Why you shouldn't eat before working out

When you eat, your blood goes to the stomach to carry away nutrients from the digestion of food and store it for use later.

When you work out, your blood is diverted to your muscles to carry away wastes (like CO2) and bring in oxygen and fuel.

If you do both at the same time - your body considers the muscles more "mission critical" and leaves the stomach sitting there holding its contents instead of digesting them... where the food rots instead of getting taken up as fuel. 

The prime window for a workout is about 3-4 hours after your last large meal (which should also land you in prime position for the next meal as soon as you are DONE with your workout.) If you eat directly after your workout, your fuel stores depleted during the workout are filled first (meaning it's not stored as fat.)

If you feel like you need some pre-workout energy you can have a small snack at least 30 minutes to an hour before.

So when your mom said you can't go swimming directly after eating, it was likely this reason at the heart of the origin of that rule (although she may not have known this concept and had likely made up another reason - like that it would give you a cramp.)

correlation = causation?

And while I'm on the subject of nutrition for health - 

About 6 or 7 years ago, my dad read the book "The China Study" and was preaching it to everyone he met. "Animal protein is the cause of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and all other modern/western epidemic health problems and a 100% plant-based diet would cure all these maladies."

Then they made the book into a movie: "Forks over Knives."

I even bought it and tried to go vegan. That lasted about 2 weeks. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I've never been much of a wheat eater (rarely eat bread and pasta) so to fill myself up I needed lots of fruits, vegetables, and nuts - which got very expensive very quickly and still always left me hungry. It was also about that time I started to figure out I was intolerant of soy, as I had switched out cow's milk with soy milk - and was feeling BAD. So after giving up on veganism I figured - oh well, I exercise enough, and it's sedentary people who get most of those diseases - I'm not too worried about it.

What brought this to mind was that recently a vegetarian friend of mine made the claim that eating meat was "bad."

My thought was: "that's what the human race evolved eating over hundreds of thousands of years... how has it suddenly become 'bad' for you now? (In just the past 50-60 years)"

How would we succeed and evolve as a species, eating something that was harmful to our health?

Then a quick turn of the Google got me this:
http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/the-china-study-myth

So if you're a vegetarian because you believe meat is bad for your health, you're a victim of popaganda. Sorry. Have a steak. It's delicious and won't kill you. And even if it did, who would want to live that kind of life?

carbo-loading

Recently a friend posted a video to Facebook (which is now no longer available, unfortunately) of a lecture given by Gary Taubes, presenting the findings contained in his books "Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It" and "Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health."

Basically he states that insulin response in the body triggers fat storage, and high glycemic-index foods cause a greater insulin response and are therefore the cause of fat storage in the body.

High glycemic-index foods include refined carbohydrates like sugar (in all forms,) white flour, white rice, high sugar fruits (most tropical fruits) etc.

After hearing this lecture I've been trying to cut out these items, but as I walked into the grocery store the other day I thought: "No wonder there is an obesity epidemic in America. More than half the store is FULL of these items... These aren't just the occasional treat, they are considered by people as diet staples."

Also, when I see really obese people I think to myself "wow... I bet you like bread... a lot."

I've never been much of a fan of bread, myself. I've always considered it merely a delivery mechanism for much better foods (as pizza crust, sandwich/burrito outer covering, etc.)

I'm curious to read the books - I've got them on order from Amazon.

Depeche Mode - Delta Machine

When I heard Depeche Mode would be releasing a new album I was looking forward to what they would give us. When they released "Heaven" as the first single I thought... "ok, no where near as good as the lead single from Sounds of the Universe - "Wrong" but... we'll see what the rest of the album holds..." And now it's out. I listened (more than once) and was REALLY disappointed. Here are my thoughts on each track, summed up. (I may have missed a few tracks, as the whole thing was such a disappointment I may have gotten lost a little bit.

Welcome to my world - brooding ballad - ok, so we're warming up...

Angel - terrible arrangement and production

Heaven - ok - mid-tempo ballad

Secret to the end - terrible lyrics and melody

My Little Universe - HATE the arrangement - boring song overall - feels like they are just doing it to hear themselves do it...

Slow - lives up to its name, for sure... at least the arrangement and production isn't a mess like on some of these other tracks...

Broken - decent, I guess.

The Child Inside - Slow, meandering... ...zzzz.... oh, I'm sorry... I dozed off there.

Soft Touch/Raw Nerve - again, with the production/arrangement...

Alone - terrible. just... terrible.

Soothe My Soul - I actually kinda like this one, even if the lyrics are a bit weak/repetitive.

Goodbye - YAY, finally a good one!

Long Time Lie - might like after time... but still... ANOTHER slow one? Are we going the full emo/goth here?


Happens All The Time - kill.me.

Always - ugly dissonance that never resolves. and surprise... another slow, droning track!

All That's Mine - another stumbling, broken-sounding arrangement. I mean, I understand trying to be original and different, but seriously, there comes a point where it just sounds like garbage. 

With a better arrangement, many of these may have actually been decent songs... I guess I can hope they will release some decent remixes of some of them.

your joints will thank you

One of my pet peeves:
Find a line on the ground
Make sure there is a clear path
Walk normally, with the line between your feet
Look down as you're walking
Are your feet parallel with each other, and parallel with the line?
Or are they angled out at 33 degrees or more?
If they are not parallel, you are not walking correctly and you are putting unnecessary pressure and stress on your feet, ankles, knees, hips, and legs.
When you walk, your feet should be parallel.
Your joints will thank you.

Part 2
Are you a runner?
Running is VERY hard on all the joints below your waist... and even harder if you're doing it wrong.
Have a running partner watch your gait from the side and from behind to see if you're stepping wrong or if your feet are doing weird things.
You should be landing mid-foot and rolling forward, not striking heel first, and from the back you should be in parallel the whole time - no landing on the inside or outside of the foot.

Personally, I don't recommend running as an exercise at all, but people are so enamored of it, I can't really stem the tide. Use sparingly.