More health and fitness myths

The inspiration for this post is from my lunch outing today.  I was overhearing a group of young guys in their early 20′s talking about cardio and burning fat.  This one guy who made himself sound like the expert was directing advice to his heavier friend on how you need to do cardio for 20 minutes before you tap into burning your fat storage.  This is very common traditional knowledge but does not really even make sense logically let alone scientifically. I forgave this guy in my head  cause I used to buy into and dish out the same conventional BS.

The thing about scientific research studies on health and fitness is that there are too many variables left out.  How can you claim 20 minutes is what everyone needs to do?  Everyone is different and often very different.  My friend drinks half a beer and he’s drunk.  I drink about 5 and my other friends vary from 2 to 15.

You don’t really tap into your fat storage until you’re muscles are out of it’s energy stores and that doesn’t happen very easily when you eat a diet based on high carbohydrates/sugar.  It’s like buying 10 cans of spam a week cause it’s on sale but only being able to eat 5.  Your earthquake storage is going to gain a lot of weight.  If there’s anything that can be classified as mystery meat it would be spam.

I think concept of cardio is retarded anyway.  Why would a human ever jog for long periods of time.  You would either run really fast or walk.  I can see jogging happening but only for a very short moment.  Have you ever seen an animal on those nature shows just jogging for 60 minutes for no damn reason at all?  If aliens are watching us they probably think we’re retarded.  “Why are these humans running in circles but not appearing to be chasing or running from anything?  They look like they’re suffering but they keep on going.  Ziron, I have concluded these humans live to suffer.”

Retirement or Death

I was reading the paper today and they had a couple articles that caught my eye.  One was how people will not be able to retire at 65 anymore and will probably have to work until their 70′s.  The other was about how we’re all living longer.

My thoughts on later retirement are pretty simple.  I don’t think I want to.  But I see a potentially bigger issue.  We’re living longer but not living healthier.  With peoples health declining there’s going to be a problem with older people being able to work.  There’s already a crap load of people forced into early retirement cause of some kind of disability.  What are people going to do when they’re old, unable to work and don’t have enough money.  Apparently our pensions aren’t something to look forward to either cause it won’t be enough they say.  I’m going to have to guess housing will be more expensive in the future too.

The fact that the world has only gotten crappier decade after decade, I can only see 2 things happening in the kind of world we’re used to living in.  It’s either going to be a really shitty time to be alive or this world is going to transform into something so unimaginable like going to the moon 100 years ago.

Maybe it will get so bad that there will be a suicide trend the old and sick do.  No money, no roof, no social assistance,  see ya later.  Sounds crazy but we did see a glimpse of it during the recession.  I suppose another possibility is the Armageddon will happen before any of this and Jesus Christ will rain down on the wicked and save the righteous (please pick me, please pick me).

My New Radio: Sony Fidelity Sound ICF-9640W

So that radio I was talking about when I went to the flea market…I got it!  People think I’m retarded for paying $50 for an old ass radio that doesn’t do anything else but play radio but I love it.

The guy who sold it to me said it’s like 40 years old.  At first I didn’t believe him but when I try to find info on it there’s not much which tells me it’s pretty old.  It’s got to be at least 30 years old though.  One thing though, the FM doesn’t work and I don’t think he was trying to hide that from me either cause he was going to switch it to FM at one point but I stopped him cause I didn’t care about the FM.  Oh well.  I don’t plan on using FM much but I could have used it as a bargaining tool.

I turn it on every morning while I’m getting ready for work just like how they do on tv when they show a family gathering in a kitchen in the morning before they head off for work or school.  “Sandwiches again mom : (” or “no coffee for me hun, I’m already late for the 8:00 rush on the interstate.”

Model: ICF-9640w
Features:  Turns on and off

Black Jeans

After writing my last post and mentioning fashion trends it got me thinking about myself when I was 13 and I nagged my mom at the mall to buy me an $80 pair of black Guess jeans.  I distinctly remember how frightened she was of the price tag and how she so didn’t want to for out that kind of money for them.  What I don’t distinctly remember was why I wanted them so bad that I would make my mother who was a low wage worker pay pretty much a days wage for them.

During my years leading up to high school I was very far from being a spoiled brat who wanted everything.  I was always conscious of the fact that my mom worked long and hard everyday for not much money.  Nike Air’s were all the thing back then but I felt so bad spending my mom’s money that I would just get regular Nike’s or some cheap name brand that seemed to mimic Nike.  I was the only kid who didn’t have a Nintendo.  We never went on vacations or had nice dinners.  I didn’t get on a plane until I was 22!

I must have almost killed her that day.  She probably had trouble sleeping that night.  My guess is that she just wanted to see me happy once in a while.  All that just for a pair of jeans so I could fit in or at least try to.  A freaking piece of denim made in a 3rd world country marked up 300% that gets worn, thrown away and forgotten about.

 

Getting old

Call it getting old or call it getting sick and tired but I’d rather listen to AM news/talk radio than music on the FM stations.  When I was in my teens and 20′s it was absurd to me to listen to anything else other than music while driving.  Now, I just want some more soothing and calming.  I hate to say this but now I understand when I was a kid and all those adults just wanted peace and quiet.  They just hated noise unless if it had to do with work.

These days I’d rather listen to Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra than all the over produced music that’s been around for the last couple decades.  Sometimes all that rap and rock music makes me want to go psycho and shoot bullets somewhere.  My head feels like it wants to explode listening to that stuff too much and too loud.
Tomorrow I will probably write a post about how “back in my day we used to blah blah and so and so 3 miles up a hill in 3 feet of snow with tigers lunging for my lunch and 4 miles back home with 10 pounds of homework.”

Trends

Usually when you think of trends you think of young people in high school following the crowd and whatever the media throws at them.  In high school you have fashion trends, going to the mall, listening to the newest music, smoking cigarettes.  Straight out of high school you have maybe drugs, nightclubs and more fashion trends.

The thing about trends is that it never ends for most people.  They just don’t see it as trends.  They see it as life or growing up or “that’s the way it is.”  I hate it when people say that.  That’s the way it is if you don’t have your own brain and listen to it.  The only difference between young person trends and adulthood trends is that the latter cost more money and takes more of your life.

You have to have a car.  You have to get married and if you do get married you have to have kids.  You have to have a wedding cause it’s is your big special day so that’s why it’s going to be exactly like the last 4 weddings you went to and very possibly at the very same place.  Own property?  Of course.  You can’t rent.  Ewww.  A 25 year mortgage is what you want even if you can barely make ends meet.   You have to have blu-ray and you have to watch it on at least a 46″ lcd television but soon you have to watch it on a 46″ inch led television.

Just like in high school, if you don’t follow the trends everyone will look down on you and you don’t want that cause that wouldn’t be cool.   Cool like Joe Camel.  You got to admit those Joe Camel ads were pretty cool.    Also like high school trends when you look back at them you realize how retarded they were and how you were retarded for buying into it and if you could go back you wouldn’t have wasted your time and energy and your life.  And you’re not suppose begin a sentence with “and” and you shouldn’t use “and” more than once in a sentence.

Saweeeet Potato

In the beginning of my paleo/primal diet I thought it was going to be all plant based foods and meat for my meals.  No more rice, noodles, potatoes or bread.  That leaves a person usually unsatisfied and hungry pretty quick even though it’s probably a good sign of healthy digestion.

It’s not exactly low carb but for whatever reason it’s anti-inflammatory, high in fibre and it tastes damn good.  The sweet potato!  Not really good for weight loss but I’m looking to gain some so there’s a plus.  I guess it’s some kind of super potato cause all the other ones don’t have the same anti-inflammatory properties.  How do I know this is true?  Cause they said so and they are never wrong.

The Okinawan’s  include sweet potatoes as their staple and they live for like ever.  They live so long and healthy, Armageddon won’t even get them.  Although, they eat a different kind, a purple kind.    No matter what it’s gotta be better than the grains we eat especially the refined stuff.

Other anti-inflammatory foods include broccoli, wild salmon, extra virgin olive oil, blueberries and crack.  Not crack.  How can any food be on a list with those guys and not be good for you?  Don’t eat the skin though, it apparently isn’t that great for you and it will show up in your crap like corn.  I swear.  Try it if you don’t believe me.

Death to my ego

I am no one.  I want nothing.  Realizing this has brought me current happiness.  All this sounds like real loser talk, I know.  We’ve been all brought up to want to be the best or at least like the rest.

In the past year I’ve been a bit of a recluse due to foreseen and unforeseen life stuff.  My life now consists of almost no friends and even less family.  At first the realization of this was depressing but once I got used to it and realized I was better off this way I felt sort of enlightened.

Having no circle of people in my life ceased my desire to fit in and the negative feelings I had when I didn’t fit in.  There was no one to really judge me.  I expected less therefore was disappointed less.  My life belonged to me and no one else.  The desire to be “someone”  had died.   I am no one but a human living on this earth.

A couple times over the past few months I would come across articles from this guy named Eckhart Tolle and he kept talking about the ego and how it was the root of most unhappiness.  Some of it made sense to me but it wasn’t until I stopped trying to fit in all the time that I really saw the meaning.

Ego is fake.  It was just this fake person I created and sustained all these years to make myself feel better about myself.  When I couldn’t live up to my ego it depressed me.  When I could, the gratification was short lived or needed a lot of maintenance.  It made me defensive at times and was often offensive.  I was living for this person and not me.  My ego was this “someone” and he’s mostly dead but not completely cause I know I haven’t totally conquered him.

I used to think only people who desired material things and beautiful people had egos but I now know even a bum on the street can have an ego ruling his life.  As long as you think your a someone somewhere somehow then you’ll have an ego.  Oh man it’s hard to write anything with a slight hangover.

Mike Tyson

Like the majority of people I used to think Mike Tyson was a psychotic unintelligent psychotic  woman beater.  My reasons for thinking this was pretty simple.  TV only showed us what was most interesting about him and exaggerated it as much as possible.  Besides showing what a great boxer he was, the only other video clips you would see of him was getting into trouble with the law or going off on some kind of rage in front of the cameras.

About a year ago I watched the documentary “Tyson” and it blew me away.  I saw this side of him that was never revealed by media.  He was very philosophical, intelligent and very genuine.  He lived a life that very few people live or even hear about.   I found it also very inspiring how he came to be the great boxer that he was and his fall from grace.

After watching that show I no longer think of him as a crazy muscle bound freakazoid.  If I was Ebert I would give it a big thumbs up which he did and recommend that you give it a watch.

Trailer for Tyson

Treating yourself

As far as I know, treating yourself is something you do as an exception to your regular life.  Buying yourself a new electronic gizmo would usually be considered a treat.  Taking a vacation once a year would be a treat.  What if you did these things every week or month?  I guess it wouldn’t be considered a treat no more and for most people it would probably hurt them financially.  Even if you could afford this kind of lifestyle it would no longer be special or a treat.

When it comes to eating, I would consider ice cream, pizza or anything deep fried to be something of a treat and the list goes on.  If you eat something from that list everyday you are incorporating “treat food” as part of your regular diet and you wouldn’t be treating yourself anymore but instead hurting yourself.  Putting your health in debt.  Many people treat themselves every meal!  Do you think it would be healthy to feed your dog milk bones for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Eating to “treat”  yourself everyday turns all these treat foods into nothing special.  Ever since I limited treating myself I seriously scream for ice cream.  I get excited with the anticipation and savour every spoonful.  A philosophy for eating healthy is, “eat for purpose not for pleasure.”

You’ve heard the sayings, “drink responsibly” and “use credit wisely.”  You can add “treat responsibly” to that list.   This is Allan Johnson signing off another corny healthy diet message.  It’s 10pm, do you know what your kids are eating?