Intermittent Fasting Beats Traditional Diets

• Intermittent fasting or “scheduled eating” is a powerful strategy for shedding excess weight and reducing your risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer
• Three major mechanisms by which fasting benefits your body include increased insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial energy efficiency; reduced oxidative stress; and increased capacity to resist stress, disease, and aging
• A recent human study confirmed that intermittent fasting was actually more effective for weight loss and improving insulin resistance than daily calorie restriction
• Intermittent fasting can also dramatically boost human growth hormone production, reduce inflammation, and lessen free radical damage—all of which have beneficial effects on your health
• To get started, consider skipping breakfast, and avoid eating at least three hours before you go to sleep. This should effectively restrict your eating to an 8-hour window or less each day

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2013/12/20/intermittent-fasting-weight-loss.aspx

I have been doing IF to some degree or another for 3 years, and have found it is powerful for many reasons.  One is it just breaks the habit of eating all the time.  Two, it proved I don't have to eat all the time to "get enough food" to perform well in workouts.  There's no downside, no risk, and no cost - for most folks.  Start easy - push the breakfast back by hourly increments, and have good food on hand in case you "crash".

Good advice:

In order to understand how you can fast daily while still eating every day, you need to understand some basic facts about metabolism. It takes most people eight to 12 hours for their body to burn the sugar stored in your body as glycogen. Now, most people never deplete their glycogen stores because they eat three or more meals a day. This teaches your body to burn sugar as your primary fuel and effectively shuts off your ability to use fat as a fuel.

Therefore, in order to work, the length of your fast must be at least eight hours. Still, this is a far cry from a 24-hour or longer fast, which can be quite challenging. I believe that, for most people, simply restricting the window of time during which you eat your food each day is far easier.

For example, you could restrict your eating to the hours of 11am and 7pm. Essentially, you’re just skipping breakfast and making lunch your first meal of the day instead. This equates to a daily fasting of 16 hours—twice the minimum required to deplete your glycogen stores and start shifting into fat burning mode.

Why do people hate CrossFit? — I. M. H. O. — Medium

To to a CrossFit box and see their workout of the day. Can’t do it? No problem. Any trainer at any box anywhere in the world will help you scale it, teach and reteach you the motions, and even come up with alternative movements if you are limited. The one thing that won’t happen is to have someone tell you that you are weak or giving up. They may encourage you to try to push yourself a bit more once you start to feel comfortable. That’s called progress.That’s called a challenge.

My favorite moments in CrossFit are watching the fifty-two year old mom of three who’s forty pounds overweight shout in triumph as she finishes her (scaled — gasp!) workout knowing she pushed a little harder this week than last on her path to health and fitness. This time, she ran each part of the running elements rather than walked, and that is a truly beautiful thing.
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/6d606a0b7d31

I enjoyed this article, which puts a finger on why the CrossFit backlash can be so angry.

Wheat Threatens All Humans, New Research Shows - The Daily Beast

All grains produce lectins, which selectively bind to unique proteins on the surfaces of bacteria, fungi, and insects. These proteins are found throughout the animal kingdom. One protein in particular for which WGA has an extremely high affinity is N-Acetylglucosamine. N-Acetylglucosamine richly adorns the casing of insects and plays an important role in the structure of the cellular walls of bacteria. More importantly, it is a key structural component in humans in a variety of tissues, including tendons, joint surfaces, cartilage, the lining of the entire digestive tract, and even the lining of the hundreds of miles of blood vessels found within each of us.

It is precisely the ability of WGA to bind to proteins lining the gut that raises concern amongst medical researchers. When WGA binds to these proteins, it may leave these cells less well protected against the harmful effects of the gut contents.

WGA may also have direct toxic effects on the heart, endocrine, and immune systems, and even the brain. In fact, so readily does WGA make its way into the brain that scientists are actually testing it as a possible means of delivering medicines in an attempt to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/10/wheat-threatens-all-humans-new-research-shows.html

It's hard to know how real these "may" statements are, but once I committed to near elimination of wheat from my diet, I'm glad I have.  The changes from wheat elimination were subtle, and the changes in my health over the last 6 years have been profound, and I'm not sure which health changes to attribute to which food changes.  All I can say is it is certainly a thing to be concerned with and to experiment with if your health is not what you wish it were.

Tips for Proper Weight Management This Holiday

• The average American gains close to one pound during the six-week period from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day, while those who are overweight or obese gain an average of five pounds
• Simple tips, such as planning out what you’ll eat at the start of each day, eating your protein at the beginning of your meal, going for a walk or reprograming the way your brain responds to high-sugar foods can help keep your weight in check
• Intermittent fasting can also help you avoid weight gain and also normalize hormones related to weight and metabolism, such as insulin and ghrelin
• Achieving and maintaining your ideal weight isn’t something to think about exclusively during the holidays; it should be more of a year-round consideration

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/11/29/6-holiday-tips.aspx?e_cid=20131129Z1A_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20131129Z1A&et_cid=DM34199&et_rid=352303968

It's the Reporting, Stupid

Meanwhile, bears have figured out how to be healthily obese and then lose massive amounts of weight without problems.

"I want to learn how the grizzly bears work their magic," Dr. Kamb says.

Dr. Corbit, who says he had worked "exclusively on mice" before joining Amgen in 2011, says his studies of fat and blood samples suggest the bears respond to excessive weight gain differently than many people.

The bears seem to adjust their sensitivity to the hormone insulin that controls how much the fat and sugars in food are broken down and stored for energy. The bears are more sensitive to insulin while putting on pounds for hibernation. When hibernating a few weeks later, the bears shut off their insulin responsiveness entirely.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303330204579246003604081632?mod=trending_now_2

Oh, the embarrassment of the researchers after reading this.  Humans are sensitive to insulin when they are healthy.  Humans likely become insulin resistant when fasting too, we have many of the same mechanisms as animals that hibernate.  The question, unless you are looking for a new drug, is "what is it that makes the exquisitely well adapted human mechanism for storing and losing fat go wrong such that people can be fat, feel lethargic, and be hungry when they are not calorie deprived?"

However, the article isn't really supposed to be an enlightening piece about fat loss and health, it's supposed to be about the fascinating idea that we may be learning from bears.  Reporters generally don't seem to know enough about metabolism to write informative articles, but it's easy to entertain with a piece written about bears.

Derrick Rose, Rob Gronkowski, and the Rise in ACL Tears - Grantland

Dr. Robert Litchfield, medical director of the Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic at the University of Western Ontario and part of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team medical group, studied videotape of ACL injuries and found a pattern. He found that those who tore their ACLs all did the exact same thing with their legs when they were avoiding a defender or reacting to an offensive player. "They throw it [the injured limb] out to the side, and they try to make an upper-body move where they move away from the side that they've just planted," he says. "And they get to what we call a `point of no return.'" The knee misaligns, turns inward, and the athlete lands knock-kneed. That is when you hear the pop. That is why, Dr. Litchfield believes, an athlete like LeBron James will never suffer a tear. "When he comes down from a dunk, he comes down very low and powerfully versus coming down on an extended leg." In short, LeBron's legs are bowed, and athletes who bow their legs generally don't tear their ACLs.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10072331/derrick-rose-rob-gronkowski-rise-acl-tears

This one is a very personal issue for me - tore my ACL in 1989.  I was going over the 8 foot wall, came down a bit awkwardly and the sand under my left foot shifted.  The "POP" they reference in the article - yeah, it's wild.  You know in a moment that something is not right.  Weirdly they did not diagnose my blown ACL right then, which resulted in several pivot shift injuries over the following years.  Then in 1992, not knowing my knee was unstable, I tried skiing.  That quickly lead to a nasty tear of the meniscus.  With the meniscus tear and no ACL, my knee was so unstable that I couldn't walk a quarter mile without knee pain.  Not good.

I finally talked the Navy into a repair in 1995, and my knee has generally improved every year since then.  In 2007, I got to a point that I could no longer run more than 3 miles or so.  Then, I began CrossFit, and the resulting gains in hamstring strength, range of motion, and movement skill (running using the POSE method, and no longer heel striking, was a big help).  POSE walking also turned out to be a huge help - when I used to walk with long strides, and a fully extended knee on each step, my knee would fill with fluid.  The resulting Baker's cyst would swell and be painful for days.  Using the POSE ideas of never extending the knee, and instead, using gravity to help one fall off of the foot that is underneath you, I can walk without fear of pain.  My latest test was a 13 miles hike in mountain of Utah with about 30 pounds of gear, up and down at ~6500 MSL.  The next day - nothing!  It was awesome.

There are several elements of knee injury.  I thought the quote above was the most telling in the article, because it points to body position as the most significant factor in ACL injury.  I think we will see athletes who are taught solid positioning through CrossFit and CrossFit Kids will see reduced incidence of ACL injury.  Additionally, since the hamstrings help the ACL position the body and the knee (tight hamstrings pull the tibia towards the hip, reinforcing the ACL's work of preventing the femur from sliding off of the back of the tibia), those who are strong in the hamstrings from skillful work with squats and deadlifts will have an advantage in injury prevention.  Athletes can do amazing things with quad dominant squats and deads, but in the end, that's a poor movement pattern and there will be a price to pay.

The other issue with ACL tears is glycation - those who continually bomb themselves with high sugar diets create weak, glycated tendon attachments which fail at lower stresses.  I think CrossFit and CrossFit Kids athletes who avoid this dietary time bomb will reap the benefit in this way also.

Mercola - Fructose and Cancer

Studies have shown that different sugars are metabolized using different metabolic pathways, and this is of MAJOR consequence when it comes to feeding cancer and making it proliferate. Three years ago, researchers published findings showing that fructose is readily used by cancer cells to increase their proliferation.6 Cancer cells did not respond to glucose in the same manner.

In this case, the cancer cells used were pancreatic cancer, which is typically regarded as the most deadly and universally rapid-killing form of cancer. According to the authors:

"Traditionally, glucose and fructose have been considered as interchangeable monosaccharide substrates that are similarly metabolized, and little attention has been given to sugars other than glucose. However, fructose intake has increased dramatically in recent decades and cellular uptake of glucose and fructose uses distinct transporters.

Here, we report that fructose provides an alternative substrate to induce pancreatic cancer cell proliferation. Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different; in comparison with glucose, fructose... is preferentially metabolized via the nonoxidative pentose phosphate pathway to synthesize nucleic acids and increase uric acid production.

These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation. They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth." [Emphasis mine]

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/11/sugar-heart-disease.aspx?e_cid=20131211Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20131211Z1&et_cid=DM36408&et_rid=363878237