. I wake up. DO my morning stretches, yoga, walking, meditating, drinking tea, etc. After an hour, I may eat breakfast, but I do not. In one MORE HOUR, if I DO NOT feel that focused pressure in my head, I eat something. If I feel really focused mentally, I CANNOT even eat anything, as my brain tells me not to eat. It says "you are fasting my friend, have a wondrous day, meditate as well."

Some of the effects produced by a good healthy, 18ish hour fast will be:
-desire to run, perform physical activity
-desire to work, due to increased metabolic rate
-mental clarity
-hormone balancing perhaps, at least in rats for sure
- of course...lipid reduction, which you can easily gain back however if you eat tons of icecream for instance.
-martin berkhan said cortisol is reduced, but he usually points to scientific studies, which in my opinion are completely irrelevant when it comes to an issue such as that, which is so variable among individuals based on their life's circumstances. Extended fasts for days will undoubtedly raise cortisol, but it would be very interesting to see if my own cortisol drops from an 18 hour fast.

Since the body burns ketones and glucose at the same time, you are basically really really hyper. There is no need to take additional stimulants, as your levels of norepinephrine should be pretty high. It would be better in fact for weight loss to meditate and take sedatives which would reduce cortisol while maintaining ketosis, especially in those types who naturally have high cortisol. Just a theory...so many people take coffee and just continually stress the body out.

Anyway, that's all! After the fast, just eat lots of carbs, as carbs raise leptin which raises your metabolism via thyroid hormones, testosterone, etc. You can certainly try to continue the fast and eat zero-carb, perhaps just a slab of animal flesh, or some nuts, but monitor your energy levels. In that sense, fast refers to the deprivation of carbohydrates, not necessarily all food. I have done that before and I did it because my brain was telling me to continue fasting. Since I am trying to get physically stronger and faster, I ate some protein to safely continue the fast. My brain was on fiiiire though that day.

Requirements for participation:
-3 times a week IFing. At least. That's it. Just jump into it don't be afraid!
-Email me once a week for 4 weeks on how you are doing, and what you are learning about your body. A reason I do these challenges is because it allows me to grow as a person. Hopefully you will too.

That's it..it's quite a natural way of living.

bienvenue,
Avishek

Brief Introduction to Chinese Medicine - Part II

2011-01-23T21:18:00.000-05:00

In Part I, we talked about the differences in mindset regarding traditional chinese medicine (TCM) with modern Western medicine. I did this to elucidate why TCM can benefit our lives. In this post, I will briefly mention it's history, and then give a brief lesson on it, again over-viewing the thought processes in this system. I am not a certified herbalist, or accredited Naturopath so my understanding of this is very minimal. You basically should not believe anything I write here, or you'll have a raw high.

TCM, and ayurvedic herbalism, are based on thousands of years of research. There is also a system of Western herbalism, that has built upon the knowledge from Greeks and Romans. However it has not evolved much since then, and its depth is nowhere near that of TCM and ayurvedic herbalism. Dr. Michael Tierra, author of "Planetary Herbology," shared how in school thirty years ago, he wanted to integrate Western herbalism into the language of TCM and ayurveda. His teacher told him it would take centuries to do so as that is why the Chinese and Indian systems are so articulate. Diseases are classified based on energetics, not biochemistry, and Teirra argues that this classification of herbs can cover a wider range of ailments than modern science can today (1). The least we can agree on is that TCM and ayurevda are just as complicated as Western medicine. I believe that combining biochemical knowledge of foods can greatly advance TCM. However it would also take away from the beauty of the abstract, holistic approach to healing in this system.

There are many accounts as to when TCM was first discovered. It is at least 3000 years old, when in the Chou Dynasty in 1128 B.C, a system began to evolve to treat diseases. Around 400 -200 B.C, the Five Elements Theory developed. Around this time, one of the first medical textbooks was written, the Nei Jing. The five elements theory "compares the human body to a small universe" (2). These five elements are part of a life cycle that generate and restrain each other. The first element is water. With water comes wood (water generates wood), like trees for instance. Wood is used to make fire, and fire burns wood to create earth. And earth can turn into metal when crystallized. Another pattern in this cycle is the restraining or destroying aspect of life. Water extinguishes fire, wood takes from earth, fire melts metal, earth soaks water, and metal cuts wood.

(From Between Heaven and Earth)

The organs are a part of the same cycle. The kidneys and urinary bladder are water, the liver and gallbladder wood, heart and small intestine is fire, spleen and stomach earth, large intestine and lung are metal. Herbs act on these organs. But so does, food, lifestyle, and emotions. All these organs are connected to other energy centers in the body, called meridians. There are twelve of them, and most are located along a mid-sagittal tract along the front and back of the spine. These meridians generally transmit energy to the organs. Their story is very intriguing. Some say that early medical practitioners, during their intense meditations, felt these meridians, and followed up with tangible research to prove them true (3). Each organ is associated with a meridians, along with the pericardium and triple burner, two energy centers that function with the heart.

So to recap, the organs basically govern everything, and everything in our environment influences their functioning. It's a bit difficult to accept this because it means we have to do more work to keep ourselves healthy. We need to take time during the day to calm down, or heat up through exercise, think positive thoughts, reduce stress, etc. Through proper diagnosis, once the balance is brought back, the body will heal itself. This is an important concept; in the words of Michael Tierra, "the primary focus of holistic herbalism is to support the body's inherent healing capacities" (Tierra 27). Therefore, any herb we take is really helping the body heal itself.

Climates, and Emotions:

Manifestations of illness in the body can resemble climates, such as hot, cold, damp, windy, or dry. The five emotions are anger, joy, sorrow, rumination, and fear. These emotions and climates are also associated with the elements. How lovely. Change your favorite number to 5 now.

You can still be in a cold climate and have conditions associated with heat however. It is the internal processes that resemble the climates.

Wind problems: It is unpredictable, rising and falling. Wind corresponds to spring, during the wood phase when life is growing, sprouting, and chirping. Harriet Beinfield, author of Between Heaven and Earth says "the concept of wind refers not only to the movement of air, but to the capricious, foreboding nature of shifting conditions; hence the expressions 'winds of war' and 'blown away'" (5). Jerky movement, dizziness, uncoordination, soreness, itching, sensitivity of skin and muscles, and symptoms that shift to different places in the body are typical of wind issues. It also results in the cold and flu, with dizziness, and joint pain as common symptoms. Unstable emotions, seizures, and strokes are also on this list. Wind can also carry any of the other climates into the body.

(abundancesecrets.com)

Heat issues: Inflammation, hypertension, and fever are characteristic of heat excess. Heat goes with which season do you think? Yes, winter. Nope, just kidding, summer, duh. A lot of swelling and pain, and feelings of increased warmth are common. It moves towards the surface, like perspiration. Increased metabolic activity, prolonged from a stressful lifestyle will result in heat invading the body. Intense emotions like anger, ecstacy, or embarrassment all produce heat in the body, as seen by blushing for example. Acne and excessive sweating and thirst are classic. If you are aversive to the heat then it is clear you need some peppamint to cool yourself down as well.

Damp issues: Slow, heavy, lethargic, stuck, sinking, collecting. Fluid buildup, or excess secretion. Stubborn circulation. Late summer, and the Earth phase in the seasons when activity is waning. Beinfield writes: "the air is motionless, the water is still, the atmosphere is heavy." Feeling sluggish, indifferent, bored, depleted, can be signs of dampness. Oily skin, edema, swollen joints are some manifestations. Mucus, congestion, phlegm, blocked sinuses are internal problems.

Dryness: Thrives in autumn with the metal phase. Brittle hair, nails, dry stools, dehydration, itchy eyes, and scanty urine. Hot or windy weather can produce dryness outside or inside the body. Loss of bodily fluids for instance, such as blood, leads to dryness.

Cold: I thought I despised cold, but I'm so used to it now I think I've turned into a Scandinavian. SO perhaps a great way to handle these climates is to actually expose ourselves to them! The interplay between heat and cold in the body needs to be balanced. Eating too much hot spicy, food, or damp cold food will affect the metabolism unfavorably. Beinfield writes that many medicines such as antibiotics and antacids deplete heat in the body and result in inflammatory conditions down the line such as allergies, eczema, asthma, arthritis, and candidasis. Cold is associated with the water phase, and of course, winter. Eating too much cold food can hamper the digestive fire in the stomach so is not recommended to begin a meal. Slower circulation is typical of cold illnesses.

The emotions. Any of the emotions taken in excess weaken the body. Being angry increases blood sugar, and stress. Being overly joyous can cause one to become weak with laughter.
Role of the Organs I've never felt weak from laughter however, and I can laugh at anything, so I wonder how much some people have had to laugh to literally die. On wikipedia it says about twenty-five minutes. Anyway, rumination causes sluggishness. Sorrow is "like the drying leaves of autumn" (6), and leads to even more stagnation. Fear also sinks energy. From Beinfield: "Wind and anger particularly injure the liver, heat and joy the heart, dampness and rumination the spleen, dryness and sorrow the lung, and cold and fear the kidney."

Role of organs

As I mentioned, there are ten organs, and five elements. Organs are either Yang or Yin, or Zhang (primary) or Fu (secondary). The Zhang organs are the heart, lung, liver, spleen, and kidney. The Fu organs are the small intestine, large intestine, gall bladder, stomach, and urinary bladder, listed in the same order as the zhang organs. The heart is the king of our internal system, as it pumps the blood to all areas of the body. As Esther King says, "if your king is strong, your country will flourish (4). It needs the small intestine's help to nourish blood. The lung is like the queen of the kingdom, oxygenating the blood. It also controls the Qi, pronounced "chi," meaning energy or life force. The lungs need a healthy large intestine to keep the system unclogged. The commander of the blood is the liver, which stores and disperes it throughout the body. The Gall Bladder helps out the liver by sending bile to the small intestine to digest food. And if you think about it, the small intestine, (fire), is regulated by the gall bladder/ Liver network (wood). That should make some sense. Next, the Spleen, distributes nutritive essence, in conjunction with the stomach, who processes it. Lastly, the Kidneys regulate reproduction, and energy levels. It's very very important. It cooperates with the Urinary Bladder to eliminate toxins and water. Chronic fatigue, or adrenal insufficiency, a very common condition today, is associated with depleted kidneys.

Now that we sort of understand this, I'll add that tastes, colors and emotions are also associated with organs. There is a wonderful table in a wonderful post on this. I like Ester Ting's perspective on this. She grew up in a family of doctors, and thought she was doing a great job learning about chinese medicine. Then one day she developed a cyst that caused her to almost bleed to death. She realized that she never got over her father's death back when she was much younger in her late teens. After recovering from her illness, she realized how emotions have a primary role in causing illness. Too many of us just want the herbs and foods, but our brains and emotions are not healthy. Even modern science, at least psychology, is accepting how suppressing emotions leads to diseases in the future. You do not want to bury an emotion.

Now let's talk about yin and yang, a fundamental principle in chinese energetics. Yin and Yang are are like night and day, cold and warmth, childhood and adulthood, sleeping and waking, nonaction and action, yoga and weightlifting. Water, earth, and metal, and wood and fire. Yin would be patient, Yang would be impatient. Yin would be the tortoise, whereas Yang would be the rabbit. Without yin, yang withers. Without yang, yin is dormant.

People can be categorized according to this. People can also be classified according to the five element theory for more complexity. Yin types may develop problems in the same organs as Yang types, but will have different manifestations. Yin types will have slower metabolisms, be aversive to the cold, have excess mucus buildup and respiratory problems, and may gain weight faster. They hold more water, and this is seen in the kidneys. Warm, spicy, bitter, and pungent foods are better. It's way more complex than this though. It's very similar to the tri dosha theory in ayurveda. Yin types can be metal, earth or water types. All of this can be tied into emotional patterns and symptoms associated with certain climates.

Yang types may suffer from the opposite, heat, more frequently. This heat can dry out the kidneys, and deplete the energy. This is common among "workaholics." The wood and fire type tend to deplete yang. They need to cool down more often to balance themselves. They need sweet cooling heavy foods to nourish the kidneys. In biochemical terms, these people may overproduce cortisol, and develop HPA axis suppression, adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue, as well as many other things I cannot list due to simplicity.

However, I believe many people do somehow follow these principles. People choose to eat something cool, like a watermelon, on a hot day, or warm soup during the winter, without studying this theory! They are called cravings, and people should follow them. (This doesn't mean cake, I'll talk about that shortly). The most intense craving I had recently was for cheese. I was eating a plant based low saturated fat low protein diet a while ago. I went out to My Organic Market, and consumed about one thousand calories of raw cheese. Yes, ONE THOUSAND CALORIES OF YUMMY RAW CHEESE, COLBY AND CHEDDAR. I felt so good I wondered why people did drugs. It was truly a raw high, one of the best I eva had. We need to follow these cravings. When we hear about the next antioxidant oozing blueberry superfood however, we may convince ourselves to go against these instincts. The biochemical reasons for eating food infiltrate our consciousness. Eating oranges in the cold may not be good for you even though they have tons of bioflavonoids and vitamin C which supposedly protects against the cold. The watery cold fruit brings dampness to the body, and if you're not a yang type, it could cause some issues. (But i'm not certain about this, makes sense though). Following your instincts does not mean eating a box of cookies because you crave sweets. I like to compare it to learning a language, the language of your gut hormones, neuropeptides, endocrine signaling, all as words you can listen to. Once you learn to eat pure foods, whole foods, REAL foods, following your instincts is my number one recommendation. Before that however it may mean a cookie binge. You may crave a cake because it is sweet, heavy, and fatty. You need to apply this type of sensation to REAL food and binge on that, like I did with cheese. It's hard work! Not really, but it's fun to think this way about the signaling in your body.

Classification of Foods and Herbs

Foods are generally warming, cooling, drying, moisturizing, heavy, sweet, cold, bitter, pungent, spicy, astringent, salty, sour, and many other things. I will refer you to Chinese Nutrition Therapy, where you can find a list of foods characterized by their energy on page 22. If you are a Yang type, prone to stress, exhaustion, and heat issues, take cooling foods and herbs such as mint, dairy, sweet cold fruit, and meditation practice. If you are a yin type, take warmer, bitter, pungent, dispersing herbs and foods such as cayenne, ginger, garlic, lamb, ginseng and turmeric. For further reading look at any of the references below.

Remember these words at least from Dr. Teirra "the primary focus of holistic herbalism is to support the body's inherent healing capacities (Tierra 27)."

Food and herbs are all energy medicine one Naturopathic Doctor told me once. Daily spiritual practice, healthy emotions and thought patterns are also energy that can be used to heal. Energy medical practitioners believe that illnesses manifest first in the energy field around our bodies. Emotions, thoughts, words we speak, the subconscious judgements, aversions, and attachments are therefore of primary importance. It is much harder to change thought patterns than drink a decoction of turmeric, even though that's a bitter brew! An herb applied internally to an angry stressed out or depressed individual will not have a great effect. That can definitely be explained scientifically, biochemically. TCM is a truly holistic practice, that combines physical, emotional, and mental signs to diagnose and treat illness. Some people favor the physical, others the emotional. Whatever works for you. Hopefully some of the knowledge here you can apply right away. I have shown you a very brief overview however, and a full diagnosis is up to a professional Naturopath. I'm just a badass backstreet boy blogger. Yes I am.

References:
1. Tierra, Michael. Planetary Herbology. 1988.
2. Hsu, Hong Yen. Peacher, William G. Chinese Herb and Medicine Universe. 1982.
3. Teeguarden Ron. Chinese Tonic Herbs. 1984
4. Ting Esther, Jas Marianne. Total Health the Chinese Way. 2009.
5. Beinfield Harriet, Korngold Efrem. Between Heaven and Earth, 64. 1991.
6. Ibid, 68.

in peaceful awareness,
Avishek

One Dharma - quotes

2011-01-23T17:58:00.001-05:00

Here are some quotes from this book I read on Buddhism. I am currently expanding my spiritual health, and awareness, so I am spending more time meditating. I question more these days how to live a true lifestyle. How should one live? This is such a fundamental question. I feel people need to spend time thinking about their actions, thoughts, behaviors, subconsciousness, in order to excel in what they do. Here are some quotes I liked from this book, One Dharma, by Joseph Goldstein. By the way, when I looked at his picture on the back of the book, I felt an instant sense of peace, and fell into a meditative state. I'm really prone to things like this.

Also, this type of learning is very difficult. I realized my brain was getting tired easily from reading this type of abstract material, as it really made me philosophize without even realizing it. Anyway, please think about some of these quotes and whether they fit your idea of living a true life. For myself, I agreed with a lot of notions, but there were some things I had to wait on.

109: "In order to attain the state of peace, one should be able, upright, straightforward, easy to speak to, gentle, and not proud."

121: "..compassion is the activity of emptiness . . . Compassionate action is the natural responsiveness of awareness free of self: no one there "doing" anything.

136: "It's as if we are leaning into the next moment, leaning into the flow of phenomena, as if somehow the next breath, the next moment will provide resolution. . . . we attend to one experience in order to have the next"

"the mind of no clinging is open and vast. It is receptive to everything, but holds on to nothing."

138 "It is one thing to refrain from attachment to views as a way of avoiding endless arguments and thus abide more calmly amidst the opinions of the world; it is another to realize that attachment itself, to any view, is a contraction of the mind, a bond, a fetter."

144: "Sense pleasures, views and opinions, notions of self - these are the arenas of grasping that seduce us again and again."

"When attachment and aversion are both gone, the Way is clear and undisguised."

148: "Meditation practice is the practice of seeing impermanence, very directly and intimately."
- impermanence refers to the temporary nature of things. So Goldstein is saying we are trying to free ourselves from the attachment to things around us, senses, physical things, people.

149: "It's better to live a single day seeing the momentary rise and fall of phenomena than to live a hundred years without seeing this" - Buddha

"material elements, feelings, perceptoins, mental formations, and consciousness . . . Whenever we cling to any of these arising appearances, there is a feeling of contraction, or limitation."

151: "there is no "thing" called rainbow apart from the particular conditions of air and moisture and light."

156: "the more we perceive this understanding of selflessness directly - that things are not amenable to our will - there is a growing ability to let go, to relinquish the illusion that we are the ones in control, independent of the conditions necessary for something to arise."

Jocelyn King - "it is better to stand on the firm ground of emptiness than on the quicksand of somethingness."

158: "The cooler the mind, the more Nibbana in that moment."

166: on nibbana: "putting down the burden of ceaselessly changing phenomena"

169
"as long as there is any identification with anything, any sense of the "knower," the one knowing, then we are still bound by the conventional, conditioned mind."

170: "Nibbana (nirvana) is the cessation of becoming. "

173: On Nibbana: "untouched by the changing winds of circumstance."

174: "clinging itself is 'doing,' and nonclinging is the natural state of ease . . .nonclinging is both the means and the end."

176: "we begin to have glimpses of the zero center of emptiness, rather than the self-center of ego striving, and this becomes the new force of gravity in our lives . . . things seem to be going on without us-and are much better for it."

- one of the phases reached through daily meditation practice.

177: "when we look for the mind there is nothing to find."

178: " . . . groundlessness indicates that every arising phenomenon is simply empty, meaning that it is insubstantial, having no essential self-nature."

183:
" . . . there is a way of seeing all the different perspectives as a mandala of skillful means, each contributing to our liberation."

-Avishek

Benefits of low or moderate intensity cardio that have been fogotten

2011-01-13T00:44:00.000-05:00

Recently, everyone's started to love high intensity exercise. It's great! I'm addicted to it. And I've hurt my HPA axis and adrenals as a result. (I created unhealthy stress in my body) However, marathoners have also hurt themselves. Any type of exercise taken in very high doses can cause much harm, save for yoga, Tai chi, qi gong, Ba gua martial arts; those meditative ones. Realize that this is kind of general. Many athletes train intensely daily. There are other things going on.

Anyway, I'm keeping this short. High intensity exercises involve short periods of intense activity. "Intense" in this case means you cannot sustain the activity for very long. If you tried lifting 10000 pounds off the ground, how long could you give maximum effort? From zero to six seconds, your body uses stored ATP, so probably around four, maybe ten seconds if you know how to meditate. If you think about a 100 meter dash, in the last twenty to thirty meters, about eight seconds into the race, the athletes begin to slow down. After reaching top speed at about sixty meters, they maintain that speed for only twenty more meters. That's 1.61 seconds for Usain Bolt. As sprint coach Latif Thomas said, you can only maintain top speed for two seconds.

So those first single digit seconds of activity can be the most "intense." After that we still regenerate ATP, up till about twenty seconds. After a bit longer, we get aerobic, and use the oxygen we breathe in to fuel the muscles.

High intensity training is therefore designed to be anaerobic. As a result of the high intensity, your heart rate goes to near maximal levels. After the workout is over, there is a concomitant elevation in basal metabolic rate for a while; you burn more fat post workout. This could last a couple days. Even aerobic exercise, if competitive in nature, will get the heart rate that high. In those cases, that post exercise effect can be even greater. I however am talking about sustained relaxing low intensity exercise, like jogging at a slow pace for fifteen minutes.

So, everyone is saying that low intensity exercise is essentially useless for fat loss, since the high intensity exercise actually burns more calories including the ones caused by the elevation in metabolism. Some people that say this are Dr. Mercola for instance. Stephan of Whole Health Source has said this. Every fitness "expert." Mark Sisson however advocates extremely low intensity exercise, which is different in nature. Those exercises can be performed for hours. Indeed, the longer a very very low intensity exercise is performed, like walking or hiking, the more fat is burned every hour. I read that on mindandmuscle forums but I cannot find the studies at the moment, it was a while ago.

The other benefits are that appetite is affected differently. From my own experience, when I did a lot of cardio a few years ago, I ate so much afterwards. But now as I meditate after my workouts, there is no difference really...still many say that high intensity cardio affects appetite more favorably. Hm, I think that's very subjective. Most people do not meditate when they eat so if they do high intensity cardio, their mind can be flying very fast, and as a result they eat very fast. SO many variables there.

Here is what I have not heard enough. What's the difference between sprinting like a maniac for twenty seconds, for a total of ten times, versus going for a slow jog in nature, paying attention to the beauty of the surroundings?

Stress. You're hearing this from a guy who's workouts have been mostly "high intensity" for the past two and a half years. As a result, I've overtrained quite a bit. My training has been quite unbalanced until now.

Today, I shoveled the snow, and felt so many endorphins. Lifting submaximal loads is a lot easier than normal strength training. As a result I feel "ahead" in a sense, as if I have more control. I'm not drained by any means as I am from lifting something heavy. It's automatically less damaging to the body. I feel much much happier from jogging and slower intensity stuff recently than I do from higher intensity workouts.

Here's some food for thought. The slower workouts promote calmness, lovingkindness, and tranquility. Those traits are important in life when we need to look at a big picture, or serve a large audience, enjoy life, relax after work, and maintain good relationships. And think creatively.

High intensity exercise promotes valor, leadership, testosterone, anger, drive, speed, and analytical thinking (not sure about the thinking I just thought of that actually, but psychological studies have shown that when people think about love, they think more creatively, whereas when they think about sex, they think more analytically. I think somehow that's related to this...) Those traits are good for activities which require higher work output; activities where our intellect can be harnessed to take longer strides in our lives. This is how I'm viewing it all metaphorically. I could explain biochemically, but this late at night I always think in metaphors.

For example I thought of this. "I am not afraid of anything, because I only love everything."

So to recap. It's not about total calories burnt. You cannot burn fat with high levels of stress. Meditate and the fat might burn off. High intensity exercise in the past has released endorphins for me. Usually when I do things involving no resistance, such as running up a hill, or running for longer distances that total forty to sixty seconds at a time, do I feel happier. If I add resistance, such as pushing a heavy object, or sprinting as fast as I possibly can, so I feel more animalistic. My natural tendencies are to be extremely argumentative, angry, and judgmental. It's the Pitta constitutional type in ayurveda. I've changed in so many ways, and so I need exercises and lifestyle choices that promote the opposite so I do not burn out like Pitta types do.

So if you're already very calm and tranquil, go do some damn sprints. (I said it that way to inspire those aforementioned qualities) If you're an overworked workaholic who is very driven, relax and feel the love, and go for a nice stroll.

Dream,
Avishek

P.S, I have some abstract videos on this on my youtube channel, youtube.com/rawathlete.

The changing nature of the tides of thought patters

2011-01-12T00:47:00.003-05:00

Things are changing, I'm changing. I'm meditating more than usual and being more aware of everything, how I react, behave, and feel. When I eat, I meditate and close my eyes as I chew, directing the nutrients to my cells. I walk in the mornings now, and am "letting go" more. I'm actually feeling the third eye more; I believe I am understanding what it is. I cannot hang out with friends because I gain so much pleasure being alone and reading books and being by myself. I'm working to stop being selfish in that manner and letting go of that. I don't have a girlfriend, yet I do not long for a woman. But my libido has been quite high, it's gotten higher after eating more meat actually. Women do smile a lot though which helps me be compassionate.

I realized two days ago something small but significant that I'm sure you can relate to. Multitasking. Why did I do it? I would meditate while the rice was cooking. But my mind constantly shifted every two minutes to check the heat level or the water level. I read while I ate, not paying attention to the food.

I was doing this to go somewhere, but in reality I was stressing the body out. I was trying to get "ahead" and not waste any of my time. As if time was a in a handful of sand being filtered through my fingers. I'm stopping this slowly, to reeeaaaallliiiiizzzzzeeee.

So, I read my first two posts on this blog and noticed my tremendous changes in consciousness in the past year. They are both in the "philosophizing" section; one is about the definition of high, that one's good. The other is a long rant in unmatching font, it was before blogger reformatted stuff. I initially wanted to talk about food on this blog. But now I'm chasing the intangible, the anomalons and nucleons and all these things quantum physicists are trying to locate in order to explain reality. I'm almost thinking I should be a physics major and take calculus again, despite how much I despised it in high school when I realized I loved nutrition. But let's not talk about myself anymore but how this blog is going to change. Not change, evolve.

Food is important. But as I evolve, I realize the "X factor." The X factor, is a force that a fellow commenter on another blog mentioned, that is more important than diet and exercise. It's the mind. It's why people eat unhealthy and seem fine. It's why people who do eat healthy get cancer. It's intangible, but yet it is measurable with modern technology. I could be many factors. And I believe science CAN explain every bit of it, not yet, but it can. The X factor though, like an electron, changes as we locate it. As we bring our awareness to our feelings, they may instantly change.

So when I say this herb will do this this food does that, or exercise is good for you, realize that these are all catalysts for the driving forces in life, such as electricity and a positive worldview. This is taboo in modern science, even though, ironically, only modern scientific methods have been employed to validate theories of electricity regarding human health. Many are summarized in "The Body Electric," by Dr. Robert O'Becker. I'll write a brief synopsis of it soon. I'm not afriad of going in this direction. I probably won't bring it up too much to my professors, or if I do, I'll do it slyly so I can judge their abilities to judge, hehe. I regard the book highly because all it does is present scientific research. No bias, until his rant at the end which I didn't read, which is about some problems in scientists' world views.

Recently a virologist has begun to look into the electrical properties of viruses. He was a nobel prize winner and no one can believe him, because the electromagnetic theories of disease are far fetched to most, to those who have not looked at the research at least. I talked about why this happens in my "why you don't 'believe it'" post with a good analogy, I thought. Well research has shown that modifying the electrical properties of the body can kill viruses and bacteria. It's in "The Body Electric," which I obviously highly recommend.

So more about this X factor versus science. It's easy to understand things in science by looking at the extremes. To understand how a certain gene works, we might turn it off completely in an animal and see the results. A classic example of this is the ob/ob mouse that gets really nice and plump.

If we study mystics, yogis, psychics, saints, other extremes in medicine, yes medicine, we are blown away. Speechless. What? How did they just do that? Heal a wound by looking at it. Heal a fracture in ten minutes through meditation? Cure cancer through prayer? This is far more interesting than chemicals in food. These people control the chemicals in food and those created by exercise. Some yogis could wrestle tigers; and some monks are actually sprinters that can reportedly run faster than Usain Bolt (I really wish I knew more about that but I briefly heard about it somewhere. You're not supposed to know though because then you'll become corrupt, that's the point). I can't let go completely of my analytical abilities, but during meditation, it is important to. The analytical parts of your brain, some of which are on the left side, inhibit the opposing regions in the right brain, as neuroscience explains. You'll want to activate the abstract parts of your right brain to understand yourself and reality and everything I'm saying. I lol'ed very much recently when I read about a yogi who was given LSD. He took a good dose, but said "meditation is better." Another yogi who took LSD insisted on taking three times the dose everyone else was given. Nothing happened to him. He simply smiled soberly trying to make a point.

(http://www.personal-development-coach.net/seven-chakras.html
I haven't read that article yet but coincidentally, it's about personal growth and alternative type energy medicine!)

So I'm about 100% honesty and truth. Many people are, but here's my difference. I do not use the words "myth" or "BS" or "snake oil" or "profit driven" to derive the truth. I may use myth. But as soon as those "emotional" words are mentioned, bias and misinterpretation are the result, rationalization disappears. Think about that. Emotional words. Rarely is the BS that people speak of 100% BS when I look at it. The anger, even though mild, motivates us to disprove something. But we don't ever do it right because our motivations weren't to seek truth. My goal is to stay as centered as possible, never deviating to any extreme. From July 2009 to August 2010, I was a raw foodist. I learned that I easily went to an extreme by adopting an energetically imbalanced diet. However I learned that quickly and so continued being a fruit and vegetable eater for thirteen months mindfully to monitor my health. Now that I understand the role of the mind in health, I think I could still do it, and fight, but meat is definitely better for my development currently, except it does make me very angry at times. So i'm vegetarian once a week. In the future, I'll subsist on rice and lentils.

So I'm not going into any extreme about the X Factor either :). Food DOES matter, but it's role is not certain. There are so many factors that the mind cannot comprehend it. So we have relatively simple statements like, food doesn't matter. It's unintelligent. If you eat wheat full of gluten, no statement can be set in stone about your future health. Food influences so many processes in the body, but so. does. the. mind. (All those periods came from a highly opinionated person, see?) Eating completely healthy food with the most immune enhancing herbs does not guarantee anything (also opinionated). The taoists that reportedly lived to be hundreds of years old did take certain adaptogenic herbs. The nutritionists today who talk about those herbs are far more stressed out than those Taoists. Some are traveling the globe talking about food, constantly interacting with people. The taoist meditated for several hours in stark contrast, stimulating the healing in his body. I think those stressed nutritionists aren't of course as stressed as people doing things they don't enjoy, but constant stimulation is bound to catch up with you unless you have incredible healing powers of a yogi.

So this type of stuff is a lot harder actually than researching nutrition. It's difficult to explain. Even trying to explain it isn't it, because it should not be explained, because it's the analytical mind doing so, when this stuff is part analytical, but without the bias, without the ego, without the concept of self and based more on feel. It's thinking about the way you think. I've started a meditation log, and now a lot of my posts will be on how to think better, deal with things, remove suffering. I know I view the world much much differently than most of my peers. The statement grades don't mean ANYTHING for ANYONE, for instance is something most people would not understand. If I failed school and dropped out, I know I'd be in good hands, still being able to uncover the truth. I believe this from seeing many who are "educated" yet not at all. But there is good in everything, and I plan to get good grades. I've learned quite a bit from my undergraduate studies thus far, and I have learned much from studying the way I think about the way I think and reading books on things I was never ever exposed to. Lastly, I hope my views help people enjoy life more and realize that health does not come from just an herb. Anyway,

I come in awareness,
-Avishek

Why people say "I don't believe it."

2011-01-11T17:31:00.004-05:00

Person Atiki and Person Qmondo, A and Q for short, start at the same point in the middle of an oasis on Mars. Q closes his eyes and falls asleep for ten minutes. A walks eastward, at a pace of three steps every two seconds. Each step is approximately two and a half feet. How far has he gone in ten minutes?

(www.nature-talk.com)

2250 feet. That's over half a mile. Person Q wakes up and says, "wow you are so far away!" He imagines trying to reach A by walking but it seems like it would take considerable effort. Q is attacked by narcolepsy and this time falls asleep for four hours.

Now, A is 54000 feet away. This is about 10.2 miles. Q wakes up and sees a speck in the distance, hazily meshed with the ceaseless horizon. Q is incredulous and has a panic attack and says "I cannot BELIEVE MY EYES!"

This is something I've been studying for a while, connecting it to my studies of health. Here are a few concepts that many people would not be able to believe.
1. Raw meat can be eaten, raw, without getting sick, to improve health
2. Meditating can cure diseases like cancer, it can even remove warts and stop bleeding instantaneously.
3. Chemotherapy is not very effective in curing cancer
4. Carbohydrates kill, through insulin, fructose is the worst
5. If you say a prayer to water, its crystal structure improves and it is better for your health
6. Animal protein causes cancer
7. Miniscule amounts of electromagnetic frequencies from things like phones, computers, and wi-fi stations adversely impact human health.
8. Obesity is not caused by overeating, or a caloric surplus
9. Emotions are linked to many diseases, anxiety can cause indigestion for instance
10. The way your house is oriented with the sun can improve your luck
11. Any story in "Autobiography of a Yogi," such as the ability of saints and yogis to materialize anything from thin air
12. The FDA is not protecting our health

Alright, the list can easily go on. But this is what happens. Researchers study very hard, for many minutes, many hours, many years, many millenia. Yogis and doctors meditate and practice for years and years. They go one step at a time carefully, mindfully. Similarly, Atiki took one step at a time, and ended up so far away from Qmondo in a mere four hours. Qmondo could hardly grasp the 21,600 steps Atiki took. Researchers take the same amount of steps, and sometimes their work cannot be grasped, due how "far out" it is from the current world view.

Many people do not have the patience to even bike the 21,600 steps, because it takes so much effort. Some will fly the distance, arrive at the end, and miss the details along the way; the flora, fauna, and grains of sand. Often, scientists become so caught up in the one step, they forget the larger path they are on. Then we do end up with radical theories, such as carbohydrates kill us. Honestly, I do not know what to think of that hypothesis, as I have not walked the steps it took to come to that conclusion. I've read a good book or two on it, seen some of the science, and from the steps I've taken it does seem to be a little radical since the larger picture is usually forgotten in those discussions.

Dr. O'Becker's research on electromagnetic radiation on human health, which is presented very unbiasedly in "The Body Electric," has also been highly rejected. Instead of replicating the experiments he did, most researchers did not believe it. Many who have replicated the experiments and have come to similar conclusions are shunned by the disbelievers. You can tell who is willing to go the extra mile when you present new types of information to people, including your doctor. You can either say "yeah right," present a bunch of evidence from the top of your head on the topic to discredit it, or say, "I wonder how?"

These are natural tendencies. The only way to rise above these tendencies is through self-reflection, meditation, letting go of our ego by perhaps understanding the concept of selflessness, becoming more compassionate . . . the list goes on. This is called "inner work," and you can tell who has done it. Those who have not, most people in the world, react to things. In the scientific community, these reactions are indeed violent. Thankfully we can read many accounts of this and try to understand why we shouldn't react. Many scientists have had their careers destroyed simply due to a lack of compassion, and inner work. Essentially it is a form of laziness, to not do inner work that is. You must question your beliefs, fall off your pedestal, and change the way you think, about the way you think.

I'm not saying everyone needs to do this. The doctors and scientists do however. The general public will believe a lot of things. This gives them true power; tis the placebo effect. At first I would advocate not believing anything, but so much good health is achieved by simply believing and having a positive attitude, I cannot say that anymore. In fact, I'd encourage people undergoing a health transformation to wholeheartedly believe in what they are doing, even if some nutritional study shows that something in their diet isn't perfect or the drug they take can cause a heart attack. There is a new book by much respected doctor Bruce Lipton called the "Biology of Belief," that I cannot wait to read. "The Holographic Universe," which I am reading now, mentions many cases of a placebo effect. In one case, a patient wanted to take a new drug for cancer due to its promise, and was cured. When clinical trials (oooooo cinical trials, good right?) showed the drug had no effect, cancer, actually multiple cancers, came back. The doctor told him the studies messed up and they had to re-do them. Cancers were all gone again. Later, more studies were published, showing the drug had no effect. Cancers came back again, and he died.

The only thing I will believe is that the foods I put in my body are doing absolute wonders. I do not disbelieve any theory completely, nor do I esteem any other. The placebo effect does work, but there ares very important biochemical reasons to eat healthy food. You can believe your diet is healthy and still suffer from some disease caused by your food. In Buddhism, this non-belief is termed non-clinging. "The mind of no clinging is open and vast. It is receptive to everything, but holds on to nothing" - One Dharma, Joseph Goldstein (136).

MEEDDIIIITAAATEeE,
Avishek

The French Paradox and Cheese

2011-01-10T15:53:00.001-05:00

Yum. I love having energy after I eat. It means that I pampered my genes. Anyway, I love cheese. Let me tell you about my Raw high with cheese. I think I should really refrain from using "raw high" in every post, but it's two words so it's easier than saying, omg let me tell you about this one time I ate cheese and I had a lot of energy blah blah blah. Look how many words I squandered. We must love what is though, and remove our associations with aversion and attachment. That's what I'm getting from studying Buddhism.

I had this INTENSE craving for cheese only about three months ago. I usually don't get any cravings whatsoever. I'm a man above my emotions, I don't cry for anything. I wouldn't care if my house burned down or a family member passed away, or if I passed away. I would "care," but I would not be so affected or traumatized. Those are other things I get from being more spiritual. I'm not turning into an unfeeling monster, but I am in control of my happiness, sanity, and peace of mind. I find that people do get offended however when I say these things. I'm about honesty though so there it is. The point: cravings are rare.

Anyway, what's important about these cravings I'm starting to see are the energetic reasons behind it. Sure there are biochemical reasons as well; women crave chocolate for the magnesium, or maybe the love chemicals inside, but the energetic properties of foods, like the sweetness, heaviness, drying effect, warming, cooling, astringency, post-digestion effect, are the things I'm studying currently. As I recall my craving, I remember enjoying the thought of the mild sweetness of cheese, the softness, its heavy dense nature, and slightly cooling effect. The Ayurvedic Encyclopedia mentions this a little bit. Hard cheeses are not as cooling as soft however. I don't really crave hard cheeses. I may have also been needing saturated fats, as my plant based diet was very low in that. Coconut was my closest option but I wanted more..

In the chinese view, dairy possess yin qualities. Yin is the cooling, fluid, foundation of our vitality. It is depleted from stress, and too much exercise, too much enjoyment, too much anything. I was exercising a lot then so the cheese may have just been right for restoring yin. Certain types of people, those who are perfectionists, workaholics, overachievers, overenjoyers, adventurers, entrepreneurs, highly motivated athletes, are prone to yin deficiencies. People who meditate all day keep their yin in check (but may have yang deficiencies if they do not get up!).

mm, colby cheese
(www.mousehousecheese.com)

Here's what happened. I went to MOMs the next day with a buddy and picked up a couple eight ounce rectangles of raw cheese. With some oats and coconut flakes. I devoured one entire eight ounce two by four of colby yellow raw cheese, almost 900 calories, along with a few sizable bites of the other cheddar square. So I probably consumed 1100 calories of raw cheese, along with 300 more from shredded coconut, and another 200 from the oats. My abs looked a little bloated but in comparison to what happens after eating say, walnuts and raisins, a combo that I've noticed stores me some hibernation time fat, it was nothing of the sort.

I became hypermetabolic. I talked to these kids at the bus stop and made them laugh. I offered them cheese too. I started to beatbox because I wanted to feel the rhythm and use that instinctual sense. Freestyling, living it up. Definitely not being emotionelss. Full of life, ideas, and inspiration I was. I've tried marijuana in the past,and I realized I felt just as good. Of course marijuana has its own benefits and detriments if used in excess, and delves deeper into the workings of the mind, but for being fully conscious and cemented in reality, my mood was better than any cannabistic or alcoholic experience I've ever had. I felt as if everyone would accept what I had to say with open arms. I had all the emotions generally associated with good health in Buddhism trains of thought, like lovingkindness, compassion, tolerance, humility. Absolutely no anger. I had sprint practice to attend in thirty minutes and I had a wonderful workout with even more endorphins. I feel great at the moment after consuming probably five hundred calories of cheeses. It inspired me to finally write this post.

So why don't the french have heart attacks, even though they eat plenty of saturated fat? Most people don't believe that saturated fats improve heart health, but it is indeed the case. Of course, I must say that with caution as my awareness of metabolic types are increasing. Some people prefer to burn carbs, others fats. Still polyunsaturated fat seems to be the real culprit, along with the sugar.

Saturated fats upregulate fat burning enzymes, and hence the metabolism. It's called insulin resistance at the fat cell, but not in the muscles. That post I just linked to is a genius interpretation of a study that most people did not understand. Saturated fat is why the french kiss each other so much. A healthy heart means more lovingkindness, believe it or not. Getting divorced has caused many heart attacks . . . read Caroline Myss.

I won't cover the details here. Instead I'll link you to some of my favorite blogs on this issue.

First, Matt Stone of 180degreehealth talks about being "hypermetabolic" on saturated fats, and why eating so much polyunsaturated fat is a good idea if you're trying to gain 100 pounds like a bear in preparation for the winter.

This blog post briefly covers more of the science behind saturated fat's ability to improve cholesterol and lipid profiles.

And of course, the most earth shattering reports on the myth behind saturated fat is "Good Calories Bad Calories," by Gary Taubes. The dense book shows not only why saturated fats are good, but how ignorant the scientific community can be sometimes. They're just people anyway. If they meditated more we wouldn't have so much misinterpretation in science. Here is a great lecture Taubes gave though that will help if you can spare some time. I have no idea where he mentions saturated fat. If you have not heard Taubes though, or been briefed on this topic, than anything he says may interest you. However, science isolates things too much and we end up with theories like we should ONLY eat saturated fats and meat and avoid all carbohydrates as Taubes concludes. Maybe he's right, but in the larger picture, when we add exercise to diet, carbohydrates become more crucial, glycation is reduced, insulin sensitivity increases, and everything that scientists say is "bad" about carbohydrates is reversed. I see this argument today with fructose consumption. People are not considering the impact of exercise on fructose consumption, and are concluding that we should stop eating fruit. Twenty minutes of running up and down a hill can dramatically. increase your hunger for carbohydrates. Not that I recommend high intensity cardio for everyone. Check my videos on "exercise personality and health," for that issue. Although those videos are more abstract.

Basically, cholesterol is an integral component of your cell membranes, like in your BRAIN. It's not "good" or "bad," unless it becomes oxidized. LDL cholesterol goes to your cells, with good things like vitamin E, and HDL transports it away from the blood, and into the liver. That's why people think it's good, because it vanishes. There is big fluffy LDL cholesterol, which is healthy. There is very-low density lipoproteins (vLDL), which gets stuck in arteries and kills you, and is raised by sugars, fructose, and polyunsaturated fats. There are also another half-dozen subclasses of low-density lipoproteins. The way the cholesterol is deposited is what's "bad." It's funny, even my molecular biology professor said "the only way to reduce cholesterol is by taking statins or not eating any cholesterol." He does not specialize in the study of lipids, so it shows what the mainstream view is. Eating no cholesterol can actually increase your cholesterol. Even if it lowers cholesterol, it can raise other things like triglycerides and c-reactive protein which increase heart disease risk. Just go running, or even walking and eat cheese.

Eating cheese to improve your cholesterol, which does not mean lowering it, (another good post and blog; actually that blog has plenty of articles on the french paradox!), is not main stream yet. I i think it might be by 4000 A.D. when there is predicted to be a huge shift in consciousness. Lol, I forget where I read that. Oh yeah, "Autobiography of a Yogi." So I think in 4000 A.D., we will realize this. As far as I know, and as far as you need to consider, when I eat foods high in saturated fats, especially cheese and meat, I have a LOT of metabolic happiness.

Meditate,
Avishek

A few experiences of mine on raw cacao

2011-01-08T17:29:00.006-05:00

Hehe, it's time. I've learned quite a bit about myself, and about cacao, by taking it so many times. Here are a half-dozen plus one memorable experiences I've had. It's kind of long, as usual. I'm working on cutting it down but since this is story time it's one you can save for later.
1. On Sociability:
Before a party in high school, I had about fifteen cacao beans, at 630 PM. I showed up and I felt ridiculous. Same symptoms as described in the previous post. I was very confident approaching people I did not know, although I usually am anyway since I practice. Still it's a noticeable increase. Inhibitions are indeed lowered, but in a much more conscious manner. When one is inebriated, one loses sight of his actions. On cacao, people will have more sight of their actions. This is variable though per person. Inhibitions are lowered because barriers are broken. You are ready to stomp into the unknown and do try new things and talk to new people and say different jokes. I've recorded myself making youtube videos on cacao and I do act strange I notice, so perhaps I am not conscious of some things, like laughing too much.

(www.personalbrandingblog.com)

I danced quite a bit that night as there is a lot of physical energy with cacao. I had to restrain myself on occasion from dancing too obscenely; high schooler boys like to act gay while they dance occasionally because I suppose it's funny. I wonder how that will change as the word gay becomes less associated with negativity. Some of my friends thought I smoked something because I had so much energy. Generally if you have too much energy no one likes you, but that's because they have no energy. I see others at parties that look miserable, it's as if their brains are completely depleted of neurotransmitters. Hm, I think depleted is a better word than miserable for this purpose. On cacao that is not possible; instead you have a contagious overabundance that pours out into the scenery.
I measured the effectiveness of the cacao that night based on how long my frontal cortex felt activated. As I mentioned in the previous post, this is usually the first symptom; blood flowing to the front of my brain behind my forehead. This spot in my head is full of happiness. That's the best way to describe it, you just have to feel it. I felt exactly the same way until 12:30 AM. That's just phenomenal by itself. This is no exaggeration. For six hours I felt "high" and energetic. That's better than 5 hour energy! There are more calories, and more nutrition, and you burn more off! Fantastic... At 12:30 there was no crash or anything, but I was starting to feel tired as usual. The most important thing I learned about cacao that night was it's long lasting effect. You think your kids are hyper on soda? Put them on this and you'll never sleep. Children will probably spit it out though. Just a guess but you never know.

I feel however that not everyone will enjoy this type of experience. Some people, mostly introverted types, prefer to have complete control over themselves at social events. Some of my friends are like this and it's the main reason they do not drink or smoke pot like other kids their age. I am extroverted, I blog, and do not worry about consequences of my actions. Therefore I am not so worried about losing control from cacao. Also, due to the differing structures of the brain in introverted and extroverted people, cacao will have different effects. That's a topic that gets inextricably detailed, and I have no idea.

2. On the body:
Once, I had a LOT of stuff to study for. More than usual. I do not remember the exact details, but I believe I had coursework from three different courses to complete. For breakfast I had 20 cacao beans. Felt more than good, great. For lunch I had like 25 (with some other food). For dinner, at 6 ish, I had another 20. Now this is where things get weird, wired, and ridiculous. It seemed as if each hour after my last dose of cacao beans, the high just grew on me. I was feeling focused, happy, energetic throughout the day, but it did not seem as if the effects were about to wane. In fact, they were waxing! I became even more focused, frowning, because that helps me focus but I shouldn't frown, and more energetic, until it became pathological. Five hours later, I could not sleep, or study. I was definitely jittery. Don't listen to those people that say "this new natural stimulant won't make you jittery!" Any stimulant can make you jittery, it depends on the dose and your metabolic type, and other things. A lot of people say cacao will not make one jittery, but this is of course such a simplistic view. In low doses it should not however, but you never know, many things can cause restlessness. I didn't meditate as much back then so I didn't know how to control my body as well either. The frustration from not being able to focus increased my restlessness and flitting thoughts.
Anyway, at around midnight, I wished I was in the middle of a mosh pit with big hairy strongmen so I could bounce off their beer bellies. I wanted to throw shit. ( I rarely swear because it hinders my spiritual development but I must portray the environment). I wanted to rave and dance. I could have been really happy if I was at a rave, but since I was not I felt claustrophobic. I decided to blast techno and heavy metal to "burn it off" in my brain. It makes some sense to me if I listen to loud music my brain could burn off the chemicals. I have little explanation as to how. Unfortunately, that didn't even work. So I went for a run at 2AM in the cold, in a t-shirt. And still I was up. My sleep is precious to me. I decided I needed to gather myself and actually do work and carpe diem, or carpe noctem. I studied a little bit, while wishing I was at a rave and then clocked out at 4 30ish AM. That was quite a day. The highest day I've ever had in my life. I was on speed the whole day and it definitely wasn't healthy. The MAOis in the beans must have built up the effects I presumed. Something like that. Some say the phenylethylamine (PEA) in cacao has a short half life, since that chemical in general does. It's about 30 minutes. But with maois, the byproducts, the dopamine, norepinephrine, the things that give us energy, stay active for longer. This may have been what happened. Because this time, I was high on 9 hour energy. It was more like 20 hour, but from one single dose about nine. Note that these effects cannot be replicated on a day to day basis because you would severely deplete your adrenal glands and kidneys probably. The next day your body will want to chill more and recover. When those organs, as well as a few others of course, are functioning optimally, they can output so much heat and energy. The next day, they'll want to recover and take time off. Other herbs can do this to you and you'll notice you simply cannot do it the same the next day.

(www.playingspoons.wordpress.com)

3. On the brain:
One day, the day before the third chemistry exam of the semester, the one before the final, usually the more difficult exams, I was determined to do very well. I needed to. So guess what I did. I chomped on a bunch of cacao beans. I didn't count, I just chomped it up because after a while, the taste feels so good. Even though it's bitter at first, you learn to appreciate the taste because you associate it with the feeling you get. Simple classical conditioning. It does taste sort of good though because it is so rich and has a strong aroma with several flavors at once. So, I sat down, and paced around, and just read through the few chapters and practiced so many problems for about four hours straight. I performed quite a few problems in my head since I can visualize extraordinarily well on cacao. I naturally am a visualizer, but doing chemistry problems visually for a long time makes the brain really tired. Not on cacao. Here's the crazy thing. Even though I didn't have the information down-pat, since I didn't have time to repeat and recite as in normal memorization, I knew how to do almost everything on the exam. I read each chapter more intently than I ever could, and I think there might have been something more than just short-term memory going on. I may have studied so hard that I had some long term potentiation. I'm not too sure but I did well above average on the exam, I got a 90 something percent and averages were usually 60 in that class. Here's how it kind of feels like when you're studying. Being focused can come in many shapes or forms. The pressure in the front of your brain when on cacao is unique, but not rare. Other foods induce the same state of mind. I believe it's related to dopamine, which travels to multiple structures in the front of the brain. Although my brainwaves were primarily beta, and I could occasionally get distracted, which is normal for being in a beta predominant brainwave state, I memorized what I read much more. Since it was also easier to visualize things, perhaps while I read I visualized it better and that helped me learn faster. It's hard to describe specifically. Next time I'll pay even more attention to this, although it'll be variable per person and experience. But yeah what really surprised me was how well I recalled everything. All the stuff was in my brain, even weeks after the exam.

4. On sex:
Cacao has been known to be an aphrodisiac for centuries. It dilates the blood vessels and increases blood flow to the genitals. So do many stimulants of course. Once before my girlfriend and I were about to have sex, I forced her to eat a dozen cacao beans. I put some raw honey on the side. I ate like thirteen. We did it for about two hours. Enough said. It's not an extraordinary amount of time, but since I knew I could have kept going, it was. I had no idea what time it was and I was afraid of breaking down my muscle tissue from doing so much cardio. Cacao contains saturated fats, which boost cholesterol and hormone production. The zinc is crucial for testosterone, and women crave chocolate for hormonal reasons too. Small amounts on a regular basis could keep you superhuman forever. I did not feel "high" at all as in the previous stories. Like all drugs, tolerance or sensitivity can develop. After a couple weeks of taking cacao every day, it does nothing. After chronic overuse, it depresses your body as it becomes stressed out and overused. Anyway, the nutritive properties remain however so I felt great from that.

(www.shamanismoflight.org)

5. On sleep
Oh yeah this is one of the first experiences I ever had. So I had taken a supplement called ZMA in the past. It's has a few minerals in it and B vitamins that promote more REM sleep. The companies that manufactured it said it would boost testosterone. It definitely did. I would wake up in the mornings and jump out and be ready for the day. I've been mimicking this through my food for a couple years now. I started eating nuts before bed and peanut butter, and I noticed I slept better and also had energy upon waking! So I said okay I'll try chocolate since it's also a nut and has tons of zinc and magnesium, the two main minerals in ZMA.

So this one night I binged on cacao. I downed probably eight ounces of a 100% dark chocolate bar, as well as twenty cacao beans. Then I nibbled on some more. Here's what happened. In four hours after dreamy sleep, I woke up and could feel energy coursing through my veins. Through every single chakra and energy center, heat was emanating. I was ready to go and DO. I wanted to take ACTION. But I also wanted to sleep and I could feel that desire somewhere in my head. It's like waking up after six hours of sleep (if that's low for you) and feeling okay, but knowing you could feel better on more.

Anyway, my joints were nimble and loose and I got up and said, okay I'll exercise a bit to fall back asleep. So the type of exercise I did was similar to what would happen in a mosh pit. Intense exercise essentially. I practiced some jumping taekwondo kicks and just felt really angry, engaging that fight or flight response. After sweating out some of that energy, I pulled out a calculator to test my skills. I could easily multiply a three digit by a two digit number, which is close to my full potential and I usually mess up. I performed this intense mental task with more accuracy than ever before, as I could "see" the numbers more clearly. I was just a pathological monster. Usually when I eat cacao now before bed, I wake up in four hours and feel the exact same way. Unless I mix it with honey which counteracts the effects a little bit. But I've never had that much since. It's quite odd and I don't know how it works but it's as if the chemicals that make me so energetic stay stagnant until I go through the required stages of deep sleep and then come to life.

6. On exercise
I took about fifteen caao beans before noon for lunch. I was planning to workout later so it was a preworkout strategy. Fortunately, and unfortunately, my body was ready to take on everything cacao could give in those fifteen. It was again pathological. I was planning to do high intensity cardio in the fighting room, with the punching bags and such, so I did. But I was SO ANGRY. Good for a fighting workout right? Yes, but that type of emotion drains the body, so it cannot be engendered in such abnormal amounts. I had so much confidence, I attempted front flips for the first time without a spring board or trampoline. I had practiced a bit with the gymnastic team the week before, but I didn't land any of them. I feel on my knees, but kept trying. I also completed a variation of this, several times, all for the first time ever.
Here is why this experience was slightly unfortunate. I ended up working out for about one hour and forty five minutes. This can be stressful to the body, even with very high nutrition from foods like cacao. I was sore for the next five days! I ate a lot of food and protein and still had such poor recovery. I also didn't really feel like going to the gym so I knew I did too much that day. The lesson: some people tend to over work themselves. Cacao increases this tendency so needs to be used mindfully in those people. This is why some people call cacao, "crackao." Usually they're the introverted type who would not enjoy feeling so good and generally stay away from loud parties, loud people, and energy. Still, I must agree that taken in higher doses, above fifteen beans, effects similar to crack and meth and other illicit drugs that the uninformed take are the result. Still cacao is my drug of choice.

(www.popular-pics.com)

7. At work:
I work at a supermarket. Not for long though. Usually the young kids there are somewhat stressed, as they're standing around thinking about how much they hate their job. It's a toxic environment in that sense. Other times though we hang out and have fun. I never felt the same way about the workplace but the contagious of people's energies prompted me to think I didn't like being a cashier. In general I have such a strong outlook that I can deal with a wide variety of circumstances. Still, there were days in the past when I was more lethargic. So one day, I took cacao beans before work. As you could have guessed, I had lot of energy. Since it was a busy day, time was going by faster, but it went even faster on cacao. It's confusing; sometimes the stimulants make my mind jittery and time goes by slower as I constantly think about the time, but sometimes if they are in combination with relaxing chemicals, you are focused on one thing and nothing else. I hope that makes some sense. And on cacao, there are a variety of psychotropic chemicals. Some are relaxing, like anandamide, while others stimulate. That way I feel focused, without a wandering mind. On coffee my mind is more jittery so it is more difficult to focus.

So, as divinely ordained, the store was running short on employees, and needed people to stay later. I volunteered. This turned my shift into an eight hour mammoth. It is much more difficult to stay at the front of the store constantly barraged by customers for eight hours, than it is to manage such a long day in another department. That's why the longest shifts are usually six. I felt absolutely wonderful for the full eight hours. In that sense, the cacao was stress relieving, since I did not have any from such a noisy environment! This is what makes me think cacao could be an adaptogen in some circumstances.

Conclusions: Cacao, although a health food, can be used recreationally as a drug. If combined with alcohol or other drugs, you could die. The effects of other drugs will be potentiated with high doses of cacao. Is it really healthy though to go through what I've gone? Some of my experiences I'd answer a definite yes. Not the ones listed here, but the happiness I've felt from smaller healthier doses brightened my day. The happiness I feel from recalling the memories feels good too.

But from other experiences in which I've lost control, I knew it was not healthy. That's not to say I did not enjoy that experience, I enjoyed every one to the absolute fullest. The only side effects I've experienced are extreme energy states and anger, which feels amazing in combination. It's just not healthy or very reproducible on a day to day basis. This brings up the topic of addiction. The way I felt in the stories above are all experiences I'd like to feel again, but why? For the mere purpose of sensual stimulation? This seems to never lead to happiness. But one of my friends had this blurb on her facebook that said "even moderation in moderation." And that's been one of the most influential things I've read in the past six months. Life would not be life if we did not make use of our full potential, or if we balanced our unique personality and metabolic profiles with things that would reduce natural tendencies; like a successful over-stressed entrepreneur who starts meditating and doing yoga. That entrepreneur is so successful because she over works herself! Of course she just needs balance. Stopping ourselves in the middle of our work to meditate however when we feel really good goes against our natural tendencies. Not taking cacao when I love it goes against my natural tendency to feel hypermetabolic and ridiculous!
Still at this phase in my life I am evaluating the things from which I derive pleasure. I'm starting dissociate pleasure from physical things, and I'm also much happier. So that's working for me. Therefore, I could never eat cacao again and be perfectly happy. As long as you do not abuse cacao's power, you'll feel great. Most people though cannot control their longing of things so I have little hope those my advice will be taken. I do have hope that people will learn about this through their experiences with it.

(www.mancavesports.org)

knock yourself out, it's the best way to learn
Avishek

Finally, the number one food for a Raw High

2011-01-04T20:25:00.007-05:00

I've delayed this post for years. It is THE one and only thing that gave me the inspiration to even create this blog. It created this concept, paradigm, this . . . evolution in thinking. It caused my to embark on a quest to search for other raw highs. It changed the way I thought about food. It went like this: I climbed up this fifty food tree in the rainforest, during a magnificent sunshower. I harvested it, and then sat on a sturdy branch and commenced chewing. All of a sudeen, I started cracking up, and a toucan flew by and said "have a great day!" I immediately jumped down from a height of two stories, just like a parkour expert would, and hurdled the flowery bush in front of me, accelerating into a sprint. I ran until I couldn't run no more. I collapsed, and turned up to the sky and closed my eyes. The front of my head started to fill up with blood, and I felt sooo goood. I felt happy. I found out what the yogis and buddhists meant when they said happiness came from within. It's just a bunch of chemicals right? All that lovin good feeling was concentrated in my third eye, and the entire frontal cortex (which is where dopamine is relayed to actually). I just closed me eyes, and laughed because it was the best thing in the world. I was also skipping at the same time with my joyous capybara friend. I told her: "I'm eating raw food, and I'm high, dude."

BAM!!!!!! And that's how I put two and two together.*

My opinions however have changed on this food, and honestly the title was just an attention grabber. It's not my number one anymore. But it may be for somebody else, temporarily. As I've learned a little bit about the energetic properties of food, I've attempted to classify this food as an herb to see where it excels and where it does not. So in this post I will briefly introduce you to some real experiences with this herb and some precautions to take with it.

WHAT IS THIS MAGICAL FOOD HERB THING THAT I'M TALKING ABOUT???

It's . . . . chocolate. Actually, cacao. The dried and fermented seeds from the fruits of Theobroma cacao. Chocolate and cocoa refer to processed cacao. And they are definitely not on this raw high list.

The fruit is sweet and has a white inner pulp. At the core you'll find almond-shaped seeds covered in the white pulp. Usually these are dried, and then fermented, sometimes under a large banana leaf. If you buy these online, it looks much more like an almond. If you crack it open with your incisors, you'll find a bunch of purple or brown polyhedral fragments arranged around the center like a pie cut into a dozen odd pieces. These polyhedral fragments are the nibs. Usually cacao nibs are roasted before being sold. I think that step has a huge impact on the pharmacology of the seed, but I have not found research on this yet as to how.

What really gives me goosebumps is that not many people know about this. Researchers are looking at the benefits of cacao on overall health, but not many are comparing it to drugs. By drugs not only do I mean pharmaceutical medicines, but also substances that people abuse because they think they'll feel better. These include marijuana, ecstacy, and amphetamines, as I believe cacao's effects, and modes of action, match some of those produced by those substances. L-Dopa is on this list too. As well as leptin, cocaine, Ritalin, and many other things that I'd devote yeeears to researching. I am not afraid to say that cacao beans can make you high. I don't have a reputation to ruin. Even if I did, I wouldn't care because I'm honest. When most people say they're "high," they are feeling compromised in some functions, while other abstract functions may be ameliorated. Sometimes they do stupid things. When I'm high I'm talking about energy. Productivity is the result. All the emotions associated with good health are the result, such as gratitude, passion, tolerance, peace, joyfulness etc. The differences however are subtle. The Raw High is just less of an extreme, but without side effects, and also more longevity and positivity. It really depends on the person. Of course, cacao has nutritional benefits that can improve our health. The emotional benefits improve our health also. Unfortunately, since it is so powerful in its unprocessed form, it can also ruin your health as can all medicines.

Some might call me a new age hippie into food. But I'm far from a hippie, so don't think about it like that. I am New Age however. Lol I don't even know what that means. I take my chocolate seriously. And if others did, they wouldn't drink so much, or smoke as much pot because this is pretty amazing. I'm not against alcohol or marijuana, but I'm against simplicity and stagnation. I need change and variation. People stick to simple things and overdo them. I can't imagine many people changing their ways to chew a bitter seed in order to feel better. But if I were to throw a party, there would be one hundred pounds of cacao beans, maybe even one thousand, along with the most serious adaptogens ever grown. Everybody would have ugly brown cacao skin in their teeth, but they'd be feeling amazing and the old ugly would be the new beautiful.

In the future, when we move above and beyond nutritionism, the study of isolated proteins and nutrients on single genes and single modes of action in the body, we may find that consumption of the whole nut can help with the following: obesity, some cancers, bacterial infections, Parkinson's, stroke, Alzheimer's, depression, ADHD, and many other things. Today, nobody is going to fund a study where fifty people eat fifteen cacao beans with EMG and EEGs in the vicinity. Well, I have hope so I can't say nobody.

How it makes you high:

Pretty not so simple. If classifying it as an herb, it would be a bitter, a nutritive, a diuretic, stimulant, and tonic. Other things too that I'm not aware of at the moment. It would take me another hundred years to properly classify it as an herb. The major thing though is that it is a stimulant. It contains phenylethylamine (PEA). I have to do more research on this but this compound is very similar to amphetamine. Therefore, it raises blood sugar and makes you go out of control if abused. And like all stimulants, overuse severely damages your body. That's what I meant primarily when I said it can ruin your health. One of my friends got slightly addicted to it, and he developed insomnia, chronic fatigue, and lost all of the effects cacao beans gave him. He was suffering from the same thing that happens to people form abusing coffee and many other stimulants.

(this is me in peru, my hands are black because I dyed them with Genipa americana and it was slowly coming off).

PEA is known as the love chemical and releases major dopamine. Cacao also contains L-Dopa, as well as dopamine and serotonin. All these things make us feel good. Dopamine is pretty crucial to the body. It's involved in reward reinforcement, memory, planning things, motor skills, as well as pleasure. Dopamine also increases metabolic rate, and this is probably one reason why I feel too energetic on cacao.

Another major constituent of cacao beans is the theobromine. It is caffeine's isomer and has much milder effects on metabolic rate, even at much higher doses. It lowers blood pressure as opposed to increasing it as caffeine does. I will talk more about these things in future posts. This is supposed to be an introduction.

A brief description of how I really feel on cacao

After chewing seven good quality beans, I get this pleasure in the front of my brain as I mentioned before, and I am able to focus better. I start laughing immediately. The world in front of me seems to lose favor for the visualizations in my mind. Basically, I become slightly more focused on what's going on inside my head. It's easy to get started with something and forget about everything else around me. This can happen on amphetamines too except so so much worse it's not even close. My professor described a story of a student who unknowingly took methamphetamine before an exam and wrote a total of thirty pages of writing all on one page. She thought she flipped the pages but she didn't because some control mechanisms were turned off. It's not going to be anything that pathological.
I'm also more creative and think of things that I normally would not. This primarily results in jokes. It's kind of individual, again, since I love telling jokes. I feel like planning things and taking action or pacing up and down theorizing. It's difficult to sit down. My metabolism increases quite a bit. This is why I would take it before a social event. As I mentioned before, sometimes I'm more "inside" myself. I think this is just because of my tendency to think a lot. Other people may be more outward. I'm still extremely social, in fact, much more so.
After ten more, I literally feel like I have the power to make anything happen, and make anyone do anything. I have no appetite, and I could run forever. I just wanna go do it. No hesitation, no deliberation, just take action. I'll meet people on the way and make lasting relationships. I can memorize things in seconds, and calculate things faster than the speed of light. I could be working for the CIA. This excess energy though needs to be channeled, otherwise the tendency to overdo will take favor, and you will hurt yourself. You may tell too many stupid jokes too. I mean, you could say that controlling how weird you are is something you can do every day. Sometimes its nice to let yourself shine. But on cacao, you definitely can act a little different than usual.** I was at work once as a cashier, on cacao, acting very happy and telling jokes. I cheered up my customer and she told me that she was having a bad day and that I should help people as a profession. She said something else that I didn't register because I wasn't paying full attention, nor did I really realize that she felt so much better. I was really feeling the joy inside my head the whole time and it just so happened that by being myself, I was able to help someone out. But the credit goes to the Theobroma cacao. In that sense, the cacao acted as an adaptogen for myself. Usually at the supermarket, after a couple hours energy levels decline. I bet my testosterone does too. There is nothing of that sort on cacao. I can only imagine the anti-stress and immunomodulatory effects going on inside my cells as the drone of monotonous work is shielded completely.

Problems with cacao
The effects I described are not typical, because it depends on the consumer's current state of health. People's biochemical and energetic individualities differ tremendously. So today, cacao will not affect me the way it has in the past. I stimulate my adrenal glands quite a bit from the plyometric and strength training I do as part of my training. Too much of that leads to adrenal insufficiency, and fatigue. In this state, cacao does nothing. The body does not want to release all these metabolism increasing chemicals because if it did, the organs would be further compromised. This is why recently, when I was a bit overtrained and stressed from training I noticed that calming herbs were helping me feel more energetic. Stimulants did absolutely nothing except make me feel worse. Ashwagandha became my recent favorite during these times as it does not stimulate the central nervous system.

So I'd be careful if you're experiencing a lot of stress. This food can be even more stressful to the body. Some studies have shown that chocolate reduces stress, but that's the key difference; they use chocolate not cacao. Chocolate has much lower levels of the PEA I believe. The other problem are the individual differences. You weren't in that study.

Also, many people do not like the taste. Maybe it is poisonous. But many medicines are poisonous, and it is why they are taken in tiny doses for therapeutic effects. Cacao is not poisonous to humans, but again too much is bad. Before it is dried however the nut tastes much different and less bitter. This is something I haven not experimented much with as I do not have cacao trees growing around me yet!

Also I don't think it works for everyone. People who have taken drugs for ADHD, or have a problem with stimulants may not feel the same effects as someone else. This is what makes studying herbs so difficult, but also rewarding.

Dosing

I'll probably cover this more in the future. If you've never tried it, take one seed, chew slowly. You'll probably feel something. Nutsonline sells some not so bad quality ones. My favorite though come from Ultimate superfoods. Those may be the most potent beans ever. Again, they need to be used judiciously. I rarely eat them to be honest, even if I have the money to buy online. When I know my life is not too stressed and I could use a little stimulation, I get some. If I am excessively stressed out, even during examination times, I will opt for milder tonics.

In a couple days, I'll publish some stories that will further illuminate how it works.

sleep on it,
Avishek

*Multiple lines in this story are exaggerated. But it depicts what can happen from this food. Also I am not a raw foodist anymore.

**These descriptions of cacao's actions on myself are very accurate.