The New World Economics Guide To
Outrageous Health and Fitness
June 3, 2012
Diet and exercise. It's the solution to about 80% of our health
issues today. Most people, at some point, try to make some kind of
improvement in their diet and exercise habits. The majority fail to
produce adequate results.
Just look around you. People are fat, ugly, sickly, and weak --
physically, and, inevitably, mentally as well. On the other hand,
improving your health and fitness will do more for your life and
lifestyle than any gadget sold by Apple, any luxury automobile, a
jacuzzi or kitchen remodel, a week in Tuscany, or indeed most
anything else you can do with your money and time. Not only will you
look better, you will have more energy, feel better, have fun, meet
similar, high-energy people, and avoid all the lifestyle-related
health problems that people suffer from today. And all the related
expenses, too. Diabetes can get expensive.
If you do a 30-minute moderate-intensity workout twice a week, and
eat chicken instead of beef, you just aren't going to get there. You
have to get a little serious.
I turned 40 in 2011, and decided to celebrate by getting into shape.
But how?
For a long time, I've been an outdoor sports kinda guy. Who wants to
go to a gym and lift heavy objects, when you can go snowboarding, or
mountain biking? The last thing on my list would be a workout DVD.
Jumping around and waving your arms in front of the television?
Gimme a break. Deep powder skiing or ... the Jane Fonda workout?
"Buns of Steel"? Go mountain biking.
But ... over time, I found that I just wasn't getting out enough.
The problem with outdoor activities is that they tend to take a lot
of time and effort. You might have to drive somewhere, maybe for an
hour or more. The weather isn't always that good. The trails are
muddy. The snow stinks. You have to clean, maintain and repair the
gear. You might not have three hours to spare, during the daylight
hours. Sometimes, an outdoor activity just isn't that demanding,
physically. On some river trips, you just sort of float down.
Along the way, I started doing a little daily workout. Just two sets
of 50 situps and 20 pushups. It took about ten minutes, and I did it
in my day clothes without breaking a sweat. However, I noticed that
even this little bit produced noticeable results. That got me
thinking. Apparently, the claims that you can get meaningful results
on "ten minutes per day!!!" are true. But, it isn't going to get you
all the way. That was my starting point, not the destination.
As I was casting around for a solution, I ran into an acquaintance
(actually it was silver analyst David Morgan, if you can believe
that) who casually mentioned that he was doing a DVD workout series,
and that it was "harder than training for a triathlon." Hmmmm. So, I
ended up with a workout DVD series. And so we began. This was OK,
but I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I needed to add a diet
plan. So I did. Then, I added a few other things too. This worked
great. Not only that, it was a lot of fun! And I have a high
standard for fun.
August
30, 2009: Summer Slack-Off 3: How To Have Fun
Doing exercise without an eating plan will work, but only if you do
a huge amount of exercise, like daily football training. Doing an
eating plan without exercise will also work, but you have to have an
aggressive diet, and you will still be soft and weak, although
thinner. The best results are from combining the two.
So, here's the plan:
1)
Timeframe: at least three months. Forget about any "get
in shape in ten days" baloney. It doesn't work that way. You
should plan on one month plus at least one month for every ten
pounds over your ideal weight you are, with a minimum of three
months. So, if you are sixty pounds over your ideal weight, that's
seven months, minimum. If you have chronic health issues, like
heart disease, high blood pressure, and the like, then plan on six
months minimum. Yes, you can get noticeable results in as little
as thirty days, but you aren't going to get all the way to where
you want to be in that time.
2) Activity: at least four
times a week, with some high intensity. You can use a workout DVD
series. Or, if you can go cross-country skiing or surfing four
days a week, that's fine too. Or play serious basketball or
tennis, or a road bike or mountain bike tour, or a trail run of at
least four miles. My DVD series is six days a week. Obviously, at
four days a week, you will have to fit it into your
work/school/family schedule. This tends to mean short (one hour),
intense exercise. Yoga is good, but yoga is really an
energetic/spiritual exercise, not a physical one. I say that,
whether you do one yoga session per week or seven days a week, it
counts as one workout. So, you need at least three other
high-intensity, physical workouts.
3) Diet: You must have an
eating plan. I wouldn't recommend a no-carb plan if you are highly
active. There are high-protein plans which have a similar effect,
but are more appropriate for a high-activity lifestyle.
4) Other add-ons. I added
an herbal cleansing program.
If you do this, you will get
results.
Here's what I did:
1) Seven months. I was
having so much fun, I got carried away. Plus, we walk the walk
around here, so I wouldn't want to tell other people to do something
that I haven't done. If you are like most people in the U.S., you
need at least six months.
2) DVD workout series. I
started in early November, which is something of a dead time for
outdoor sports. It's too cold and rainy for summer activities, but
the snow hasn't piled up enough for winter activities (and never did
last winter). The days are short, eliminating most usable outdoor
time in the morning and evening. I used the Insanity workout series
from Beachbody.com. You may have seen the infomercials. This is very
intense! No gadgets -- it is all bodyweight exercises, mostly
interval training where your heart rate gets up to 90%-100% of
maximum. I used a heart rate monitor for a while, and I occasionally
pegged it at over 100% of theoretical maximum. Why not. Your heart
isn't going to break (although you do get an intense urge to stop
moving). The Insanity program is normally two months long, but I did
two cycles, by repeating the first month and then repeating the
second month. Then, I added a month of Insanity: the Asylum and
finished with a combination of Insanity, Asylum, and some biking and
trail running. (I will be in the Marin County area in June, and my
goal is to run a Double Dipsea while I'm there.) Actually, I reached
my goals (under 70kg and under 10% bodyfat) after three months --
and looked like an advertisement for men's underwear. But why stop
there? I wanted not only to hit a high point and then fall back, but
to maintain a new plateau for at least a few months. Let it sink in
and become the new baseline. Beachbody has a number of programs, and
they are all good. P90X, Insanity and Turbo Fire are rather intense.
Power 90, Hip Hop Abs, Brazil Butt Lift and Turbo Jam are easier,
appropriate if you have more than thirty pounds to lose or have been
very sedentary. These are all six-days-a-week programs, and they
will deliver results if you do them as intended. If I was really out
of shape, fifty pounds overweight and no exercise, I would start
with something like Turbo Jam or Hip Hop Abs for two or three
months, and then ramp it up with P90X or Insanity for three months.
Insanity is very intense. I repeated the first month because, after
four weeks and six days a week, I still couldn't do the workouts
without pressing "pause" on the DVD and taking a break. What's the
point of going to the more difficult second month workouts if you
can't do the first? In the first week of my first month repeat, I
was finally able to do the workouts without pausing. By the last
week, I was cruising them with good form and speed. This is where
you want to be for the second month. I was able to do the second
month workouts right away without hitting pause, although at low
speed and crumbly form. I repeated the second month workouts just so
I could say I did two full cycles, and besides they're fun so why
not.
I think these DVD programs are genuinely revolutionary. They are not
just one workout, but rather a series of as many as a dozen
different workouts, and a two or three month workout schedule. This
is a huge amount of variety, and also it is all programmed out in
terms of sequence, intensity, balance, pace and so forth. It would
be very unusual for anyone to develop such a varied and detailed
plan on their own. You need the variety, first to target different
parts and aspects of your body, and second, to keep your mind
occupied and interested. The part that you contribute is very easy.
You just look at the schedule, put in the appropriate DVD, push the
play button, and follow along. Once the DVD is spinning you aren't
going to slack off. So you just need to get that far.
Also, they work! People have reported mind-blowing results using
these programs.
From this...
To this ... in four months!
That's extraordinary. It might take you six months. But so what.
It's not a race.
If it takes you six months, or nine months or whatever; if you get
there, you win!
She did P90X and Insanity: the Asylum.
You must combine with an eating
plan if you want these kinds of results.
Maybe you know someone who looks like this.
Same girl. No kidding.
"Always felt pretty good about my physical condition, had been in
Gym’s most of my life off & on & off & on….did
triathlons in the mid to late 80’s. Was working out for almost a
year before I was drawn to the Beachbody community, felt pretty
good or should I say a little cocky heck I passed the fitness test
with flying colors & the day 1 pics looked good too(in my head
at the time). "
Three months later.
"Let’s not forget that also it would be hard not to include the
fact that at 61 years of age & looking like this is well; WHAT
THE …..(I will leave that to YOUR imagination). It’s fun to pull
out the smart phone just as proud as a peacock & show someone
you know an after pic. The expression on their faces are
priceless."
Ugly, disgusting fat man.
Same guy. He lost over 200 lbs in 13 months, mostly using P90X
with an eating plan.
This is what the 27-year-old human body is supposed to look like.
See hundreds more success stories here:
teambeachbody
Maybe I am waxing a little romantic here, but I think this is a fine example of post-Heroic Materialist
innovation. Remember, Heroic Materialism was all about
technology, mechanization, motorization, computerization,
concrete-pouring, science, drugs and so forth. Have you ever
wondered why, when you go to a gym, you see -- rooms full of
machines? Like this is necessary for our health and fitness. We have
this idea that if we want to accomplish something, we build a
machine to do it. We buy rowing machines, treadmills, build "endless
pools," yadda yadda, all of which contributes almost nothing.
These DVD programs are designed for people to do in their living
rooms, and so they take little or no equipment. Maybe a couple free
weights, a rubber band device, and a pullup bar. But not much. These
programs are also relatively new -- something that has been
perfected only in the last ten years or so. They seem simple because
they are not technological. It is just a DVD, same as the Little
Mermaid. The genius is in the design and execution of the exercise
programs. And they deliver huge results, with very little cost
(about $120 for a three-month program). Huge results and little
cost. That is the opposite of our worn-out Heroic Materialist
habits, which are now well into the realm of diminishing returns:
huge costs and little results, even no results or negative results.
How much does a room full of Nautilus equipment cost? What kind of
results do most people get? One reason that these programs work is
that you can do them at home. You don't need to go to a gym, or have
good weather or daylight, or organize other people or whatever. It
takes less than an hour a day. Because the demands on your time are
as little as possible, you can actually do it six times a week while
working or taking care of family commitments. If you do it six days
a week, you get results.
December
4, 2011: The Diminishing Returns of Heroic Materialism 2: End of
the Line
October
30, 2011: The Diminishing Returns of Heroic Materialism
November
22, 2009: What Comes After Heroic Materialism?
Nautilus machines are bad enough. How about liposuction and diet
pills? I've spoken before about our fascination with surgery and
drugs, which is really another Heroic Materialist theme that has
obviously gone way into the realm of negative returns. Look again at
the pictures above. Four months. What's so hard about that?
Oddly enough, I find that this exercise program leaves me with more time. Huh? Before, I would
save most of the exercise for the weekend. However, when you're
doing it every morning, you have the whole weekend free, with no
exercise-related guilt or obligations.
3) Raw Food diet. You must
have an eating plan. If you do the Insanity series, a meal plan
comes included. It is quite good, and similar to most people's
regular diet so it is easy to adopt. However, I have had good
results with raw food ("raw vegan") in the past, so I thought I'd do
that again. Plus, I don't like to eat that much meat these days. You
could also do a regular vegetarian or vegan diet, or a "caveman"
diet (lots of meat and vegetables but no dairy, sugar or grains), or
another plan if you like. But, you must have a plan.
August
16, 2009: Summer Slack-Off 2: Raw Food Diet
These things are personal. It seems like everyone has their
idiosyncratic eating notions and preferences. Whatever. There are a
lot of options that will produce hugely beneficial results for you.
The main thing is to pick the one that rings your bells and then do
it.
But, if you want to take the high road -- and in many ways the easy
and simple road -- to ultimate health and wellness, raw food vegan
is it. Just so you know.
Normally, a raw food diet is not a calorie-restricted diet. However,
I decided to count calories anyway. It turns out that too many
calories is not good (for obvious reasons), but also too few
calories is not good either, because your body can go into
"starvation mode" where it starts to burn muscle instead of fat, and
your metabolism shuts down rather than cranking up. So, the fat
stays, but you become weak. For a typical man, it works out to a
2000-2400 calories a day target window, when slimming down is your
goal. Raw food doesn't have labels, so to count calories, get a
digital kitchen scale and head to CalorieKing.com.
If you go with a raw food diet, I would avoid excessive nuts, oils
and dried fruit because they have a LOT of calories and it is easy
to exceed your max if you are not careful. (Exception: if you are
doing some extended exercise outdoors of more than two hours, you
might bring some nuts and dried fruit to keep fueled up.) One ounce
of almonds has the same amount of calories as two pounds of spinach
salad! I thought I knew a little about these things, but I was
amazed at the difference in caloric content of various foods. A
pound of carrots, for example, has about 140 calories. So, if you
are feeling empty but don't want to exceed your daily max, then have
some carrots, cucumber (68 calories per pound) or celery (64
calories per pound), maybe using a bit of dijon mustard (Grey
Poupon: 15 calories per tablespoon) as a dip. Salad dressings often
have a ton of calories, as they often contain oils (olive oil: 120
calories per tablespoon), nuts (raw almonds: 164 calories per
ounce), or things like honey (64 calories per tablespoon). This is
often OK, because the salad itself (about 100 calories per pound for
mixed greens with a little onion, carrots, radishes, mushrooms etc.)
has almost none. But, if you want to eat a bunch of salad without
the calories from dressing, then I would make up some dressings
using just vinegar. No oil, just vinegar (zero -- yes, zero calories
for red wine vinegar). Try it. (Straight vinegar can be pretty
acidic, so I usually round it out with a bit of agave nectar as a
sweetener.) Or, maybe something based on soy sauce. Also, whatever
dressing you use, toss your salad to spread the dressing evenly.
You'll find you need a lot less that way.
I would also avoid juices. Yes, I know you've seen the "juiceman"
infomercials and it might seem strange to avoid juices. However,
just as with nuts or dried fruit, a fruit or vegetable juice is an
unnaturally concentrated source of food. It is all too easy to drink
a half-gallon of orange juice (855 calories for a half gallon),
without much thought, while eating the equivalent fourteen oranges
(62 calories for a medium size orange) would be a major undertaking.
Eat the fruit and the vegetables, and skip the juices. Carrots
instead of carrot juice. Oranges instead of orange juice. Apples
instead of apple juice.
Smoothies are OK. I have a smoothie every morning, typically with a
base of oranges and bananas with some berries etc. Sometimes, I'll
use mangos, papayas, pineapples etc. in lieu of oranges and bananas.
Frozen berries are good for smoothies.
The Raw Food diet is also, you could say, a case of post-Heroic
Materialist innovation. Of course there is nothing new about eating
raw food. All the animals do. But, the recent spurt in raw food
interest is genuinely quite recent, from only about fifteen or
twenty years ago. People are just now, today, experimenting with
what can be done with this. Like our ideal post-Heroic Materialist
template, it is not technological, but delivers huge results with
relatively little effort. Even now, many people, especially gym rat
types (fitness and bodybuilding enthusiasts), tend to pooh-pooh
vegan or raw vegan approaches, claiming that their advocates are
malnutritioned, weak, scrawny, wishy-washy hippies. Only very
recently, the last eight years or so, have people started to blow
that stereotype apart.
Weak? Scrawny? Malnutritioned? You
make the call.
Vegan bodybuilders Marcella and Derek, striking a pose.
More vegan bodybuilders here:
http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bios
Vegan fitness model Monica Parodi. Age 38.
Mother of three.
Lucky husband!
"I love that I can workout one to two hours a day but yet look
just as fit, if not MORE fit, than those that workout hours upon
hours each day. I love that as an athlete it’s difficult to
fatigue me and that I recovery fabulously from extreme workouts. I
can attribute all of that to my plant based diet."
Raw Vegan fitness model Nathane Jackson.
Vegan fitness trainer Kristine Belliston.
"I hope to be an example of what a vegan can achieve and look
like. I competed in body building competitions in my twenties
living on a high protein flesh eating diet. I remember how hard I
had to work to have the physic needed to win. Today at 38 I don’t
have to work half as hard, I am stronger than ever, and maintain a
fit, lean, physic every day."
Raw Vegan fitness model Sherif Kamal.
Take a look at this TV segment of a
70-year old woman who is a raw vegan.
http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/ageless-woman
Annette's husband Amos of almost 54 years chose to continue to
eat the way he did when they were first married. "I really
wish I would have done what she did," he said.
Amos says people even wonder if Annette is his wife. "They
will ask me 'what am I doing with a young girl? or they will
say 'you've got your granddaughter with you,' things like
that."
Amos takes prescription medicines daily for high blood
pressure and diabetes. Annette says she does not even take an
aspirin.
Here's a guy who decided to answer that question. As a normal
out-of-shape office worker, at age 36, he adopted a Raw Vegan diet.
This gave him so much energy that he decided to start doing some
mountain running. He started the Running Raw Project:
http://www.runningraw.com/
What is the Running Raw Project?
The Running Raw Project is a grand experiment in diet and athletic
performance. It was started by Tim VanOrden in November of 2005
with a simple question: Can one be an athlete while eating a 100%
raw vegan diet? That curiosity was quickly answered with a
resounding YES!
What Tim has discovered could change the world of sport forever.
But why stop there? Why not try to change the world along the way?
This is the mission of the Running Raw Project.
Questions:
• What happens when you combine a raw vegan diet and athletics?
• Would this diet give you greater endurance and strength?
• Would it allow you to recover faster?
• Would it remove age as a factor?
• If all of this was possible, would other athletes take note?
• Would other athletes consider fruits and veggies over steroids
and doping?
Mission:
• To see what's possible. To be what's possible.
• To unite people in a global effort to create a better world
through sport.
• To promote health and ecological stewardship among athletes of
all ages and abilities.
• To scientifically prove that an organic, plant-based diet,
consisting of uncooked, unrefined, and unprocessed whole foods
yields the highest performance for the human body.
• To get other high level athletes to consider the advantages of
this diet.
• To get those athletes to endorse and promote the idea of whole
food nutrition to the youth of America, who are in desperate need
of dietary transformation.
Motivations
• Americans still have not made the connection that Diet equals
Health.
• The prevalence of obesity quadrupled in the past 25 years among
boys and girls - currently 15% of the U.S. population. In minority
youth, this statistic climbs to 20%.
• Type 2 diabetes accounted for 2 to 4 percent of all childhood
diabetes before 1992, but skyrocketed to 30 to 50 percent by 2004.
• Americans are dependent on harmful drugs and pharmaceuticals,
and yet...
• In 2006, 1.5 million Americans died from dietary related
diseases, at a cost of $800 billion.
• Agri-business and food processing account for 60% of US oil
consumption.
• Conscious eating = reduced oil dependency and a decrease in
greenhouse gas emissions.
• To dispel the belief that this diet is for non-achievers and
non-performers.
How did it work out? Was he weak, malnutritioned, scrawny?
2011
USA Trail Series Champion
Posted on November 20, 2011 by Tim VanOrden
It’s been a long and expensive year of racing. My goal this year
was to compete in all five of the U.S. Trail Running Series races,
and with any luck, come in the top 5 overall. The series consists
of the four U.S. Trail Championships at 10k, 15k, Half Marathon
and Marathon, as well as the U.S. Mountain Running Championships.
This involved a trip to Washington state, North Carolina, New
Hampshire and two trips to Oregon. Needless to say it was a pretty
exhausting racing season… But it all paid off brilliantly. My performances in each of the events
added up to being named the 2011 USA Trail Series Champion – Not
just masters, but overall!
It’s been a big year for the Running Raw Project and I look
forward to an even bigger year in 2012.
The best trail runner in the
United States ... at age 43!
Another thing that happens sometimes is that the Raw Vegans begin to
break all the usual rules of nutrition. Here's Tim VanOrden again:
How
would you describe your nutrition program?
I'm a 100% raw vegan (predominantly organic). My diet consists of
uncooked, unprocessed, whole fruits,vegetables and a few nuts and
seeds. No supplements of any kind. On a daily basis I will have
many different types of fruit and a large salad with many
different types of vegetables in it. My total daily caloric intake
is around 1,500 calories. Far below what sports nutritionists
would recommend for someone with my training schedule… and yet I
build and carry too much muscle for a runner… figure that one out.
http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bio_tim
A nutritionist would say he requires 3,000-3,500 calories, maybe
more. He is probably subsisting partially on direct prana energy from the sun. A
few people have found
a way to subsist entirely on prana
energy, and give up food and water altogether. No, really.
http://breatharian.com/breatharians.html
That is really the outer limits -- for the true explorers among you.
Here's a group that is experimenting with a vegan diet for
competitive swimming:
I try to go every weekday to the
seven a.m. workout since I need to be up to transport my kid to
cross country practice. On the weekends we have practice
from 8:30 to 10:00 am, both days. Our workouts vary between
3,000 and 5,000 yards.
One of our swimmers is a guy named, Rip Esselstyn. In
addition to having been an All American swimmer at the University
of Texas, and a professional triathalon-er, and the current USMS
45-50 year old world record holder for the 200 backstroke, he's
also the author of a best selling book called "The Engine Two
Diet." His book is a bestseller and it studies the benefits
(on world class athletes and ordinary people) of eating a vegan
diet. All vegan, all the time. His dad is a doctor,
specializing in cardiology, at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr.
Esselstyn is the author of the book, "Preventing and
Reversing Heart Disease."
They have both done extensive research into heart disease and
their books imply that eating a vegan diet can help make you heart
attack proof. The interesting thing about all this is that
Rip has been able to convince many of the world class athletes he
knows to undertake a vegan diet and the results have been pretty
amazing. Everyone's cholesterol drops dramatically, and, in
the pool they seem to get faster and faster.
http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/01/post-that-has-absolutely-nothing.html
OK, that's nice. Think about this
story:
http://www.elitefeet.com/the-legend-of-cliff-young
Every year, Australia hosts
543.7-mile (875-kilometer) endurance racing from Sydney to
Melbourne. It is considered among the world's most grueling
ultra-marathons. The race takes five days to complete and is
normally only attempted by world-class athletes who train
specially for the event. These athletes are typically less than 30
years old and backed by large companies such as Nike.
In 1983, a man named Cliff Young showed up at the start of this
race. Cliff was 61 years old and wore overalls and work boots. To
everyone's shock, Cliff wasn't a spectator. He picked up his race
number and joined the other runners.
The press and other athletes became curious and questioned Cliff.
They told him, "You're crazy, there's no way you can finish this
race." To which he replied, "Yes I can. See, I grew up on a farm
where we couldn't afford horses or tractors, and the whole time I
was growing up, whenever the storms would roll in, I'd have to go
out and round up the sheep. We had 2,000 sheep on 2,000 acres.
Sometimes I would have to run those sheep for two or three days.
It took a long time, but I'd always catch them. I believe I can
run this race."
When the race started, the pros quickly left Cliff behind. The
crowds and television audience were entertained because Cliff
didn't even run properly; he appeared to shuffle. Many even feared
for the old farmer's safety.
All of the professional athletes knew that it took about 5 days to
finish the race. In order to compete, one had to run about 18
hours a day and sleep the remaining 6 hours. The thing is, Cliff
Young didn't know that!
When the morning of the second day came, everyone was in for
another surprise. Not only was Cliff still in the race, he had
continued jogging all night.
Eventually Cliff was asked about his tactics for the rest of the
race. To everyone's disbelief, he claimed he would run straight
through to the finish without sleeping.
Cliff kept running. Each night he came a little closer to the
leading pack. By the final night, he had surpassed all of the
young, world-class athletes. He was the first competitor to cross
the finish line and he set a new course record.
When Cliff was awarded the winning prize of $10,000, he said he
didn't know there was a prize and insisted that he did not enter
for the money. He ended up giving all of his winnings to several
other runners, an act that endeared him to all of Australia.
He was a vegetarian from 1973 until
his death.
1)
Alkaline body: There's more attention these days toward
maintaining an
alkaline
body, as a means to prevent disease. Meat tends to cause
acidity, while raw fruits and vegetables maintain alkalinity.
2) No processed foods:
Pretty much anything with a list of ingredients has funny
chemicals in it these days. Did you know that MSG is used to
fatten rats for laboratory research on obesity? Rats don't become
obese naturally, they have to be chemically prodded. MSG is found
in nearly all processed foods today, often labeled "hydrolyzed soy
protein" or "natural flavors." Yes, if you create MSG from a
natural source (like soy protein), the FDA lets you call it a
"natural flavor."
3) No meat: Besides the
various ethical considerations, eating meat is not that good for
you -- especially today's factory-raised meat. Wild meat or fish
is much better, but still problematic. Meat tends to bring a
heavy, carnal energy, a tendency towards sex and violence, while a
vegetarian diet brings a light, spiritual energy. You could list a
lot of other problems with meat, such as the fact that meat
animals act as bioaccumulators. Now that the entire Pacific Ocean
is full of radioactive particles from Fukushima, how much wild
salmon do you want to eat? Do you know how much mercury is in wild
tuna? How about Mad Cow disease, or its wild deer equivalent,
Crutzfeld-Jacobs disease?
4) Detox: One of the
things that happens on a raw food diet is a process of
detoxification. You can read about it in more detail in the
various raw food books. You don't get this detox effect with other
diets. With that comes improvements in complexion, hair, etc. This
detox seems to take between two and six months, depending on your
starting condition, maybe twelve months in an extreme case. So,
that's another good reason to make this a three-plus month
program.
5) Get off the drugs: A
vegan and especially raw vegan diet will fix your body in many
ways, curing (yes, curing) arteriosclerosis, curing diabetes,
removing impacted fecal matter from your colon, reducing high
blood pressure, and on and on. After six months of raw food --
even three months -- you should be able to discard all your
prescription drugs for chronic ailments. That stuff is bad for
you.
6) Tons of nutrients: Raw
fruits and vegetables have the greatest amount of minerals,
vitamins, enzymes and so forth per calorie of any food. You will
get much more natural nutritional goodness from 1000 calories of
raw citrus fruits or green leafy vegetables than 1000 calories of
bread or pasta, as a cooked-food vegan might eat.
7) No salt. If you're not
cooking, you're not adding salt. Vegan staples like bean soup can
have a ton of salt. If you want to put some salt in your salad
dressing or on your cucumber spears, use a potassium chloride
(potassium salt)-based substitute, which you can find at your
grocery store.
8) No processed sugars. No
cooking means no white sugar. Lots of processed foods have tons of
sugar, even things like bread.
9) No dairy. Milk and
cheese are basically "liquid meat." Excessive milk consumption has
been implicated in osteoporosis, for example. Many Asians are
lactose-intolerant anyway. Note that, without white flour, white
sugar, and dairy, we have eliminated all the "white foods."
10) No booze. That's gotta
be healthy.
11) No coffee. Doesn't
hurt.
12) Hair growth. I've
reversed thinning hair with a raw vegan diet. Yes, more hair.
13) No thinking. That's a
long list of advantages right there. But, the nice thing is, it
happens without you having to think about it. You just eat raw
food. There's no excessive "
nutritionism"
involved. Do the animals worry about this stuff? Ever seen an
obese deer? But, watch the calories and be careful with the nuts,
dried fruit, oils and juices.
Except for nuts, all the raw foods are alkaline.
Take a look at this:
Simply Raw:
Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days.
Former supermodel Carol Alt is now a raw foodie:
"Ten years ago, Carol Alt was
feeling bad. Really bad. She had chronic headaches, sinusitis, and
stomach ailments; she was tired and listless. And then Carol
started eating raw—and changed her life. Eating in the Raw begins
with her story and then presents practical, how-to information on
everything you need to know about the exciting movement that’s
been embraced by Demi Moore, Pierce Brosnan, Sting, Edward Norton,
and legions of other health-minded people."
Eating
in the Raw: A Beginner's Guide to Getting Slimmer, Feeling
Healthier, and Looking Younger the Raw-Food Way
This sure has gone a lot more mainstream since I first tried raw
food twelve years ago. That time, I did it for just one month. I
lost twenty pounds in thirty days -- although I was doing a lot of
intense exercise at the time, 5-hour mountain bike rides and that
sort of thing.
Here's Sherif Kamal's (photo above) version of why he went with a
Raw Vegan diet:
Like most fitness athletes I grew up
trying all the diets and whey protein supplements that you see on
the shelves of your local gym. I also learned all the basic
programs that go with them that are suppose to build your muscles
in 90 days. I thought at that time that in order to get in shape
and get ripped, I had to work out and do what everyone
around me was doing. I was advised by every trainer I met, to eat
pretty much what everyone around me was eating. Guess what? Years
went by and as I got older I started getting more or less the same
results that everyone else was getting NONE!
I can tell you that by the time I reached my late twenties my
training began to become less effective and I started to lose my
shape.I gained 33 pounds of waste and my body felt and looked worn
out. My first assumption was my metabolism was slowing down.
Genetically I always had a very cut physique and growing up
I was extremely active in sports and fitness. I competed as an
amateur boxer and did martial arts for many years, but for some
reason my genetics and intense training wasn’t helping me anymore.
I noticed a significant drop in energy and found myself
frustrated and tired of getting no real results from my hard work.
I noticed a dramatic increase in my day to day stress and the
famous tire around my waste was starting to become more and more
noticeable through my clothing. This was not the body and state of
health I was used to or comfortable with.
At that point it occurred to me that I needed to start questioning
my lifestyle and the way I was approaching my personal fitness. In
2007 after graduating as an engineer I went and got certified as a
personal trainer. I attempted to learn more about the body and
training to whip myself back into shape. I even increased the
level of my training, but nothing really changed for me. So I
decided to start studying the science behind all the theories of
training and nutrition. All my life I had a fascination with
nature and its perfection. I focused my research on a natural
health approach and tried to fuse it with all the mainstream
theories behind bodybuilding, synthetic supplements and nutrition.
I started reading about longevity, human anatomy, vegetarianism,
power fasting, superfoods, herbalism, and all types of raw food
diets. I did this while incorporating my information with my
training and experimented intensely with my body. As I
advanced in my research I realized how much waste I was
accumulating in my body from all the old bodybuilding and fitness
theories and how that was directly affecting all the hard work I
was putting in the gym. It was at that point that I began to
realize that the common factor extrapolated from all this research
was the benefits that one can receive from raw uncooked food.
I also experimented with many different fasting and cleansing
strategies. It became apparent to me that cleansing the blood was
just as important as supplying it. One of the first benefits I
noticed after cleansing my body and eating more whole and nutrient
dense raw foods was my energy increased dramatically. I also
noticed improvements in my mental focus, strength and recovery
time. I started to realize that the strategies I was experimenting
with and implementing were working extremely well. By
incorporating raw foods with my training I started looking
and feeling better from within.
What was also fascinating to me was how the famous bodybuilding
theories that I used to buy into like carbing up to build
muscle and depleting the body to cut up were so destructive
of an approach for my training. I concluded that if you’re too
busy trying to build muscles then there is a good chance you will
over look the fact that a lot of those synthetic products that are
sold to you in most gyms destroy your kidney, liver, intestines,
heart and de-mineralize the bones in your body. Becoming Raw and
the lifestyle that goes with it is a completely different world
and far superior approach. It frees you from all the scams and get
fit quick schemes out there. Ultimately all this gave me control
over what I put in my body, the results that come with it and made
me feel a lot more balanced mentally and physically and
spiritually.
http://naturesfitnessmodel.com/about
Cost of a Raw Food diet: Depending
on what your present shopping habits are, you might find that your
grocery bills go up once you start eating raw food. It might cost
another $200 a month or so at the grocery store. However, you will
be eliminating alcohol, and nearly all your trips to restaurants and
bars. No more $5 a day at Starbucks, no more restaurant lunches at
work, no more Friday night boozefests. You can drink a little wine
if you want, maybe a glass or two a week. Eventually, you can
eliminate all your prescription drugs too. That will save you a ton
of money.
Raw Food "cooking": In
general, I would avoid raw food "cooking," or combining raw
ingredients to make something like traditional cooked meals. You can
have a few recipes, especially for salad dressing and salads. For
me, raw food mostly means eating fruits and vegetables in their
natural state. A lot of "raw food cooking" seems to be a sort of
crutch for people. They have "raw burgers," "raw muffins," and "raw
spaghetti." No kidding. I have a book of recipes, and they aren't
very good. Plus, one thing that's nice about raw food is that
there's no cooking, and hardly any cleanup. You save a ton of time.
Just cut open a melon and have at it.
No pasteurized products: This
mostly means supermarket juices. Pasteurization destroys the healthy
enzymes of raw food. If you want juice -- not recommended -- then
make it yourself. Some of you lucky people can find
fresh-squeezed-on-the-premises orange juice in your supermarket.
Bodybuilding and supplements: I
take a regular multivitamin. If you want to build muscle bulk, a lot
of raw foodists recommend a raw vegan protein supplement. I get
about 50g of protein per day from the raw foods I eat. This is
enough -- it is the FDA's recommended amount -- but you won't build
much muscle on that. The guideline for building new muscle is 1g of
protein for every 2lbs of ideal bodyweight you want. So, if you want
to be a 220lb bulging muscles guy, aim for at least 110g of protein
per day. See the book "Raw Power" for details. I'd try the
Sunwarrior brand sprouted rice product, or hemp protein, both of
which I would add to my fruit smoothies. Use flax oil in your salad
dressing if you want. You can also play with "superfoods" like maca,
mesquite, goji berries, Vitamineral Green, and so forth. I tried
this, and I don't think it is really necessary but it might be fun.
Exceptions: I think it is OK
to eat a regular meal from time to time, especially for events like
Thanksgiving or Christmas, or a dinner with clients. But, I would
try to keep it to less than one meal a week on average if you can.
And watch the portion size. You can eat all sorts of "unhealthy"
things like cheesecake or bacon or brandy, if you keep the portion
size small. Just try it. Cut your ice cream portion in half, and eat
it slowly, in smaller bites. Then cut it in half again. You might
find that your enjoyment is the same. A smaller spoon helps. (I am
not joking.) I would still avoid all processed foods, which are full
of unfortunate chemicals. Personally, I don't think there is any
meaningful difference between chicken or beef -- both are
factory-raised animals -- so just get what you want, and don't
bother with soy burgers or turkey sausage or this sort of nonsense.
I could go on an on, but you get the general picture. You don't have
to be a raw foodist your whole life, but six months will have a huge
healing effect on your body, that you won't get from other eating
plans.
Don't be a weenie: As raw
food has gone more mainstream, there have been all sorts of
"sorta-raw" proposals out there. This sells books, because most of
the population is a bunch of weenies. I bet that, in 90% of the
cases, they just buy the book and do nothing. Which just goes to
show that there is a huge market for selling books to do-nothings.
But that's not you, right? If you only do it halfway, you only get
halfway results. Is that what you want? Actually, I find that the
results are not linear. If you are 50% raw, you don't get 50% of the
results. You get more like 30%. If you eat 80% raw, you get about
60% of the results. While a brief transition period may be warranted
if you've never done this before, such as a week spent eating one
raw meal per day, I say don't diddle around with this halfway stuff
and get to 100% raw as quickly as you can. After you have gone
through the whole detox/cleansing/health recovery/slim down process,
then you can go to 50% raw or whatever plan you like.
4) Herbal cleansing program.
I used the Colonix and Toxinout programs from Dr. Natura (drnatura.com).
Most people in the U.S. today have all kinds of gooky matter in
their colon (large intestine). You could have five or ten pounds'
worth of built up gunk! Get that crap out of there. Many people have
all kinds of weird parasites too, which you can read about on the
Dr. Natura website testimonials page, with pictures. Dr. Natura
recommends three months on their herbal program if it is your first
time. You can do the colon cleansing and detox together, for a total
of three months. I've done the three-month program before, so I did
only one month, as recommended. Definitely do the three months if
you haven't before.
This is another reason why I recommend at least three months for
your program, no matter what shape you begin with. It gives you
enough time to finish the cleansing and detox programs. Also, the
yogis say that it takes forty days to break a habit, and ninety days
to form a new one. So, we want to continue for at least ninety days
to allow your new exercise and diet patterns, your new body, new
self-image and new clothing size, to become a new habit.
If you are really serious about it, you might try this program:
Ejuva Body Cleansing Program
This is a step up from Dr. Natura. It involves a one-week juice
fast, for example. That might not go well with an intense exercise
program, so you might want to pair it with an easy exercise week. I
would do the three-month Dr. Natura, and then do the Ejuva if you
are in the mood to max it out. I did the Ejuva program for my last
month, including the one-week juice fast. I'm happy to say that ...
not much happened. This means that things were already in pretty
good shape.
You can also try "colonic irrigation," which is a nice way of
saying: cleaning out your insides with a hose. My wife did this and
found chewing gum from over ten years earlier. She is very slim,
too. And a yoga instructor. Not the sort of person you would think
has ten-year-old residue in her guts. We all have it.
5) Keep going! After a
while, you are going to be in an intense mood of self-improvement,
cleansing and detox. Ride this theme by clearing out the gunk from
all areas of your life, starting with your home. Read Clear
Your Clutter With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. It says what
needs to be said on the subject. Then do it!
This book has changed my life!!It is
a must for anyone who has trouble keeping clutter under control!I
am a reformed clutterholic!! I have been a hoarder my whole life
since high school, but after karen explained everything with so
much sense and understanding, its like she broke an evil spell. I
have now almost clutter cleared my entire 4 bedroom house and I
have never felt so free,happy and at peace with myself. Now
instead of dreading my house because it is so messy,I love it. I
am a Law graduate, a skeptic but I tell your this book really
works. Since clutter clearing,I feel happier, my mind is clearer
and my relationships have improved. Everything karen says in the
book is true. She makes you laugh and then you want to clean up
your mess. You can feel like she really cares about you. Her book
helped me so much I even went to a seminar she held in London!!My
husband was so shocked by the change in me he started reading the
book and even went to the seminar with me. People who I have
passed this book onto have all benefited. If junk and clutter has
been haunting your life for long enough, then take action
now...let Karen help you, it will be one of the best things you
have ever done !!
The next step, after clearing out the crap, is to upgrade what's
left. You might start with your clothes, which probably don't fit
anymore after three or four months of exercise and healthy food. If
your clothing size changes (it will), then buy new clothes in the
correct size. Don't use your old, too-large clothes. Is there any
more obvious way of saying: "my body has changed temporarily, but my
self-image has not"? What do you think is going to happen next? (You
will fit your old clothes again.) If you go down only one size, then
maybe pack up your old clothes and put them in the garage. A little
10 lb rebound is possible. But, if you drop more than one size, then
get rid of the old stuff altogether. I suggest Goodwill.
July
3, 2011: The New World Economics Guide to Men's Fashion
You can continue, by redecorating your home for example. You don't
have to spend tons of money, just paint walls and buy some furniture
on Craigslist.
It's fun, anyone can do it, it doesn't cost much, and the effects
are immense. What other plans
did you have for the next six months? Can you imagine anything more
important? It's easy once you get in the rhythm of it.