the health blog

Pilates Strengthens Your Suck-It-In Muscles

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:45:39 -0700

I know I have a tendency to think that whatever health trick I’ve just discovered is the greatest thing ever and everybody should do it, but I think pilates is the greatest thing ever and everybody should do it. Allow me to back up for a moment.

I caught up with my friend Dave in SF last month. When I started teasing him for not being able to meet me until 11am due to his pilates appointment, he proclaimed that his instructor cured his back problems. I know my own posture could be better, and I’m already a believer in the importance of quality of movement. The main downsides of pilates seem to be that it is expensive, physically challenging, and emasculating. With Dave’s inspiration, I decided to see if I could handle all three.

I took a private lesson but didn’t click with the instructor. Then I tripped across the inspire pilates studio, which offers intense, 40-minute small group classes. I’ve been to about five classes now and as I’ve told the instructors, I can already provide a testimonial. Several pairs of pants have gone from snug to kinda loose. This stuff is no joke!

Black Out Blinds Beget Outstanding Bedtimes

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:31:13 -0700

In reading a book about how cavemen used to eat, I came across a section on the importance of sleep. It made the case that sleeping with eyeshades was not good enough: for optimal sleep you need a truly dark room. I bought the logic, and after a quick visit from the Budget Blinds sales rep, I bought the blinds.

Now, even with custom-fitted cellular shades, you still have to contend with light piercing through the 3/8” clearance down the left and right side of the window. And you start to notice how much light is generated by electronics (the digital alarm clock, the little green light on the macbook power cord, etc.). Sure, my room was 95% darker, but I quickly decided it wasn’t dark enough.

A couple trips to the hardware store later, I’ve got electrical tape over every light source that I couldn’t unplug and I’ve installed rubber foam weather sealing strips along the sides of my window frame. My current level of light blockage is a thing of beauty.

I have been sleeping better in the few weeks since I’ve had the blinds. In fact, I’ve been approaching sleep as a competitive sport - and one that I look forward to with newfound anticipation.

The Heavyweight Champ of Scales

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:23:36 -0800

It’s been so long since I ordered my wi-fi scale, I honestly can’t remember how the product was first brought to my attention. I should probably credit my friend Tom, who at one point quit his job as a venture capitalist to start a company with a similar product vision.

The Withings scale measures your weight (obviously) and also your percentage bodyfat, and wirelessly transmits this information to Withings’ servers. When you log onto the Withings website, you get a nice graph of your historical weight and bodyfat levels. Fun for the whole family! It’s simple and it works. I’m a fan.

Fine, I’ll Stretch (A Little)

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:28:20 -0700

For the first time in my life, I’m stretching on a regular basis. I’ve thrown away all worry about “the right way” to stretch - people are always trying to convince you that if you don’t stretch for the right number of seconds at the right intensity you’ll screw the whole thing up. Nuts to that.

Something has to be better than nothing, so I’m starting with something - around 4 minutes per day before bed. It’s relaxing, and I think it has already improved the quality of my movement.

Interestingly, studies on vertical jump and broad jump indicate that pre-event stretching actually reduces power output, and other studies suggest this is true for weightlifting. I therefore avoid stretching in between sets at the gym.

PS - If you happen to know the right way to stretch, please let me know.

Vegetarian Versus Healthy

Thu, 20 May 2010 21:05:21 -0700

I recently took a three-month meditation workshop which required me to maintain a strict vegetarian diet. Improved health was sure to follow from cutting out 1-2 meat-based meals per month, right?

Unfortunately not, as almost every meditation class was followed by vegetarian snacks brought in by the students. When I think “vegetarian,” the first things that come to mind are not cookies, nacho chips and vegetarian pizzas! Compared to fruits and vegetables, even vegetarian burger patties are gut-bombs of salt, oil and mystery proteins.

It’s tough to go back towards a cooked, high-fat diet from low fat raw, whether the cooked, high-fat food is vegetarian or not. The difference in ease of digestion and resultant post-meal energy is night and day.

Singing Vitamin B12’s Praises

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:33:02 -0700

I’ve assiduously avoided vitamin supplements for the last two years, figuring that I probably got everything I needed from my food. Besides, if something important was missing, wouldn’t I notice a lack of progress in the gym?

Browsing the twitter stream of Mixed Martial Arts legend Randy Couture, who markets his own line of supplements, inspired me to consider vitamins again. (The man must rattle like a pillbox for all the supplements he takes, which I find ironic for a man with a nickname “the natural.”) I decided to order vitamin B12 lozenges from Randy’s company - Extreme Couture Athletic Pharmaceuticals, or XCAP.

Most vegan diets lack sufficient vitamin B12, but people generally have enough stored up to last a couple years when they first go vegan. It’s downhill after that...

Without realizing it, I must have been somewhere in the downhill phase, because I felt an immediate, substantial benefit from the B12 lozenges. I feel stronger, with more vital energy, and my muscles now have a quickness they lacked before. Plus, the lozenges taste pretty darn good.

Rippetoe Update

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:06:14 -0700

I wrote an earlier blog post about my conversation in early January with author and strength coach Mark Rippetoe. At that time my “problem” was that my squat was stronger than my deadlift when conventional wisdom says things should be the other way around by a reasonably wide margin.

Now, 90% of the people you see doing “squats” in the gym are really doing half squats (i.e. - only going halfway down). I have long prided myself on not being nearly such a phony (as half squats are waaaaaay easier), so I was taken aback by Rippetoe’s suggestion that the reason my squats were so strong was I needed to squat deeper.

Sure enough, the legend was right. I could squat deeper, and my squat poundage did take a hit (notice I didn’t say my squat strength took a hit), but another interesting thing happened: squatting deeper put a greater load on my hamstrings and lower back, which is a wonderful thing for developing deadlift strength.

Two and a half months ago I was squatting 300lbs and deadlifting 285. I am now squatting 270lbs and deadlifting 315lbs (video evidence available upon request!). I consider the deadlift to be the coolest lift by far, and I am elated to have added 30lbs in such a short time.

Quantitative Sleep

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:09:56 -0800

I stumbled upon an amazing discovery this weekend: evening meditation can dramatically improve sleep quality. I have the numbers to back this assertion up.

My Sleeptracker watch measures how much I toss and turn during the night. In the morning, the watch gives me a complete list of the times I thrashed about (indicating the very lightest stages of sleep). Through experiments in the Spring of 2008, I determined that my sleep quality is very highly correlated to the length of the gaps between my movements.

For most of the last year and a half I’ve been surprised that my sleep readings haven’t been better (aren’t I doing everything “right”?). When my readings were a step function better on Saturday morning, it dawned on me that for the first time in a long time, I had attempted to meditate the prior evening. I repeated the experiment the following night, and the readings were again far superior to my baseline.

Not only were the readings better, but I felt ready to get up at 5am both mornings. Yesterday I forced myself to try to keep dozing, but this morning I just got up. Three extra hours, hello?!? I may have just found the missing piece to my sleep puzzle!

Obsessed with Mark Rippetoe

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:25:06 -0800

Do you wake up in the morning excited to pull a heavy barbell of the floor? I do, and for this I have Mark Rippetoe to thank. His excellent book, Starting Strength, was all I needed to teach myself the basic barbell lifts, and assemble a training program helped me add 20+ lbs of muscle and 115lbs to my squat.

After a year, progress became tougher to come by, and I hit the books. Sure enough, in the first edition of Rippetoe’s Practical Programming, he indicated that most people need to move off the novice program after a year. He even indicated that the back-off strategy I had used to get past a sticking point seldom worked more than once or twice (exactly my experience).

I had a couple questions about program construction so I called the gym Mark owns in Witchita Falls, TX to see if I could hire one of the trainers to coach me via phone. After a gruff man spent 5 minutes explaining that coaching by phone would be a waste of money, I determined that I was speaking to Mr. Rippetoe himself! He advised me to buy the 2nd edition of his book, buy the DVD, squat deeper, and call him back if that didn’t solve my problems.

Mark Rippetoe is an epic, excellent man.

Getting Relaxation Done

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 21:20:15 -0800

It’s hard to relax completely when you have a long to-do list floating around in the back of your mind that you have an inkling you’re not remembering completely. The magic of the book “Getting Things Done” is that it doesn’t help you feel relaxed and in control by making your to-do list shorter (although it does help you check off many tasks); it helps you feel relaxed and in control by providing a system for keeping physical lists rather than mental ones.

I have bought copies for all the junior guys at my firm, and for my friend Alan at Microsoft. I’ve taught the list-making strategies to my parents. What can I say, I’m a fan.

Sonicare Convert

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 20:53:46 -0800

I suppose that it’s part of a good dental hygienist's job to use psychological warfare to improve brushing & flossing habits. I have no doubt that Paige is one of the best there is. She finally convinced me to buy a Sonicare electronic toothbrush, and I’m glad she did.

The Sonicare toothbrush makes me look forward to brushing. The brush’s default is a two minute cycle (which I figured was plenty long), and at first I was incredulous that they would include an optional three minute setting. Who on earth would want to spend an EXTRA minute brushing their teeth? Well, it turns out, me.

In other dental news, Listerine Whitening Pre-Brush Rinse has unseated Listerine Whitening Quick Dissolving Strips as my favorite tooth whitening product. At just two minutes per day, it requires far less effort than wearing strips for 45+ minutes, and the rinse is substantially cheaper. The aftertaste does take a little getting used to, but the convenience can’t be beat.

Coblation Sucked for a While

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 20:43:57 -0700

Two months ago I underwent a voluntary, outpatient sinus procedure called coblation (ask your otolaryngologist). The doctor uses what looks like a soldering gun to zap your sinus area so that it doesn’t get too big and interfere with breathing. After the procedure, things get worse before they get better.

It took about six weeks before I was breathing through my nose as clearly as I was pre-op, and two more weeks later I’m experiencing a solid 15-20% improvement over baseline. This is valuable to me because I believe restricted breathing impacts sleep quality and a host of other things. For $400 and two months of crusty sinuses, I’d say the procedure was a bargain.

Addicted to Subs

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 22:04:10 -0700

Tonight I attended my 6th or 7th class at Ivan Salaverry’s Mixed Martial Arts Studio. I’ve taken the wrestling class once, but I’m not normally ready to leave work at 6:15pm so I end up going to the 7:30pm submission wrestling class known affectionately to students and teachers as “subs.”

Submission wrestling is both highly technical and the hardest workout I have ever undertaken. Before tonight, I hadn’t attempted two classes in one week because the classes are so grueling. I thought I caught a cold in each of my first three classes because I had a sore throat afterwards. My throat was sore from practicing choke holds!

Anyway, imagine expending every ounce of strength you can muster to bend someone else into the most uncomfortable position possible, while they do the same to you. You are totally spent after 6o seconds, then you switch starting positions and go another 60. You’re ready to drop dead at that point, then you switch partners and so on and so on. This is the last 15 minutes of every class.

I mention all of this because I believe (a) exercise should be fun, and (b) when your diet is good, it is possible to train far harder than you ever imagined reasonable.

Anyone in the mood to get arm-barred?

Tony Robbins Seminar Tricks

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:09:30 -0700

Two weeks ago I attended Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within workshop in San Jose, CA. It was four very long days (half the days ended after midnight), and yes I did walk across a bed of hot coals...

One thing Tony advocates is squeezing fresh lemon juice into your water. This is easy to do, makes the water taste better (and easier to drink more of, in my experience), and has an alkalizing effect on your body. I’m going through a lemon per day now (half in the morning, half in the afternoon).

His best trick is taking deep breaths on a regular basis. Breathing is important - you can go days without water and weeks without food, but only minutes without air. His breathing exercise is incredibly energizing, and can be done while driving, reading a book, etc., so it takes no extra time out of your day.

The deal is you breathe in, hold it, and exhale in a ratio of 1:4:2. I count at a rate that's reasonably close to seconds, and do 4:16:8. 10 breaths is about 5 minutes. The minimum goal is 10 breaths 3x per day. You need to take deep breaths into your belly not just your chest. Your stomach should push out as you inhale.

Finally, an update from my last post. In my two subsequent workouts I got 3x5 at 157.5lbs and 160lbs - blowing right past my old sticking point. Bumping the weight down to go back up takes patience but really works.

Eternal Weightlifting Mystery Solved

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:13:52 -0700

One of the enduring mysteries in weight training is this: what do you do when you stop getting better? Work out harder? Take more rest days? Try a different exercise?

The answer is devilishly simple: when there is no upward progress for an exercise over three workouts, reduce the weight by 10%, then resume upward progress from the new, lower level. I found this solution in the awesome book Practical Programming for Strength Training.

I have tested this approach and can confirm that it works. Several weeks ago my bench press was stuck at 155lbs. I could not get three sets of five reps. I got 5/4/3, then 5/4/4, then 5/4/3. So I took it down to 140lbs, did my 5/5/5, then did the same at 145lbs, 150lbs, and 152.5lbs over successive workouts. This morning I got 5/5/5 at 155lbs on the first try.

787, Where Art Thou?

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:33:46 -0700

I took a tour of the Boeing plant in Everett, WA this weekend, and in so doing became excited about the perennially delayed 787 Dreamliner. While most jetliners are pressurized to mimmic an altitude of 8,000 feet, the 787 will be pressurized to mimmic 6,000 feet. This means less pressurization of the ears and more oxygen in the air.

Unlike aluminum planes, the 787 won’t need to keep the indoor humidity at rock bottom levels for fear of oxidation. The relative humidity in the 787 will be 35%, which is much higher than the 10-15% in today’s jetliners. Further, the cabin’s lighting system will simulate sunrises and sunsets, which will help minimize jet lag.

I can’t wait to fly on one. The first two variants to roll off the line will be optimized for routes of ~8,000 nautical miles... Asia, here I come!

Throwing Away the Sleep Watch

Sun, 31 May 2009 11:57:37 -0700

I wouldn’t actually throw my sleep watch in the garbage, but I have started using it much less frequently. As Dr. Graham says, if you are using an alarm clock to wake up you are by definition sleep deprived. (He also likes to say that it is no more possible to oversleep than it is to over pee.)

What about when you sleep in but still wake up tired? Aren’t you tired because you overslept? No, you are tired because you have such a substantial sleep deficit that your body is trying to seize the opportunity to catch up as much as it can! The cure is more sleep, not less.

I’ll admit that this new strategy has been much easier to execute thanks to my blue light, which tends to prompt me to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

I still use my sleep watch for travel and other situations that require waking up extra early.

Declaring Victory

Sat, 9 May 2009 08:09:42 -0700

It is May. Winter is over. Swine Flu may be upon us, but in my books we are now beyond Flu season.

Does the 80/10/10 high fruit diet work? For the first winter of my life:

- I haven’t had a runny nose

- I haven’t had a cough

- Zero sick days

Part of the credit must go to avoiding foods I learned I was allergic to, such as wheat. Another large dollop of credit goes to my humidifiers. Yes, I liked my office humidifier so much I bought a second for my apartment. I feel that avoiding overly dry air brought me back from the brink of sickness on several occasions.

What does humidity have to do with staying healthy? I found explanations here and here. Quick answer is your immune system’s first line of defense - the mucous membranes in your nose - cannot function properly in ultra dry environments.

How to Pick a Watermelon

Sat, 7 Mar 2009 08:04:25 -0800

Shout out to my boy Anthony in the produce department. Anthony, I know you aren’t reading my blog, but I’m dedicating this post to you all the same.

I’ve been eating miniature watermelons (oft-labeled PureHeart, at least where I shop) all winter. Besides being available during the part of the year that large melons are not), they are sweeter and crisper and easier to transport.

Anthony taught me how to select a good one. Tap it. You want to hear a higher-pitched twang rather than a hollow, low-pitched thump. I think this strategy applies to larger watermelons too.

An Infection that Never Heals?

Wed, 4 Feb 2009 07:54:45 -0800

My teeth are great. I’ve never had a cavity. Flossing stuck me as a yoke for those less blessed to bear.

I have long been aware that a link existed between heart disease and gum disease, but I was not aware of the link’s mechanism: bacteria under your gum line has an easy passage into your bloodstream, and these bacteria cause inflammation of the blood vessels. “Studies have found that patients with severe periodontal disease are twice as likely to develop coronary artery disease, compared to patients who do not suffer from periodontal disease.”

Without regular flossing, gums can remain in a perpetual state of low-grade infection. Beyond harming your heart, your immune system will constantly be working overtime, and what for? For want of a couple minutes a day with a piece of floss.

My new dental hygienist informed me that I need not be in front of a mirror to floss. Flossing can be done by kinesthetic sense only. This is the convenience breakthrough that makes my new yoke easier to bear.