...and reindeer licking urine to get a high.

Because you aren't eating them enough.

If you have ever read anything about fat loss, ever, in your entire life, you have come across glowing reviews of fasted cardio. It has been alleged that fasted cardio will help you dip into your fat stores for fuel, since your glycogen levels are depleted, etc., etc. This study says otherwise.

This study flies against conventional online wisdom, but I have a feeling it is something all professional coaches know. We know that carbs are a more readily available fuel source than fat stores and that carb intake during exercise helps promote glucose uptake and permits greater energy expenditures. Since fat is not as readily available, it would make sense to me that some muscle is broken down during fasted training. Again, the body needs fuel NOW and is not going to be too choosy about where it comes from.

When I was dieting in '08, I did a lot of training on a near-empty stomach, often at the end of the workday. I couldn't lift for shit and my numbers steadily declined. I just didn't have the energy. Towards the end of my summer internship, I started drinking a protein shake prior to working out. The difference was noticeable. I should also mention that I was never carb depleted during this time.

We also know that working out in ketosis is miserable and no real work gets done. I think, knowing what we know about carb cycling, that the answer is clearly to up your carbs sufficiently in advance of your workout to permit max effort. Since we know carb intake will have a positive effect on exercise tempo, energy expenditure, and exercise length, I would expect that someone with sufficient carbs and calories in their system could workout harder and for longer than their carb-depleted counterpart. Accordingly, I would be surprised if this level of intensity didn't promote greater fat loss than the shorter, weaker exercise session of the carb and calorie depleted trainee.

The problem with nutritional science is that conventional wisdom is subject to frequent revisions and any number of people can take wildly differing approaches and reach similar results. In regards to exercise science, there appear to be a few golden rules: (1) lift progressively heavier things; (2) do high intensity cardio, preferably intervals; (3) eat roughly 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight when trying to add muscle; (4) sleep at least 8 hours a night; (5) eat carbs and protein after you workout; (6) train the big lifts; (7) train consistently and for an extended period of time, meaning at the very minimum 3 months; (8) eat fewer calories than you use when trying to lose weight, eat more than you use when trying to gain weight. These things work, every time, they just aren't that sexy.

This WSJ article does a nice job talking about the Bulgarian weightlifting method.

First, I've been lifting regularly, if not seriously, for the past 8 years and I have a firm rule: avoid any lift or training method that has the name of an Eastern European country tacked on to.

The Bulgarian training method is both an approach to lifting and an approach to team management. The high physical and psychological demands of the program will weed out the freakish athletes from the physically fit. As the WSJ article mentions, by routinely challenging your physical limits, you force the body to adapt to increasingly greater workloads. The other side of this is that each day is a max-effort day and each night you come home drained. It would be kind to say this program encourages the use of, ahem, supplements.

Starting Strength (Mark Rippetoe's website) ran a good article on the Bulgarian program. It discusses the program in greater deal and also states

"A sample program would look like this:
11:00am - 11:45 Front Squat
11:45am - 12:15 Break
12:15pm - 1:00 Snatch
1:00pm - 1:30 Break
1:30pm - 2:00 Clean & Jerk"

That program is insane and is still a lighter load than the WSJ article discussed. That is only 3 hours of lifting and only a four hour day at the gym, every day, for months on end.

When I was younger, I thought shit like this was brilliant. Every program I made or had someone make for me (thank god for meathead friends) had a 1-2 main lifts and then 4-5 assistance lifts. It took me a long time to realize that you lift so you can recover, you don't recover because you lifted. I am sure the Bulgarian method works well for the top .1% of lifters, but as a training philosophy, it is inapplicable to the general population's fitness goals and, in light of its very loose nutrition protocols, I question its effectiveness without the use of supplements.

If you don't know, now you know.

I used this song to get myself psyched for court the other day (no joke). The verse reminds me of a lot of late 70s and 80s British punk rock. The bass guitar plays through the steady, unadorned beat and the vocalist more or less reads the lyrics. It's standard fare, but (1) it is nice to hear it in a metal song and (2) it reminds me of when I first started learning about the history of punk rock and spent some time digging around for old MP3s, trying to figure out where the genre came from.

This is worth reading.

Here is a highlight

"Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (chemical that signals between neurons) that is a central mediator of reward and motivation in the brain. It has been known for decades that dopamine injections into the brain suppress food intake, and that this is due primarily to its action in the hypothalamus, which is the main region that regulates body fatness (1). Dopamine-producing neurons from reward centers contact neurons in the hypothalamus that regulate body fatness (2). I recently came across a paper by a researcher named Dr. Hanno Pijl, from Leiden University in the Netherlands (3). The paper is a nice overview of the evidence linking dopamine signaling with body fatness via its effects on the hypothalamus, and I recommend it to any scientists out there who want to read more about the concept.

"Increased dopamine signaling, particularly through the dopamine D2 receptor, can attenuate and in some cases reverse obesity in diet-induced obese animals, seasonally obese animals (squirrels, Syrian hamsters, etc.), and overweight/obese humans (4). Not only that, it can increase resting metabolic rate and attenuate the metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity even before the fat is lost, which emphasizes that these circuits control metabolism directly, as well as indirectly by influencing fat mass (5)*. Conversely, people who have genetic or drug-induced reductions in D2 receptor signaling gain fat at an accelerated rate (6, 7)."

Just the other day, I was sitting down, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the politics section of the New York Times when this creeping feeling came over me. I didn't own a giant tire! How I'd gone this far in life without a tire that I can flip is beyond me. Unfortunately, just as soon as I identified my need, I was overcome with a sense of doubt and I worried that I would never be able to find the right tire for my flipping needs. Thankfully, this exists.

I probably shouldn't joke about this too much. I did read the article and if I had a place to keep a giant tire, I would get one. Strongman movements make for fantastic cardio and I already do plenty of stupid sounding shit (see: dragging a weighted sled with a thick, metal chain).

I made croissants again this weekend. I cannot emphasize how difficult I find the shaping. Many pastries require lamination, a technique where the dough is folded over itself and then cooled. The folds create layers within the dough and the cooling prevents the dough from melding together (as does the additional fat which literally lubricates the gluten strands and prevents them from joining). You'll notice that the only breads that have distinct layers are fatty breads.

Anyway, this was probably my best croissant effort in regards to technique. They tasted great and the laminations were distinct. I did a double egg wash (once before the proof and once before the bake) and it really helped their color. Also, I fermented the whole dough, instead of using a preferment and then adding it to the dough later on. I don't know what effect butter and sugar has on fermenting dough, but the final result was tasty.

Idea: can I retard proofed croissants overnight and bake them right out of the fridge? Might be time to find out.

David Linden gets it. Food reward is not an inherently dangerous or fattening phenomena. Indeed, it is reflective of the dietary needs and consumption habits of the human race for eons. Unfortunately, it has been thoroughly exploited in recent decades by food manufacturers.

A common dieting tip is to cut out manufactured foods. For the longest time, I thought this was about their glycemic impact. While that is certainly a factor, manufactured and processed foods also tend to be light in nutrients, stuffed with food fillers, and designed to encourage consumption and repeat purchases.

They're lean. When I played football in high school, one of our coaches asked my friend if he "could take a gorilla." Called out in a crowded locker room by a much larger, older, and more intense man, my friend paused. He obviously couldn't, but you don't exactly go about announcing your weaknesses in a room full of aggressive teenage boys. The coach sensed the moment of hesitation and erupted "OF COURSE YOU COULDN'T! THEY HANG FROM TREES ALL DAY. A GORILLA COULD COME IN HERE AND WHOOP YOUR ASS!"

To this day, I have absolutely no clue what the hell our coach was talking about, but his statement remains as true as ever.

Here's what I've been rocking lately

1. Big K.R.I.T. Specifically, his ReturnOf4Eva mixtape. Even more specifically, "Theme Song."


2. Axiom Crux's remix of Jimmy Edgar's "New Touch." Yes, I already blogged this, but whatever.


3. Jimmy Edgar's remix of Jimmy Edgar's "New Touch." What can I say, he made it better.


4. EMA "Marked." This is a heavy and sad song accompanied by wonderfully deep and interesting instrumentation and production.


5. Defeater "Waves Crash, Clouds Roll." All credit to Mike for insisting that this band was worth listening to. Waves Crash is a great song, although Defeater is a band that I only listen to on a song-by-song basis.


6. Arcade Fire "Keep The Car Running." I don't know if I really "got" Arcade Fire until I saw them live. I get it now.