Dan John: Wandering Weights, Issue # 61

Wandering Weights
Our Epic Journey Through All Things Heavy, Issue # 61

From OTPbooks.com: From Marc Halpern, we have A Nutrition Plan That Works, in which he describes what it took to lose 70 pounds, and how you can use this information yourself or with your clients.

I’m in Washington DC this morning, looking forward to the National Championships tonight. It’s fitting in a way as several national bodies are making some interesting decisions concerning nutrition, specifically regarding fats.

This first article sets the stage well. I remember when the “eggs and butter” ban began and, it seems, fatness set in following this decision. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

“The 2015 DGAC will not bring forward this recommendation because available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum (blood) cholesterol, consistent with the AHA/ACC (American Heart Association / American College of Cardiology) report.

“Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.”

Crappy science based on lobbyists. In 100 years, they will laugh at this “obesity epidemic” and its simple solution. But, there is some movement. If you read this full article, and the study they are doing, it seems to be “the way to go.”

“Instead, Ludwig says, the American diet ‘puts our hormones and blood sugar through a roller-coaster ride—meal after meal, day after day.… If these theories are right, this explains a substantial amount of weight gain observed over the last 40 years.’

“When Ludwig gets peckish after lunch, he turns to the snacks stashed around his office. He opens the top drawer of his desk to show me: ‘I usually have a bunch of nuts here, and…’ There, in a red wrapper, is a big bar of dark chocolate. ‘I recommend a minimum of 70 percent [cocoa],’ he says. High-fat foods. And the jar next to the desk, with a spoon beside it?

“Raw coconut butter. Loads of fat. Does he spread it on something? ‘No, just eat a couple of spoonfuls in the middle of the afternoon.’

“As much as he can, Ludwig and his wife, Dawn, a master chef, eat according to his new theory of food—they favor slow-digesting foods without a lot of processed carbohydrates. Their seven-year-old son helps make dessert: dark chocolate with a dollop of peanut butter on it. They serve tea with heavy cream only, not milk.”

The popular media is picking this up, too. This article adds that “Move more, eat less” simply doesn’t work.

“Physicians, he said, should be doing more than exhort patients to eat less and move more. They should intervene more quickly to encourage weight loss in overweight patients before they become obese. They should discuss with obese patients the range of medications, surgery and device-based treatments approved by the FDA to supplement diet and exercise in promoting weight loss. And they should make weight-loss maintenance–an aspect of obesity treatment that is neglected–a part of their treatment plan.

“Meanwhile, public health officials and researchers, Ochner added, should do more to encourage the development of more effective aids to weight loss. And everyone should understand that ‘it may be 20, 30, 40 years before we see a turnaround.’

“‘We all want a fix for obesity, a cure for it,’ Ochner said. But ‘eat less, move more’ is not it, he said.”

I find that the idea that 20, 30, or 40 years for a turnaround is amazing.

This article got a LOT of press. Somehow a superstar athlete and model wife seem to make news. So, what do Tom and Gisele eat? From Campbell:

“80 percent of what they eat is vegetables. [I buy] the freshest vegetables. If it’s not organic, I don’t use it. And whole grains: brown rice, quinoa, millet, beans. The other 20 percent is lean meats: grass-fed organic steak, duck every now and then, and chicken. As for fish, I mostly cook wild salmon.

“OK, that doesn’t sound too crazy. Maybe more telling is what Brady doesn’t eat:

“No white sugar. No white flour. No MSG. I’ll use raw olive oil, but I never cook with olive oil. I only cook with coconut oil. Fats like canola oil turn into trans fats. … I use Himalayan pink salt as the sodium. I never use iodized salt.

“[Tom] doesn’t eat nightshades, because they’re not anti-inflammatory. So no tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, or eggplants. Tomatoes trickle in every now and then, but just maybe once a month. I’m very cautious about tomatoes. They cause inflammation.

“What else? No coffee. No caffeine. No fungus. No dairy.”

Here are two interviews worth a bit of your time. Listen to Gold Medalist Adam Nelson, just a great interview.

This next one is with Bruce Lee. Frankly, as I have mentioned before, I never fully understood the hype with his work, I respect it, of course, but this is a solid interview during his transition years as a performer.

I liked this whole article from Roald Bradstock, an elite javelin thrower. If you have no interest in the javelin, there are still many gems worth your time in the writing. Roald Bradstock:

“Use the appropriate lifts to build strength. Many javelin throwers focus their training in the wrong areas: on slow-moving strength exercises, which coupled with little or no stretching and minimal plyometric work, results in frustrating distances and injuries. Olympic lifts (power cleans, power snatch, split jerks) and lat pulls and pullovers should be the exercises that predominate in a javelin thrower’s lifting routine but avoid dead lifts, heavy lunges and bicep curls. Upper-body pressing exercises are fine if not overdone and balanced well with plenty of stretching and medicine ball throwing.”

Finally, I signed up for the two day FitRanx workshop in California. My prep includes a lot of plank variations and I am always amazed how these kinds of things (small additions or changes) can have such an impact on training. For more information, go here.

Until next week, let’s keep lifting and learning.

Dan
DanJohn.net