Now I’m no Tim Ferriss, but I’ve had some pretty good real life experiences on altering my body composition. After a trek in the Himalayas I was scrawny and emaciated. One time, for a couple of weeks, I had a body like Bruce Lee while on the Wind River Diet. And as a kid, I was straight up chubby, but it was all good. The Fat Boys were in their prime, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to rap about being imprisoned for breaking into fast food restaurants, binge eating, and falling “asleep with my face in my plate, and the next thing ya know, I wuz headed upstate.” I will say, in my defense, that I was probably one of the best Caucasian beat-boxing 4th graders in the nation. When… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Weight Loss
Hungry, Hungry Hippos
The question I promised to answer in last week’s self-starvation experiment saga was “why are we so hungry if we’re eating more than ever before?” This is one of the biggest questions of the 21st century, and the correct answer may hold the key to unlocking the entire degenerative process that began at the dawn of carbohydrate refining. Most people agree that the cause of the Diabesity epidemic (a great term that I stumbled across, as the two, type II Diabetes and obesity, often go hand in hand) is eating too much and exercising too little. But as anyone who has read more than a few paragraphs of this blog knows, my opinions differ. I certainly see this ballooning phenomenon having far more complexity. It is clear that Americans, as… Read more »
The Wind River Diet
By Matt Stone “The constant desire to go deeper into the Wilderness is shared by almost any backpacker. There is a relentless urge to travel further into the heart of pristine nature – to become more united with the vastness of it.” “It’s been over two years since I walked out of Wyoming’s Wind River Range, exhausted, depleted, and confused. The Winds, a set of three immense Wilderness areas tied together by a pristine Indian Reservation, comprise one of the most sought after backpacking destinations in the country. My mission was to be lost among this inspiring landscape for as long as possible. Alone, unsupported, without resupply, I stumbled out on the forty-fourth day.” “Strained, lonely, starving, traumatized at times, I experienced the most exquisite earthly connections imaginable in those… Read more »
Status of the Puzzle
It’s been a year now of concentrated research and tireless pondering on the current human health status, what constitutes an optimally healthy diet and lifestyle, and the best strategy for where to go from here if health interests you. To be able to come to some worthy conclusions, I had to make as much sense out of the endless sea of information as possible. This was no small feat, and the process of putting the pieces of the “puzzle” together is an ever-evolving process of refinement. But as we hit the end of 2007 and celebrate a full year of my self-righteous proclamations, it made sense to commemorate the current status of my overall understanding of the health trends that we’re seeing in the world. First of all, for all… Read more »
Overweight and Starving?
In October I devoured Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, a nutritional masterpiece of sorts, but I’ve yet to share much of the beauty of this book. It is one of the most intelligently written books I’ve ever encountered. Nowhere does it repeat the rhetoric of today’s McNutrition. It seeks, quite objectively, the truth about what causes obesity, type II Diabetes, heart disease, and many of the other most common degenerative illnesses of modern man. With well over 100 pages of references alone, it is one of the most thoroughly researched mainstream books on any subject. Taubes spent seven solid years researching health and nutrition information spanning centuries and continents, and the most reassuring part is that he had no earthly idea when he began that he would come… Read more »
Let’s Get Physical
Yes it pains me to steer away from my preoccupation with Britney and title something after an Olivia Newton John song, but hey, sometimes these things have to be done. This week’s topic is exercise, an essential piece of the total health experience. I’ve dabbled in many forms of exercise at varying intensity levels – ranging from 13-hour bike rides over mountain passes pulling a 50-pound trailer to 15-minute stretching sessions. What have I learned from all this? Well, a lot. Let’s discuss this intelligently shall we? Every nonhuman animal on the face of the earth has two primary goals for survival. The first goal is to eat as much as it can. When an animal is hungry and there is food present, it eats. It doesn’t have this complex… Read more »
Heil Schwarzbein! (New Version)
We are drowning in what I call ‘nutritional minutiae.’ There is an endless stream of breaking news about such and such phytonutrient’s cancer-preventing properties, the latest antioxidant ‘discovery’ and on and on and on. On top of all that, there is a relentless fuss over pesticides, GMO’s, soy estrogens, and more. And then mainstream nutritionists focus on vitamins and minerals as if that’s the only thing that matters when it comes to health. Oh and then there are enzymes in raw food. Gotta worry about getting my enzymes now. And what type of exercise and how much? And am I spending enough hours in the sun, or too much? And how much mercury is in my fish? And did that cow eat grass or grain, and was that grain GMO… Read more »
