My girlfriend and I were both stricken by the darn flu virus this week. Not surprising then, that we spent a good chunk of time huddled feverishly in blankets, sipping NeoCitran and watching T.V.

At one point during a commercial break, I became alarmed and had to scrabbled feverishly for my thermometer. What I  had just witnessed convinced me that I had descended into a state of delirium brought on by an upward-surging of my temperature. Surely I was seeing things? Drifting in and out of consciousness? Perhaps hovering in an altered state of consciousness, trapped somewhere between fever-inspired dreams and reality?

Nope.

Apparently, Kellog’s Fruit Loops are now an even more healthful way to start the morning, thanks to added fiber. Yep, it’s true. Fruit Loops are nutritious. Don’t believe me? See for yourself…

According to the NYT, hospitalization rates are increased for obese/morbidly obese people with swine flu infections.

Obesity appears to be a risk factor on a par with pregnancy for developing complications from an infection with pandemic H1N1 influenza, according to the most comprehensive look yet at swine flu hospitalizations.

About a quarter of those hospitalizations have been for people who were morbidly obese, even though such people make up less than 5% of the population. That fivefold increase in risk is close to the sixfold increase observed in pregnant women…When the merely obese are included with the morbidly obese, they make up 34% of the American population. Yet they accounted for 58% of the hospitalizations in the study.

…The researchers found that two-thirds of the obese patients had a health problem that was previously recognized as an underlying risk factor for swine flu. The most common were chronic lung disease, heart disease and diabetes.

But that still left one-third of obese patients without other risk factors, said Dr. Janice K. Louie, lead author of the study and chief of the state health department’s influenza and respiratory syndromes section.

There are many possible explanations.

This parallels a University of Michigan report released a few months ago.

This article from Scientific American is from March, but it’s still quite timely… It provides a common sense answer to a recurring question: whether it’s best to eat vegetables cooked or raw.

The whole article is worth a read, although I’ll give you the conclusion up front:

Comparing the healthfulness of raw and cooked food is complicated, and there are still many mysteries surrounding how the different molecules in plants interact with the human body. The bottom line, says Liu, is to eat your veggies and fruits no matter how they’re prepared.

“We cook them so they taste better,” Liu says. “If they taste better, we’re more likely to eat them.” And that’s the whole idea.

Bingo.  The “raw vs. cooked” debate is one I’ve had to deal with on the forums I mod, too.  When people want to get healthy, it seems that “black/white” rules are innately appealing.  If it isn’t the bestest of the best ways to do something, then it’s just no damn good at all.  But in my humble opinion, a few compromises that make healthy living more palatable and enjoyable are infinitely worth it… health isn’t a religion, so there’s no need to be a martyr.  If you eat a wide variety of both raw and cooked veggies, you won’t be missing out on anything “real” as far as your health and vitality are concerned.

Click here to read a pretty inspirational article in the LA Times.  It profiles 5 different people (including actor Larry Hagman) who were able to eliminate their need for insulin… and other medications as well.  Needless to state, there were no magic supps involved… just lifestyle changes.  Very significant lifestyle changes, too.

It’s safe to say that some of these folks workout more than I do (you won’t catch me jogging or hitting the elliptical every day – lol)!   These folks didn’t start from zero, either… more like minus 10.  Here’s a brief rundown:

• Aaron Snyder: 220 lbs. —> 160 lbs. (low carb diet). Lifts weights 4 days/week + rides a stationary bike for 30 min. 3 days/week.
• Howard Yosha: 240 lbs. —> 175 lbs. (low calorie diet). Participates in 2 – 4 yoga classes/week and walks/jogs 2 – 8 miles/day.
• John Burgess: 305 lbs. —> 211 lbs.(low calorie/reduced carb diet).  Puts in 5 1/2 miles on elliptical/day.
• Louise Valenciana: 242 lbs. —> 189 lbs. (low calorie diet). Walks every day for 40 minutes.
• Larry Hagman: 216 lbs. —> 196 lbs. (reduced calorie/carb diet). Exercises for 1 – 2 hours each day (free weights, cardio machines, walking).

Read the whole thing.  It took a lot of dedication to go from where they were, to where they are now.  Color me impressed.

This was a continuation of the “Strength Max” wave of the the program.  The changes this week involved a) doing 4 reps /set (vs. 6) at a 3-0-1-0 tempo; and b) performing a different superset for each workout.  The supersets were tough to do, as each one was placed towards the end of each workout, when we were starting to tire.  The muscle groups hit by these were triceps, upper back and shoulders.

The “Play Heart” (cardio) workouts are going great – I was able to increase my intensity a bit this week.  Unfortunately, the weather kept us largely indoors and confined to the machines (treadmill and elliptical).  We went shopping today for some cold weather workout gear, however, which will make it easier to do outdoor cardio (and/or Prowler workouts) as long as it’s dry.  The time change is a pain, though, as it’s going to be getting dark an hour earlier… it will be tough for John to get home in time for outdoor workouts during the week.  We may be stuck doing weekends only.

We’re 2/3 of the way through… 3 more weeks to go.

As the chief-cook-and-bottlewasher at UltimateFatBurner.com, Paul gets all the e-mail and feedback.  Most of it’s pretty routine stuff… although once-in-a-while, he’ll get some real doozies.  He typically forwards these to me, so we can share a laugh… although there are some messages that inspire this reaction, too…

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…You get up with fleas.  It’s an old, old saying, but there’s truth to it.

Earlier today, I was exchanging e-mails with a friend, Will Brink.  He drew my attention to a recent study published in JANA – the Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association.  While scanning the list of papers, I came across one that made me do a double-take…

Inhibitory Effects of a Novel Nutrient Mixture on MMP Secretion and Invasion on Human Thyroid Cancer Cell Line SW 579

Ok, it wasn’t the title… it was the list of authors that caught my eye… specifically the senior author.

M Waheed Roomi PhD, Bilwa Bhanap MD, Vadim Ivanov PhD MD, Aleksandra Niedzwiecki PhD and Matthias Rath MD.

Dr. Rath Research Institute, Cancer Division, Santa Clara, California

I looked up the Dr. Rath Research Institute to verify that it was the same Matthias Rath I’d read about… and nearly gagged.  It was: there was NO mistaking that face, and the address on the paper matched the one on the site.

OMFG.

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This Johns Hopkins study confirms some anecdotes I’ve heard/read.

October 22, 2009-Doctors have less respect for their obese patients than they do for patients of normal weight, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The findings raise questions about whether negative physician attitudes about obesity could be affecting the long-term health of their heavier patients.

Mary Margaret Huizinga, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says the idea for the research came from her experiences working in a weight loss clinic. Patients would come in and “by the end of the visit would be in tears, saying no other physician talked with me like this before. No one listened to me,” says Huizinga, the study’s leader and director of the Johns Hopkins Digestive Weight Loss Center.

“Many patients felt like because they were overweight, they weren’t receiving the type of care other patients received,” she says.

Not good – no one should be disrespected by their doctors, particularly people who are at risk for future health problems (even if they’re apparently healthy now).

This was the first week of the “Strength Max” portion of the program.  It felt good to be doing heavier loads again.

This week’s innovation was the addition of “Punisher” sets.  These are 100 rep exercises!  You start with a load you can do a max of 30 – 40 reps with, then squeeze out 100.  Obviously, this takes more than one set to accomplish, but the idea is to minimize the intervening rest periods… each “rest” was only about 15 – 30 seconds.

Naturally, the 100 rep sets are at the end of the workout, right when I’m tired and ready to hang it up for the day.  The Punisher exercises we did this week were 1) calf presses (leg press machine); 2) reverse curls (EZ-bar); and 3) seated leg curls.

“Punisher” is a good name for this… doing 100 reps really, really burns.  I was ok with the calf presses (they hurt, but my calves are quite tough, and can take a LOT of abuse), but I’m still aching from the other two.

We didn’t get any Prowler workouts in this week - we had either John’s work schedule or the weather (rain) to contend with.  Admittedly, we had a chance yesterday (it was Saturday AND sunny), but blew it off, since we were both sore from our upper body workouts.

C’est la vie.  We’ll pick it up again next week, weather (and John’s schedule) permitting.

According to Reuters, the “Smart Choices” labeling program has  “voluntarily” postponed “active operations” - pending an investigation by the FDA.  Some companies, like Kraft, intend to continue using the system on existing products, but will not expand its use. Kellogg, however, intends to phase it out completely.

It’s funny what a little public scrutiny can accomplish, isn’t it?

Paul has written extensively about various underhanded tricks that supplement companies use to manipulate the trust of their customers… in fact, he’s written an entire booklet about it, called “Dirty Rotten Tricks” (if you haven’t downloaded it yet, you should.  It’s excellent!).

As noted in the booklet (as well as in this video), one of the most common online scams is the so-called “free-trial” offer, wherein the supplement marketer charges only a small shipping and handling fee for a full month’s supply of the product.  It looks like a great deal… but there’s a catch.  One of the ”Terms and Conditions” you ”agree” to when you accept the free trial offer is enrollment in an ”autoship” program. Unless you cancel the “agreement” within a relatively short period after ordering the free trial, you’re on the hook.  Needless to state, a LOT of people never read the “Terms and Conditions” before signing up, and are shocked/angry to discover they’re receiving product shipments – and credit card charges – they didn’t expect (and often can’t stop).

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…Diet, that is. 

The New York Times has a commendably skeptical take on the principal cookie-based diets on the market: Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet, the Hollywood Cookie Diet, Smart for Life and the Soypal Cookie diet.  Eating cookies on a diet may seem like a luxury, but the reality is pretty stark… these diets typically provide only 800 – 1,000 calories per day!

Critics of cookie diets are not convinced. Weight-loss plans that center around a diet of below 1,000 calories do not, they say, lead to long-lasting weight loss and can result in potassium deficiency, gallstones, heart palpitations, weakened kidney function and dizziness. The cookie diet particularly concerns eating disorder activists, who have long criticized fad diets, such as the grapefruit diet, Master Cleanse and Optifast shakes. “Generally speaking, fad diets misinform the public and fuel a fire of continued curiosity with this dieting mentality, which we know gets us nowhere,” said Dr. Ovidio Bermudez, medical director of Laureate Eating Disorders Program in Tulsa, Okla. “They tend to promise a huge return for very little investment,” he said, adding, “We need to be very aware of that fact that whenever we skew our eating in any direction; the chances are that we’re going to hinder our health and not enhance it.”

…“For weight loss to stick, you have to be able to settle into an eating pattern that you can adhere to over time,” said Suzanne Havala Hobbs, a clinical associate professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “That eating pattern needs to provide you with all the nutrients you need while holding calories in balance with the number you expend.

“Diets with a gimmick,” she added, “aren’t harmful for a short period of time. But they’re not likely to cause a meaningful change in behavior that will enable you to keep your weight at an optimal level.”

While the article probably won’t tell you anything that you didn’t already know (or suspect), it reinforces what those of us in the bodybuilding community have understood for years… there are no shortcuts to getting “lean ‘n mean”.  Gimmick diets can certainly take some weight off in the short-term, but they aren’t a path to either long-term weight maintenance or achieving an optimal body composition.  They aren’t worth the effort or the costs, which – in the case of the various cookie diets – can be considerable.

(h/t Pandagon)

And it’s not a pretty sight. I think his article in the LA Times, on the recent White House “Healthy Kids Fair,” was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but it failed… both as humor and reporting.  The problem?  Malcolm evidently couldn’t decide who he has more contempt for… Michelle Obama for using her position to promote healthy living, or overweight/obese Americans, whose “…flabby thighs are hidden by their drooping stomachs.”
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I ain’t bloggin’ on my birthday.   But I’ll leave you with my favorite, “wish-I’d-thought-of-that” birthday greeting:

Birthday Greetings from Joe Cocker from Jared Pike on Vimeo.

An Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel has proposed a new set of guidelines for the National School Lunch Program… and they’re long overdue.  According to the LA Times:

Children would get fewer French fries and more dark green vegetables in school cafeterias under recommendations being issued today by an Institute of Medicine panel.

In addition, for the first time in the National School Lunch Program, the committee called for calorie limits on meals in an effort to curb obesity. The lunch recommendations allot 650 calories for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, 700 calories in sixth to eighth grade, and 850 calories in high school. Breakfasts should not be above 500, 550 and 600, respectively, for the same grade levels, the committee said.

…Over the next decade, the sodium content of meals should gradually be reduced, the committee said. A typical high school lunch today contains about 1,600 milligrams of sodium; a maximum of 740 milligrams is recommended.

But the recommended upper limit of total fat would increase from 30% to 35% of calories, bringing it in line with the dietary guidelines. The goal is no trans fats and less than 10% of calories as saturated fats.

The committee recommended more legumes, vegetables and fruits — such as cups of fruit in breakfasts for all grades and in lunches for high school students. It also said no more than half of the fruit should be in the form of juice.

The committee recommended weekly amounts for vegetables, including dark green and orange vegetables, grains, and meats, cheese and yogurt for each age group. And it said fruits and vegetables were not interchangeable.

It also recommended that whole milk be replaced with low-fat or skim milk, and that refined grains be replaced with whole grain foods.

These changes are sorely needed.  Over the years, my kids resolutely refused to eat the food served in their school cafeterias, because it was always too fatty, salty and just plain unappetizing.  But a lot of kids have no choice.  Needless to state, school lunches ought to be better than fast food meals so many kids eat these days… not the equivalent (or worse).

As I’ve mentioned before, my degrees are in Food Science… which means I was trained to work in the food industry.  That I didn’t end up there is really a quirk of fate.  While most of my fellow students moved into jobs with Pillsbury, General Mills, General Foods, RJR Nabisco and other well-known companies,  I stayed with the university to do research; crossing the aisle (so to speak) from applied science to pure. 

Nonetheless, I’ve retained my interest in food/food processing issues… which is why it sometimes drives me nuts to see articles from various wannabe gurus and nutrition writers ranting about the evils of  ”processed foods.”  I understand the point(s) they’re trying to make, but their definition of  “processed food” is very different than mine.  When they talk about “processed food”, they mean the high-sugar/high fat, low fiber, high sodium, additive-rich snack/convenience/junk faux foods so many people know and love.  But this is NOT an accurate definition.

So what’s a processed food?  ROFL!  It would actually be easier to ask, “what ISN’T a processed food?”  Truth is, outside of the whole, intact veggies and fruits in the produce bins, just about everything edible in the store is a “processed food”… “organic” or “all-natural” notwithstanding.

Don’t believe me?  What about that bag of natural, old-fashioned oatmeal?  Well, the oats have to be harvested, cleaned, heated, hulled, cut and flaked/rolled before they’re dispensed into units for sale.  Natural peanut butter?  Same deal.  The harvested peanuts have to be sorted, cleaned, washed, shelled, roasted, blanched, debittered, and ground before they end up in those familiar jars you see on the store shelves.

Get the picture? Even foods we think of as ”natural” are put through the wringer before they end up in the familar store box, jar, bag or bin. They’re all PROCESSED – and they have to be.  Many of them would be inedible (or simply unavailable) if they weren’t.  Whether you like the idea or not, our society runs on processed foods.  We live on what author James Burke calls “technology islands”… our way of life would be impossible without the miracle (yes, miracle!) of processed foods.

So does this mean processed foods are actually healthy?  Not necessarily.  The real issue we need to focus on is the degree of processing.  But processing itself isn’t inherently a negative… Instead, of uncritically demonizing “processed foods”, we need to look at individual products, and see what’s been done to them.

Remember this?  Looks like the so-called “Smart Choices” labelling system is drawing critics with teeth.

Raising the stakes in the battle over nutritional claims for packaged foods, the Connecticut attorney general said on Wednesday that he was investigating a national labeling campaign that promotes products like Froot Loops and mayonnaise as nutritionally smart choices.

In letters to Kellogg’s, General Mills and PepsiCo, the attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, said he was concerned that the program, called Smart Choices, was “overly simplistic, inaccurate and ultimately misleading.” The three companies are among several food giants that participate in the program.

In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Blumenthal said he had discussed his investigation with attorneys general from other states and several had expressed interest in joining his effort. In other prominent consumer protection cases, states have worked together to pursue companies or industries, including cigarette makers and subprime lenders, over charges of deceptive marketing.

“As a matter of common sense, these sugar-laden or fat-saturated products seem very questionable as so-called ‘Smart Choices’ nutritionally,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “We’re ratcheting up pressure for truthful answers to these issues.”

The Connecticut investigation will seek to determine if the labeling campaign violates the state’s consumer protection law, which bars misleading or false product claims, he added.

Personally, I’d be delighted to see Mr. Blumenthal roast the industry over a sloooow fire for this one.  Stay tuned…

I’m rather glad this week is over!  This was the last week of the “Muscle Up” (endurance) phase, and doing all those slooooooowww 3-0-3-0 sets was tough.  But we got through it, and the good news is that there aren’t any more sets that use tempos this slow.

Another challenging twist this week was circuit sets.  These were similar to tri-sets, although there were short rests between the exercises (1 minute between the three exercises in the set; 2 minutes between sets).  Each workout featured one – for chest, back and shoulders.  Even worse, the chest and back circuits were followed by 6 sets of tricep and bicep exercises, respectively. 

I thought my arms were gonna fall off when we were finally done.

We also kept up with our a.m. cardio (Su/M/W/F) and got a Prowler workout in (it was rainy this week, so one session was all we could manage).  I added a couple of 10 pound plates to the weight stack for my first lap (from our driveway to the neighbors, and back), but ended up taking them off for subsequent laps – going up 20 pounds was a bit too much.  I’m going to stop at Sports Authority tomorrow to pick up some 2 1/2 and 5 pound plates, so I can increase weight in smaller increments.

The good news is that my weight is holding steady… but it’s still hovering around 123 lbs.

Next week: the “Strength Max” workouts begin!

Just like Don Ho, I rather like champagne… there’s something about the “fizz” that makes it special, although for years I figured it was just the physical sensation of the bubbles.

Apparently not.  Scientists have recently discovered a taste receptor for carbonation in mice, who are quite similar to humans in the way they perceive taste.

They found that the taste of carbonation is initiated by an enzyme tethered like a small flag from the surface of sour-sensing cells in taste buds. The enzyme, called carbonic anhydrase 4, interacts with the carbon dioxide in the soda, activating the sour cells in the taste bud and prompting it to send a sensory message to the brain, where carbonation is perceived as a familiar sensation.

…Ryba added that the taste of carbonation is quite deceptive. “When people drink soft drinks, they think that they are detecting the bubbles bursting on their tongue,” he said. “But if you drink a carbonated drink in a pressure chamber, which prevents the bubbles from bursting, it turns out the sensation is actually the same. What people taste when they detect the fizz and tingle on their tongue is a combination of the activation of the taste receptor and the somatosensory cells. That’s what gives carbonation its characteristic sensation.”

It’s not earth-shattering news, of course, but it’s kinda cool… at least to a science nerd like me.

About 400, apparently…

Low-income children in Philadelphia with about one dollar in pocket money managed to purchase almost 400 calories worth of snack food at convenience stores on the way to and from school, according to study published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

…“One of the most surprising findings was how many calories a dollar and seven cents can buy,” said Kelley E. Borradaile, the paper’s lead author and a professor at the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University. She worked on the study with The Food Trust, a community-based organization in Philadelphia that promotes healthy eating options.

The neighborhood stores offer a wide variety of cheap packaged snacks that contain little nutrition but are high in fat and sugar, the study found. For a total tab of $1.07, a child could purchase an 8-oz. sugary drink and a single serving bag of potato chips, plus a popsicle and several pieces of individually wrapped candy. The sum total of calories: 356 calories on average per day.

Estimated calorie needs for moderately active children 9 – 13 years of age are 1,600 – 2,000 for girls, and 1,800 – 2,200 for boys… so 356 calories is a pretty significant percentage of daily needs (16% – 22%).  That’s a lot of empty calories.  Convenience store snacks probably aren’t the only sources of empty cals in the kids’ daily menus, either.  As the full study makes clear, they’re at risk not only for obesity, but also other health/behavior issues associated with nutrient-poor diets.