Grass fed beef is delicious and healthy. Oh, it's also prohibitively expensive, at least if you plan on eating it on a regular basis. If only someone had a smart, albeit intensely complicated, plan to reduce the cost per pound to something more affordable... And you thought keeping a chicken in your backyard was crazy.

Our justice system at work or how overworked courts, cops, and prosecutors push people through the system as best they can, but with human error and the assumption that everyone before them has done their job competently.

Amy Winehouse died today. Amy always made me sad and a bit uncomfortable. I understand she was struggling with herself and her fame, but what made me sad was the media and fan base's complicity in exacerbating her problems. She became tabloid fodder and those tabloids sold. There was heavy demand for stories of her undoing and photographs of her battles with anorexia and drug abuse. What makes me uncomfortable is the supply side of this equation. I don't know if she ever got a reprieve from the negative attention.

Stories about Amy Winehouse always reminded me of this 2008 Village Voice piece. It is as apt as ever.

I hope to make this a recurring post, adding new points to the list with each re-post. In short, I think the health and psychological benefits of weight lifting are under-appreciated. It's a point I make often in conversation, but I rarely put much effort into it. Here is a little bit of effort.

Note: the following links are to NY Times articles summarizing studies. I've found that the Times does a very good job of succinctly presenting this information. Maybe next time I will branch out a bit more, for the sake of diversity.

1. Strength training for children helps protect them from injury. "So, in essence, strength training in children seems to liberate the innate strength of the muscle, to activate the power that has been in abeyance, unused...Consequently, many experts say, by strength training, young athletes can reduce their risk of injury, not the reverse."

2. Strength training promotes psychological health in older women "The improvements in the strength training group included an enhanced ability to make decisions, resolve conflicts and focus on subjects without being distracted by competing stimuli."

3. Lifting increases a muscular adaptation and enhances gene expression

"In somewhat similar fashion, researchers from Japan recently found that loading the running wheels of animals improved their brain functioning. A loaded running wheel is not strictly analogous to weight lifting; it’s more similar in human terms to a stationary bicycle with the resistance dialed high — in this case, quite high, as the resistance equaled 30 percent of the rats’ body weights in the last week of the monthlong study... The animals that were assigned to the loaded wheels showed significantly increased levels of gene activity and B.D.N.F. levels within their brains. The higher the workload the animals managed to complete, the greater the genetic activity within their brains.

This 'study demonstrates for the first time that voluntary wheel running with a load increases a muscular adaptation and enhances gene expression' in the rat brain, said Min-Chul Lee, a researcher at the University of Tsukuba in Japan and lead author of the study, which was also presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Even more striking, he added, his findings indicate that 'this kind of exercise may have the identical or even more useful effects than endurance training (e.g., treadmill exercise) on the rat brain.'"

4. Lifting heavy will help you lose weight

"For people who lift weights to tone up and slim down, experts say, a regimen that includes a combination of challenging weights and fewer repetitions can help significantly. In a 2002 study, for example, scientists looked at what happened when women performed various resistance exercises at different weights and repetitions (85 percent of their maximum ability for 8 reps, versus 45 percent for 15). Subjects lifting more weight fewer times burned more energy and had a greater metabolic boost after exercise.

In another study published last year, scientists followed 122 women for six years. They found that those who were assigned to do resistance exercises three times a week — sets of 8 reps at 70 to 80 percent of their ability — lost the most weight and body fat. A similar two-year study of women who did strength training with challenging weight twice weekly found similar effects on body and 'intra-abdominal' fat."

5. Strength training helps with endurance and muscular efficiency.

In high school, my football coaches would always tell us "If you're going to make a mistake, make it at 100 miles per hour." The average play in football lasts four seconds. There's no time for deliberation or indecision. It is better to fully commit to a mistake, to block the wrong guy or run in the wrong direction, than to do nothing at all.

I've thought about it and I believe that advice is about the worst thing you could ever suggest to a lawyer.

This article is short and worth reading. Anyone who has ever talked to me (or read this blog in recent weeks) knows that I am a bit obsessed with food reward. My interest started when I was looking for an easy and comprehensive explanation for my eating habits. Why was I always turning to fatty and processed foods when stressed? Why did poor eating habits begat poor eating habits?

There is enough out there on food reward that I don't really need to rehash it here. I will say that I suspect there are ways to rewire our sense of food reward such that we begin to receive some moderate reward from otherwise low-reward foods.

Highlights of the above referenced article:

"Scientists in California and Italy reported last week that in rats given fatty foods, the body immediately began to release natural marijuanalike chemicals in the gut that kept them craving more."

"Other studies have shown that the body’s brain reward centers are strongly affected by the foods we eat.

For example, when obese women were shown pictures of high-calorie foods, their brains showed greater activity in regions associated with anticipating reward than did the brains of normal-weight women. “Reward centers were activated just by saying the words ‘chocolate brownie,’” said Dr. Carnell of Columbia.

The question is whether some people are born more responsive to certain foods, or whether a lifetime of overeating leads to brain and body changes that promote a stronger food response. To shed light on that issue, Dr. Carnell is conducting studies looking at normal-weight teenagers who have obese parents, and as a result are at risk for becoming obese themselves. 'I’m interested in whether the brain is responding differently even before they become obese,' she said."