Property Investments, Landlording, CrossFit, Nutrition & Safety

RANT = ON

I was horrified by this story about a US mother who’s expecting her 19th child. It seems Michelle Duggar doesn’t think that nearly 7bn in the world is quite enough for them. Does she think that it’s her religious duty to over populate the world and consume its precious resources? And I though the Octuplet mum was bad, but this takes the biscuit.

Some argue that they have their own business and so can afford a grotesquely large family, but the issue of who pays for them and the hundreds (or thousands!) of descendants they will produce, is irrelevant. They are all going to need jobs at some point, not to mention houses, energy, water, transport, education, health care etc. Is it not a bother to anyone that the US national debt is already measured in Trillions of $USD and probably in our lifetime China and the Middle East oil countries will have a strangle hold on most of The West due to our over spending and subsequent debt to them? Oh the irony!

We talk about 1st World, and 3rd World countries, but the term 2nd World is no longer used much. “2nd World” was used to refer to the Eastern Block communist countries that in theory, should have been rich and prosperous, but in fact were desolately poor countries, due to their political masters. I predict that America, England and the like, within 100 years will be known as 2nd World countries, having collapsed under the weight of our debt.

Michelle Duggar and her obscene family are helping to bring this future about. If each of her kids only have a modest 3 children each, and each of their descendants do too, within just 4 generations, Jim Bob Duggar and his wife will have spawned 513 people! If they have 5 kids each, that figure rises to 2375!!

Unfettered procreation like this is selfish, irresponsible and down right antisocial. It shows a complete ignorance of the #1 problem that effects mankind here and now: over population. We aren’t all going to die in a nuclear world war 3. We aren’t all going to be killed off by some viral pandemic. The human race will eventually be brought to its knees by simply breeding ourselves to the bring of extinction. What worries me, is how on earth do we stop it? Interestingly the world leader in the field of population reduction, is China. Yet, their policies on population control could never happen in a democracy, the people wouldn’t allow it. LOL, now that’s irony!

RANT = OFF

Today marks the start of a one month dietary experiment with the Paleo Diet. In short, you could call this the Stone Age Diet, or Caveman Diet if you will.

It’s allegedly the diet that evolution has designed us to eat, that the evolving human has been eating over the last few million years, but noticable before agriculture was invented in the last few thousand years. So there’s no grains of any kind on the Paleo Diet, which for me isn’t such a big deal, as I’ve mostly cust grains out of my diet already any. The Zone diet has helped with that, but also I don’t eat wheat for personal reasons.

But what is going to be a big deal for me: is no dairy! I routinely have at least a pint of milk a day + cheese and yoghurt. So cutting out the dairy is going to be tough.

This is why this is a month’s experiment. I am totally unconvinced that we shouldn’t eat (or drink) dairy products. Yes it’s cows milk, but it’s also very close to human breast milk, and that as we all know, is very good for us. Yes there’s an argument that today’s mass produced milk is poor quality, but I only buy organic milk, and have whole milk as often as not. (And raw unpasturised milk when I can get it.)

However there is only so much reading you can do on a subject and so much canvasing of other’s opinion, before you have to take the plunge and give it a try. I figure that 4 weeks out of your life is a small amount of time to invest in testing out something new. If you find it’s something that works for you, then you’ve made a wise investment. And if nothing else, it gives you something to talk about!

Personally I suspect that most of the health claims that the Paleo diet makes come from reducing the starchy carbs and processed food associated with a western diet, rather than a lack of dairy. As I eat a pretty clean diet anyway: mostly meat, veg, fruit and nuts (+ dairy atm), I suspect that I won’t see much difference. However I know enough people who eat Paleo Zone to make me think giving it a go is a good idea.

So I’ll report back at the end of September, and we’ll see if I feel better, worse (unlikely) or the same, and of course if my Crossfit workout performance has improved or not.

This video from Sky, starts with a short report on dementia research that has shown that those with a high BMI in their middle age, have physically smaller brains later in life! Ok, we all know that BMI is a very flawed system of measuring obesity for anyone who resembles an athletic type, but for the masses, it works well enough.

Been having a mare this week as the Sky broadband router in my lodgings has given up the ghost. As a result, I’ve not been able to surf the net at home for days, so no Friday Fun post today. Soz.

So blares the headline at the BBC news article the other day. What really annoys me though, is that this is tabloid medicine at its worse. Actually the “science” isn’t a lot better to be honest. I decided to investigate further. This link gives more detail on the story (though not enough by far): http://www.bidmc.org/News/InResearch/2009/August/LowCarbDiets.aspx

So I ask you, since when did a 12 week experiment, satisfy the desire to investigate the “long-term effects on vascular health.“ Mice only live a few years, so doing a whole lifetime study and actually measuring what counts wouldn’t be unreasonable, i.e.: actual mortality rates rather than guessing the outcome and quality of life (measured by activity levels say). I say guessing because as you’ll see, most of the increased factors they normally associate with heart disease were absent.

Before I get into that though, here are some details missing from the BBC article, on the actual composition of the diets. They only studied 3 permutations it seems:

1. a standard diet of mouse “chow” (65 percent carbohydrate; 15 percent fat; 20 percent protein);
2. a “Western diet” in keeping with the average human diet (43 percent carbohydrate; 42 percent fat; 15 percent protein; and 0.15 percent cholesterol);
3. a low-carb/high-protein diet (12 percent carbohydrate; 43 percent fat; 45 percent protein; and 0.15 percent cholesterol).

They don’t however say how the percentage was split up. I assume it was calories, but it could have been weight or scoops maybe?

Why scientists such as these fail to do a thorough job is beyond me. Any mathematician will tell you, you can’t take 3 points on a graph and use that to predict a complicated trend. Similarly ask any scientist how to test for a specific correlation, and they’ll tell you change just one variable at a time, something these researchers also failed to do. If they were really trying to test the effects of carbs in the diet, they would have kept the ratios of protein : fat the same, but in each one it’s a different ratio. This alone makes the entire “study” a pointless waste, as you cannot work out what single factor might have caused the effect.

E.g. if only doing 3 tests as above, then something like this would have been significantly better as only 1 macro nutrient ratio changes:

1. 70% carbs, 15% fat, 15% protein
2. 40% carbs, 30% fat, 30% protein
3. 10% carbs, 45% fat, 45% protein

Already it becomes more complicated however, as what do you do with total calories? Do you increase protein and fat as carbs reduce, in order to maintain a consistent calorie count? Or do you keep absolute calories of protein and fat constant, and let absolute calorie count reduce in line with the carb reduction? See, straight away you need to double the number of tests, and we haven’t even got to look at differing protein to fat ratios yet!

In the end, they should have done dozens of diets, of varying compositions. Not only looking at scientifically derived permutations as above, but also looking as specific commercial diets. (2) above happens to coincide with the Zone Diet proportions for example. Why not do Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, Eskimo, Japanese, et al?

However, ignoring all that for the moment and assuming some actual value may be derived from this poor excuse for science. Let’s have a look at some of their findings. One key interesting point was:

“…the study also found that standard markers of cardiovascular risk, including cholesterol, were not changed in the animals fed the low-carb diet, despite the clear evidence of increased vascular disease.”

More evidence confirming that cholesterol does not in fact cause heart disease and the cholesterol hypothesis is a con, but I digress! It goes on to say:

“the usual markers thought to contribute to vascular disease, including the animals’ cholesterol and triglyceride levels, oxidative stress, insulin and glucose, as well as levels of some inflammatory cytokines… there was either no difference in measurements… or the numbers slightly favored the low-carb cohort,”

So they are saying that all the usual “well known” indicators of heart disease were either unchanged on the low carb diet, or better. Yet they have chosen to pick out the one indicator that went the other way, and highlighted that. Is this an example of that crazy saying that it’s the exception that proves the rule?!?

Basically there’s nothing to conclude from this little test. The test wasn’t big enough, wasn’t complete, wasn’t rigorous and wasn’t long enough to draw any conclusions. The fact that the classic markers were contradictory should be enough to show that. At the end of the day, what counts, and what is often missing from so called scientific studies (including most Statin research, but don’t get me started on those!) is the only measure that counts: actual mortality rates.

It is unforgivable for people to be warned off diets that conclusively make them thinner and healthier, because of a few weeks poor study of a few mice. Getting back to what really annoys me though, is the prat that the BBC rolled out to comment on it. He said:

“For now, it appears that a moderate and balanced diet, coupled with regular exercise, is probably best for most people.”

No shit Sherlock! The issue as ever, is what does “moderate and balanced” actually mean? Certainly it doesn’t mean what what Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president, UK Faculty of Public Health, said:

“This research helps to back up the basic message that our diet should contain more starchy carbohydrate, not less”

My jaw hit the floor when I read that. You can’t draw that conclusion from this study at all. It’s a shameless example of someone using this doubtful study to spout his own personal agenda and draw wild conclusions from it. What these types fail to do, is define what they mean by “balanced”. Certainly in my book, balanced does not mean a diet where carbs out number protein and fat combined by 2:1, as the so called normal diet in this test was. How is that balanced? Muppets, they make me so cross!

When I first started watching this, I thought it was faked, then I wasn’t so sure. I reckon those laptops must be just the cases though, even a <1kg laptop would do serious damage at the rate they are thrown:

The competition at the weekend went very well. Interestingly, it didn’t feel like it went that well, considering I missed half the lifts. However the results speak for themselves. I had 3 goals, in descending order of importance:

1. Lift 165 total to qualify for the BWLA British Masters Weightlifting competition in 2010 (77kg body weight category)
2. Lift a body weight snatch for the first time ever.
3. Lift a 175 total to qualify for the 2010 British Masters in the 85kg category (in case I’m over weight come March).

I planned to do these lifts:

• Snatch 1 = 70kg
• Snatch 2 = 76kg (body weight)
• Snatch 3 = 80kg
• Clean & Jerk 1 = 90kg
• Clean & Jerk 2 = 95kg
• Clean & Jerk 3 = 100kg

As you will see in the video below, I got my first snatch and the 76kg body weight snatch on the 3rd snatch.  The 90kg C&J then gave me the 165 total I needed, so I went up to 99kg C&J in order to have 2 goes at getting a 175 total.  Well, why don’t you watch the video and you’ll see what happened.  Click through to YouTube if you want to see it in HD:

As you can see, a scrappy affair really. The Snatches never felt really comfortable. To be honest I messed up the warm up, for both Snatch and Clean and Jerks, I warmed up too soon and then had to stretch them out. Things I need to work on:

1. Snatch – I still need to get the bar landing consistently over head.
2. Clean – I’m still hitting the bar too low down on my thighs, which is shooting the bar forward instead of up.
3. Jerk – Dipping too low is sending the bar forward and also not getting my hips under the bar, as I showed in the freeze frame.

Despite the 3 drops and the poor form shown, I still managed to qualify for the BWLA British Masters next year, and get a body weight snatch which is a milestone I’ve been working towards ever since I started snatching (and level 3 on the Athletic Skill Levels, if you’re interested). So it was a successful day.

My primary focus of the last 8 weeks has been to lose weight for the an Olympic Weightlifting competition, the Yorkshire Masters. I had decided to try to lose weight and drop out of the 85kg bodyweight category, into the 77kg category, which would make it easier to qualify for the 2010 British Masters weightlifting competition.

Well today is competition day. In a couple of hours I’ll be off to Mytholmroyd to compete, and I’m pleased to report, I’m 1.1kg (just over 2 lbs) under the 77kg weight category, so I’m 75.9kg or 167.6 lbs (if that’s not mixing my units!). My wizzy new electronic zappy scales at home, say that this puts me at 13% body fat. This is my fitday weight loss graph (click it to make it bigger):

A couple of things to point out:

1) The flat line in the middle was a week’s holiday where I didn’t have access to any scales.
2) I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping below the target line, which has been encouraging throughout.
3) The regular peaks you see, are all at weekends. It’s been my major battle to keep those peaks low.

Not being complacent though, I am skipping breakfast this morning. I have no idea if my scales are aligned with the one’s they’ll be using at the comp today, so having that 1kg margin for error is very gratifying. Enough so that I’ve had a cup of coffee already this morning and I’ll probably drink 1/2 pint of milk when I feel I’m really hungry, just to tide me over till weigh in at 10am, then I can eat.

I’ve lost 15lbs (1stone1 or 7kg) in about 8 weeks, which is a healthy 2lbs per week weightloss rate. Clearly this has not been a rapid or fad weight loss. I achieved this by actually changing nothing in my diet. I continued to follow the Zone Diet Plan as prescribed, the details of which are:

– 14 zone blocks per day, made up of:
– 4 three block meals + a pint of milk (2 blocks) per day (this fitted better with my schedule than the more normal 3 meals + 2 snacks)

So if I was eating the same as before, how did I lose the weight? Simply, I stopped cheating. I stopped drinking wine and eating chocolate or sweets. I also was went back to weighing and measuring to make sure I was being accurate with my blocks, and sure enough, as time had passed, it appears that my determination of what an ounce of cheese looked like, had morphed into something closer to 2oz, for example. In summary, I was just a lot stricter about my zone diet.

This weight loss has had 2 additional consequences I wasn’t anticipating:

1) The new 34″ jeans I bought just 2 months ago, now no longer fit and yesterday, for the first time since I was a teenager, I had to buy 32″ jeans!
2) I appear to have a 6 pack, just. Modesty dictates that I won’t be uploading a picture any time soon, but to say that I’m pleased to be getting my first 6 pack at 36 years old, would be an understatement. The way I see it, Crossfit created it, and the Zone revealed it.

I’d like to say that that’s the hard work finished. But now I have to go to Mytholmroyd and actually lift some weights! I intend on opening with a 70kg Snatch and 90kg Clean and Jerk, meaning I just need to find an extra 5kg from one of the 2 lifts, in order to make the 165kg total I need to qualify for the British Masters tournament in March 2010.

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures / video to upload later in the week.

This is a great video about how you can share your Window’s frustrations with the Microsoft developers who caused the problem directly: