One of the more diabolical puzzles in the horror film Saw II is known as The Razor Box Trap.

Above: Ouchie. (pic courtesy of Wikipedia)

What’s so nefarious about this trap is that the harder the victim tries to circumvent the trap (in the straightforward way), the more the blades dig into her flesh and the deeper she’s trapped. Whereas, if she’d just taken an extra minute or two to think, she might just have noticed the key hanging out of the lock in back of the box, ripe for the opening.

A similar parallel can be drawn with trainees who exercise without changing dietary habits. Instead of helping your cause, you slowly run yourself down, because:

1. You never establish a proper hormonal environment for fat loss to occur, so you lose little to no fat, and,

2. You give the body insufficient resources from which to synthesize muscle, so you gain none.

Whereas, eating to support your goals would make your life so much easier, and take only a tiny bit more mental energy. Instead of fighting the losing struggle of more and more exercise to compensate for poor eating, you could use both to work towards your favor.

Don’t let the bogeyman get you - think first before you move.

Happy Halloween!

What do you eat for breakfast if you’re on a low-carb regimen and you don’t like eggs?

One of the biggest sticking points on a diet comes when you run out of quick but tasty breakfast ideas. After all, who has the time in the morning to bake a quiche, and how many days in a row can you stomach poached, boiled, or scrambled eggs?

There’s always cottage cheese, full-fat yogurt, or bacon, but that still only totals about 6 different breakfasts or so.

Here’s a solution: Eat dinner instead. Or lunch. In other words, who says you’re only limited to breakfast foods at breakfast?

It’s perfectly okay to eat steak or chicken for breakfast. Have yourself a chicken salad or tuna and avocado. By eliminating the false limitation of “only breakfast foods at breakfast” and by looking at it as just another meal (another “feeding”, if you will), you’ll open up a nearly limitless number of food combinations, insuring you’ll never get bored and you’ll be able to stay on track.

Don’t worry about breaking the rules once in awhile; the sun will still come up tomorrow morning, the law of gravity will world will somehow continue to spin on its axis.

1. Get through said workout with as much concentration and focus as you can muster.

2. Record your performance. This will be good later, when you can review it impartially.

3. Eat something (as in, “refuel”, not eat something to make you feel better).

4. Mentally review the circumstances. Were you tired or stressed? Lacking sleep? Did you eat properly?
Note: This differs from excuse-making because you are trying to identify the factor(s) that contributed to the lackluster workout, so that you can circumvent it next time.

5. Review your performance. Did you at least prevent backsliding? Was the workout “par for the course?” Did you at least exercise great form?

6. Plan to exceed your performance for next time by executing as well as possible in all other capacities, i.e. Eat properly, get sufficient rest, take some time (even just a few minutes each day) for yourself, etc.

7. Totally kill it next workout.

The most e-mailed article from yesterday’s New York Times was this little ditty about diabetes:

In Diabetes, a Complex of Causes. (pardon the link, I realize not all of you are registered with the New York Times)

You’d be forgiven if your first thought upon reading this article was about how wonderful it is that we live in the technological age where medical breakthroughs happen by the day.

But let’s examine this article a little more closely, shall we?

This article belies the “gee whiz” mentality that scientists and medical professionals tend to display when confronted with results or findings that don’t fall in lockstep with the prevailing medical orthodoxy - kind of how all the low-fat supporters were left scratching their heads when major longitudinal studies on low-fat diets tend to show worse health and longevity for folks on low-fat diets.

I’ll pin down the relevant passages from the article for you here (with corresponding commentary):

1. “The defining feature of diabetes is elevated blood sugar. But the reasons for abnormal sugar seem to ‘differ tremendously from person to person,’ said Dr. Robert A. Rizza, a professor at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.”

The common thread in Type 2 diabetes is chronic elevation of insulin levels. While there may be many different mechanisms that lead to this hyperinsulimia in different individuals, one thing holds true: the less sugar you eat, the less insulin your body has to dump into the bloodstream to ferry that sugar into the cells. That holds true for all human biochemistry and it’s something that’s within the reach of every person to control (whereas I think controlling the rate of bone secretion of osteocalcin or punching little holes into your brain is beyond the yen of your average Joe or Jane).

2. “Drugs that increase (insulin) production tend to make insulin resistance worse.”

More than being an interesting coincidence, this makes logical sense. If the underlying mechanism of insulin resistance (and ultimately, Type 2 diabetes) is the “deafness” of the body’s cells to the call of insulin, then drugs that serve to amplify the call of insulin would hasten the progression of insulin resistance. Which just goes to show that treating the symptoms of a disease without an appreciation of the disease’s overall scope is short-sighted indeed.

3. “A deficiency in osteocalcin could also turn out to be a cause of Type 2 Diabetes, Dr. Karsenty said.”

To use a tired analogy, just because fire trucks are usually at the site of a fire doesn’t mean that fire trucks cause fires.

4. “If osteocalcin works similarly in humans, it could turn out to be a ‘unique new treatment’ for Type 2 diabetes, Dr. Malozowski said.”

…or, instead of spending billions trying to make a brand new drug to treat Type 2 diabetes, you could just tell patients to eat less sugar. And to strength train, since strength training improves insulin sensitivity.

Now, I’m not poo-pooing the furthering of science, nor am I against the use of allopathic solutions (Read: drugs) for medical problems. But let’s face it: this nation has a diabetes problem because it has a sugar problem. And it’s irresponsible to promote drug-based solutions (and to profit handsomely from them) if a less invasive lifestyle alternative Sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution (and the cheapest, to boot).

Maybe you could try telling people to eat less sugar. Just a thought.

Are you on the fast track to corporate success, but on a downward spiral with regards to your health and wellness?

Well, check out “Healthier and Wealthier“, an article I recently penned for The Glass Hammer (an online portal for women in finance and professional services).  The article details how exercise benefits your earnings capacity and can help you be more productive at work.

Enjoy the article and (if you’re an upwardly mobile female professional) the rest of the Glass Hammer site.