CrossFit for Cures

Click here to sponsor me!

Dear Readers, I will complete the CrossFit for Cures WOD July 7th, to raise funds for children and their families suffering from life threatening childhood illness.

I am asking for your help to reach my fundraising goal - please, click the link and make a donation you will never regret!

Last year CrossFit for Hope raised over 1.6 million dollars, enough to keep St Jude Children's Research Hospital in operation for one day. We want to deliver even more support this year, and your donation will help. $25 can be a lot or a little depending on your time and place, so if that's too much I ask that you give what you can. If you have more, give more, and make an even larger impact.

I ask in gratitude that I've never needed St. Jude's services, and knowing that my readers are the kinds of folks that want to do these sorts of things.  We see 150 readers on this blog each day - $10 each would make 150% of my goal!

Thank you, Paul

PS - the link above works correctly now (Monday, 8 July)

Better Snacks?

Candy bars, doughnuts and regular potato chips will become scarce in schools under new federal rules released Thursday, replaced by healthier options such as granola bars, trail mix and baked chips.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's new "Smart Snacks in School" nutrition standards represent the first nutritional overhaul of school snacks in more than 30 years.

The regulations set limits for fat, salt and sugar sold in places such as vending machines and snack bars. School foods must contain at least 50% whole grains or have a fruit, vegetable, dairy or protein as the first ingredient. Foods that contain at least ¼ cup of fruit and/or vegetables will also be allowed.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/27/health/schools-snack-foods/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

This one just makes me sad.  I marvel that kids "have" to have snacks available now, we did fine without them.  But, if you eat a fat, salt and sugar free diet consisting primarily of fruit, whole grains (barf), veggies, and low fat dairy, you will have to eat often or suffer crashing blood sugar - yet another negative unintended consequence of the USDA's "science based" brilliance.

JAMA - Higher Cholesterol Please

Cholesterol and Mortality:

30 Years of Follow-up From the Framingham Study
Keaven M. Anderson, PhD; William P. Castelli, MD; Daniel Levy, MD
JAMA. 1987;257(16):2176-2180. doi:10.1001/jama.1987.03390160062027.
ABSTRACT | REFERENCES
From 1951 to 1955 serum cholesterol levels were measured in 1959 men and 2415 women aged between 31 and 65 years who were free of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer. Under age 50 years, cholesterol levels are directly related with 30-year overall and CVD mortality; overall death increases 5% and CVD death 9% for each 10 mg/dL. After age 50 years there is no increased overall mortality with either high or low serum cholesterol levels. There is a direct association between falling cholesterol levels over the first 14 years and mortality over the following 18 years (11% overall and 14% CVD death rate increase per 1 mg/dL per year drop in cholesterol levels). Under age 50 years these data suggest that having a very low cholesterol level improves longevity. After age 50 years the association of mortality with cholesterol values is confounded by people whose cholesterol levels are falling-perhaps due to diseases predisposing to death.

(JAMA 1987;257:2176-2180)

.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=365739

The most widely respected medical journal, The Journal of the American Medical Association, published a study entitled:

"Cholesterol and Mortality. 30 Years of Follow-up from the Framingham Study." Shocking to most, this in- depth study showed that after the age of 50, there is no increased overall death rate associated with high cholesterol! There was, however, a direct association between low levels (or dropping levels) of cholesterol and increased death.

Specifically, medical researchers reported that CVD death rates increased by 14% for every 1 mg/dL drop in total cholesterol levels per year.141 For example, an individual whose total cholesterol levels dropped 14 mg/dL during 14 years would be expected to have and 11% higher death rate than persons whose cholesterol levels remained constant or rose during the same period.
http://thepeopleschemist.com/does-the-family-really-need-lipitor-and-aspirin/

In other words, cholesterol is a marker, a correlate, of health going wrong, not a cause of health going wrong, which is why efforts to manipulate cholesterol do not make people less sick.

Recipe - No Bake Key Lime Pie

http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/index.cfm/2013/6/26/no-bake-key-lime-pie

Seems like a winner to me!

When Your Mother Says She's Fat

This is a good read, with several good lessons.
http://www.rolereboot.org/life/details/2013-06-when-your-mother-says-shes-fat

Part one - don't use your kids to vent about your own baggage.

Two - don't be like this lady and her mom who had all kinds of negative feelings about their bodies, but never realized they did not have to keep thinking and feeling that way.  We have habitual thoughts and feelings, sure.  It's not easy to become aware of them, and it's even harder to change them.  But these thoughts are neither necessary nor useful - so when you've had enough of them, freaking change them!

How?  I recommend Tony Robbins' work.  Where they come from is simple - anything that you do, you do because your unconscious mind associates either pleasure to the activity, or associates escape from pain to the activity.  IOW - if a thought delivers you from a more painful thought, or a feeling delivers you from a more painful feeling, that's a win as far as the unconscious mind is concerned.  Thinking can change these associations over time.  But what really wins over the UCM is emotion.  The more intense the emotion you associate to a behavior, thought or feeling, the more likely it is that you will repeat/stop the behavior, thought or feeling (you could say any thought or feeling is a behavior in this context).  Passion, hope, desperation, anger, inspiration, a mission, a vision - it matters not which, if it is strong and you can associate that emotion to the desired behavior, and do it again, and again, you will change.  Conscious goals with support from the unconscious mind are the most powerful human force.

In other words, you are not a victim of your thoughts or feelings - you created them to help you feel either more pleasure or less pain (usually bad feelings are a distraction from a worse feeling).  You can change them.  Self loathing will not change habits that don't serve you.  Your own sense of high standards leading to failure will not change habits that don't serve you.  Positive beats negative, but only positively motivating emotion.

It's hard, but it's liberating just to know you can take control and to start taking action, so you don't have to be stuck in some battle with your own unconscious mind that you think you can't win and therefore just give in to - when you could be winning, changing, and modeling how to do the same for your progeny.

Lastly, this is a good example of what we learned in Psych 101 is called learned helplessness.  If you try starving yourself enough time, you'll think it is not possible to lose fat.  If you try any diet that can't work for you often enough, you'll come to believe it is not possible for you to lose fat.  You may even associate your own failure baggage - I'm not strong enough, I'm not disciplined enough, I'm not tough enough, whatever - to the whole effort, and not even be willing to try any diets any longer.  Effort becomes more painful than simply accepting one's fate.  Then come the rationalizations ...

Don't give in, don't quit, don't accept the circumstances, never stop trying to find the lifestyle that will serve you and your goals and dreams and passions - as Churchill would say about the most important words in the English language:  "Never, never, never give up."

And if you hunger for a bit more of the writer turned politician's inspiration, I recommend:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2834066.Winston_Churchill

"We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds; we shall fight in the fields and the streets; we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/97665/did-the-we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches-speech-mainly-use-words-from-old-english

PS: My dad used to finish that WC quote with something like this:  "And if they reach this island they will know, they have not fallen in with the lambs, but into the lion's den."  Brings a tear to my eye every time I think the thought.

Butter+MCT+Coffee - It's a Win

But there's a catch: you have to use the right coffee and butter.

"Just putting butter into bad coffee is a bad idea," Dave Asprey, executive of the Bulletproof brand and blog told the Daily News.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/adding-butter-coffee-increases-energy-coffee-executive-article-1.1384539#ixzz2XeuyXaOp

http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1384539#bmb=1

Also, putting bad butter into good coffee isn't the greatest.  Good coffee, Kelly Gold unsalted butter, and the best MCTs you can find - that's a combo!

Hero WOD: Bruck

Wednesday 130626

"Bruck"
Four rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
185 pound Back squat, 24 reps
135 pound Jerk, 24 reps


Enlarge image
U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Third Class Nathan B. Bruckenthal, 24, of Smithtown, New York, assigned to Tactical Law Enforcement Team South, Law Enforcement Detachment 403, based at Coast Guard Air Station Miami in Florida, was killed on April 24, 2004, at the Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal off the coast of Iraq when a boat that he and his team intercepted near the terminal exploded. He is survived by his wife Pattie, daughter Harper, born after his death, father Eric, mother Laurie Bullock, and sister Noabeth.
http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/008888.html

Fair winds and following seas on your journey warrior!