Fitness for Geeks: Real Science, Great Nutrition, and Good Health
Turns out there is no substitute to watching your diet and engaging in physical activity. Some good insights behind the science of nutrition and exercise, however I got a bit lost in the detail. Would be useful to pick this up again as a reference book if I ever commit to a health regime.
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Derrick Schultz
This book will discuss fitness in respect to becoming a physically stronger person and aging as well as we can.
This book will discuss fitness in respect to becoming a physically stronger person and aging as well as we can.
A geek is someone who spends a huge amount of time analyzing the fine points of whatever interests her, ad infinitum, to a level that no one around her can possibly understand.
A geek is someone who spends a huge amount of time analyzing the fine points of whatever interests her, ad infinitum, to a level that no one around her can possibly understand.
The sun, bestowing life on earth, has become a stranger.
The sun, bestowing life on earth, has become a stranger.
“The spontaneous mutation rate for nuclear DNA is estimated at 0.5% per million years. Therefore, over the past 10,000 years there has been time for very little change in our genes, perhaps 0.005%,” comments Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., of The Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health, Washington, DC, USA, in a journal article from 2008.
“The spontaneous mutation rate for nuclear DNA is estimated at 0.5% per million years. Therefore, over the past 10,000 years there has been time for very little change in our genes, perhaps 0.005%,” comments Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., of The Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health, Washington, DC, USA, in a journal article from 2008.
But after the domestication of cattle, milk was available and potentially valuable to people of all ages, if only they could digest it. A mutation that caused continued production of lactase originated some 8,000 years ago and has spread widely among Europeans, reaching frequencies of over 95 percent in Denmark and Sweden.
The World Health Organization estimates that lifestyle-oriented diseases will cost the global economy $30 trillion over the next 20 years (that includes smoking and alcohol abuse, as well as chowing down sugary and salt-laden snack foods).
We sit too much.
“a growing body of evidence suggests that chair-living is lethal... linked to cardiovascular disease, metabolic [problems], excess weight, and shorter life span.”
It’s just fun, in a geeky kind of obsessive way. You like quantifying and logging your exercise. This act itself seems motivating.
Andrew Doran
Just like my reasons for using Readmill – tracking it publicly is the biggest motivator for me. Fitbit has similar properties and I'm sure I would benefit from having one. (Hint to my wife!)
The place to go to find out about the latest tracking devices is Quantified Self (www.quantifiedself.com).
All knowledge without coercion or propaganda is a form of personal enlightenment.
Given the number of studies they’ve conducted on coffee and caffeine, “the most popular drug in the world,” it seems like researchers have had plenty of opportunities to find something really bad about it, and so far they haven’t. As long as they don’t, I’m going to continue to enjoy my morning dark roast.
A glucose attached to a fructose equals a sucrose
You can impress your friends, however, by calmly explaining to them the difference between saturated and polyunsaturated fat; one’s kinky!
A study showed varying effects of boiling on veggies such as broccoli and asparagus.7 For asparagus, boiling actually raised its “[free] radical scavenging activity,” or RSA (a measure of antioxidant activity), by 10 percent, and 15 percent of the original vitamin C content of the veggie was left in the cooking water. Broccoli retained only 83 percent of its RSA after boiling, and the cooking water had a high antioxidant value as well.
If you boil veggies on occasion, you can be hardcore like me: take the leftover boiling water and use it as a base or an ingredient for a smoothie.
I’ve taken to eating lemons raw or adding raw sections to smoothies, because they are very high in vitamin C and low in fructose (see Chapter 3 for a note on fructose) compared to a typical sweet apple.
Andrew Doran
Woah.
Okay, now you can take a deep breath. We’re finished with the vitamins/minerals, for the most part (but you shouldn’t be). Following is a description of various web tools that you can use to manage your micronutrients.
Andrew Doran
This is all a bit too much for me. I don’t need this level of obsession around food; I’ll just stick with trying to eat ‘whole foods’ and cut down on crap.
Despite their mute passivity, plants don’t really want to be eaten.
This is a fitness book after all, and food is at least 50 percent of the game.
“It’s better to pay the grocer than the doctor.”
“Don’t eat anything you aren’t willing to kill yourself.”
“If you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you are not hungry.”
Locavore, a simple app for finding nearby farms and CSAs. It grabs your location and displays the fruits and veggies that are still in season there.
Fooducate (www.fooducate.com/barcode-samples.html) is a barcode-scanning app that makes it pretty easy to get a snapshot with your smartphone of food quality in a grocery store.
dried fruit, by the way, is no better than candy
Choose raw nuts such as almonds, walnuts, and macadamias over the roasted and salted variety
Eat only twice per day with apples or nuts for necessary snacks.
we seem to be naturally evolved for fasting.
A 2007 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that alternate day fasting (ADF)—that is, a day of feast and a day of fasting—lowered risk factors for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer, and helped some subjects lose weight.
Intermittent fasting imposes a mild stress on brain cells, which respond by “enhancing their ability to resist more severe stress.”
And every time you eat a large meal during the day, your body shifts into a nightly mode—conserving energy rather than spending energy, and getting fatigued rather than keeping alert. This is why you feel sleepy and sluggish after a big lunch.
All the evidence shows that biologically we evolved for nocturnal feeding.
Andrew Doran
One big meal a day, apparently.
You get a window of four hours for your main meal, which is about the optimal time needed to fully nourish your body. The other 20 hours include 6 hours required for complete digestion. This leaves you with about 12 hours of net fasting, where your body shifts into a survival mode—hence, you enjoy 12 hours of detox, repair, and rejuvenation every day.
Andrew Doran
One meal a day keeps the doctor away.
Other people will simply eat fewer calories without breakfast and lose extra pounds.
Andrew Doran
I have absolutely no scientific evidence to support this, but I've always thought the opposite to be true – that eating breakfast kick-starts your metabolism in some way and stops you feeling sleepy and hungry all day. I'm a gigantic bowl of muesli kind of guy.
Friluftsliv, hmm, it’s hard to say, but count me in.
eating more, smaller meals and healthy snacks throughout the day
Andrew Doran
A completely different perspective to the author.
The practical effects of being stronger cannot be overemphasized or quantified
too much running or biking could make some of your muscles smaller.
Andrew Doran
It's all so complicated!
If I want to get in better shape for rock climbing, I go rock climbing
you will fail to get stronger with either resistance or endurance training if you don’t rest enough.
Most of us require anywhere from seven and a half to nine hours of sleep per night.
Andrew Doran
I ‘get by’ on six(-ish).
Martin Hwasser
You're not like most of us. ;)
The brain uses more oxygen during REM sleep than it does during normal wakeful activities
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.
A rule of thumb in saunas, for adults, is that if your hair becomes hot to the touch, you’ve been in there long enough.
The baking room temperatures where we work and live probably contribute to people falling out of shape, because there is little motivation to move around and develop adaptations to the temperature.
Go ahead, challenge yourself. Never stop.
Has it caused any changes in your habits and daily behavior?
A few. I try to walk from the mainline station to my office and back again as often as possible instead of taking the tube. I'm a bit more wary of sweet fruit such as giant Pink Lady apples – the smaller ones with more skin are healthier as they contain less fructose. Beyond that I've not made too many changes yet.
Interesting. I've read a lot of nutrition books myself and try to at least make one small change in my habits after each one. And then, the more I read, the more change I make. I'm interested in reading this one as well. Seems interesting with the geek-approach!
Yes, there's quite a bit about tools you can use to track your exercise and nutrition. The danger with is of course is that it is quickly out of date given the rate at which apps and websites get released and updated.