5/22 The Passion of a Generation

"What was I going to do with Italian? It would be more practical to learn how to play the accordion. But why must everything always have a practical application? Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty? In this period of loss, did I need any justification for learning Italian other than that it was the only thing I could imagine bringing me any pleasure right now?" from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Passion.  It's difficult to define this word because it means something different to everyone.  It's used as loosely as the word love, and it has just as various meanings.  Everyone can agree that, as humans, we should possess it.  

 In Gilbert's passage above, she hits upon a very controversial topic, especially amongst my generation (those just getting into the work place).  We have watched our parents and their parents work their asses off for our benefit, yet this seems to have had a phenomenal effect.  Their progeny have the desire the work less, play more.  For the most part, we see our predecessors as workaholics.  Everything they do in life has a practical function.  The "American Dream" is not being pursued by my generation the way it was pursued by preceding generations.  

I like to attribute this change to passion.  People are more passionate about living nowadays.  Our parents criticize us for traveling so much (which is likely a reflection of jealousy if you ask me), taking "time off from school", resisting marriage, and delaying baby-making.  In my case, it's as if my parents have totally forgotten what drove them to love the 60s (I have pictures to prove that they loved the 60s).  My generation seems to focus more on the individual as opposed to fulfilling the "American Dream" --> house with a picket fence, happy family, and a steady job.  Instead, we gravitate towards the unknown.  We are curious about the world, and there is very little that scares us.   

My parents are passionate about me.  I'm passionate about the world.  I haven't lost my idealistic views of the world.  And I'm out to conquer the world.  I'm certainly looking forward to having a career, family, and children, but the exact framework for this future establishment is not so clear.  In fact, it almost seems as if those things will be possible only if I pursue my own interests in the meantime to ensure that my person is safe and sound before I set off trying to make a woman happy and raise children.  This seems radical to my parents:  "Why aren't you married yet?"  "You've been with that girl for so long, when are you getting married?"  "Don't you think it's time you settled down?"  "Are you a doctor yet?"  "Can you take a look at this rash?"  

My response to these frequent (very frequent) questions is always the same: I'm not ready, and I'm in no rush. 

My generation is bent on figuring out what it is that they are destined to do before they pour any concrete.  In my opinion, this pursuit is both beneficial and detrimental for our society.  The benefits are many.  If you don't know yourself, or if you're not comfortable with yourself, how can you possibly support others?  Furthermore, those who are most comfortable with themselves and their place in the world also seem to be the happiest.  In my generation, more people would find greater satisfaction in making less money as long as they enjoyed what they were doing.   

The problem with this approach is that finding something you're passionate about takes a lifetime.  We all have our quirks throughout life, but to find something that we couldn't live without is more difficult. To say that we are truly passionate about something means that it is just as important to us as life itself.  Take dancing for instance.  Passion defies judgment.   If dancing is your passion, you can do it any place, anytime, anywhere and feel wonderful doing it.  You're PASSIONATE about it!  

Our parents found passion in their nuclear family.  The idea of "working hard now to play harder later" wasn't lost on our parents' generation.  My parents are just starting to explore hobbies and other interests now that my sister and I are leaving the coop.  But my generation insists on pursuing the hobbies and dreams early on, rather than waiting until retirement.  And they certainly didn't pursue the career that they are most passionate about.  Rather, they pursued the career that offered the best benefits to their family, the passion they established early on, for better or for worse. 

Hopefully, the predicament is slowly revealing itself to you.  We are all evolutionarily hardwired to want a family, but what about the individual's desires?  It's impossible to fully discover ourselves - to be totally comfortable with our attitudes, beliefs, and ambitions - at 25.  But if we dive right into family life, we may be cutting ourselves short.  From observing our parents, it seems impossible to devote ourselves to our families while simultaneously maintaining our personal identities.  And it doesn't help that many of our parents' generation are divorced. 

Obviously, hindsight is difficult over the course of a lifetime.  It would be hard for somebody to look back on life and argue that they should have focused more on themselves.  As humans, we adapt well, and it's easy to change our positions in life, so we often don't live with elaborate regrets.  When we graduate from college and contemplate getting a job, we are faced with this dilemma: What do I want in life?  The obvious answer isn't (always) the American Dream.  The rigid constructs of a wife, family, and career is scary.  So we travel.  We take time off.  We start dressing like hipsters because we have no better solution.  We delay the process in an effort to "find ourselves".  But it ain't happening.  Not at 25. 

You have your whole life to figure out what exactly it is that makes you tick.  I think we would all be better off if we began practicing balance in life from an early age.  If any one of your physical, mental, emotional, or psychological needs aren't being met, you're in for a rough road ahead.  The more experiences you get while you're young, the better, but this doesn't mean you have to cease personal reinvention throughout your entire life.  Use your powers of adaptation to take risks and try new things in an effort to fine-tune your self-definition until the day you die.  Maintaining your own personal identity is just as important as maintaining the welfare of your family, and, in fact, your significant other and family may actually be instrumental in helping you find your path in life if you got off to a good start while young.  Finding your passions in life should begin when you're young, snowball in through middle age, and distill when you're an old, healthy man or woman. 

Start early, finish late, reconfigure along the way.

5/18 Crappy Chemicals and Crappy Food

Nicholas Kristof.  If you don't know who he is, Google him.  He's one of the most brilliant writers on staff at the NYTimes, and he has written some of the most compelling, inspiring stuff that I read.  I suggest that you always read Kristof's pieces in the NYTimes.  His blog can be found here.

He recently wrote an article about the President's Cancel Panel's recent (and surprising) posturing against chemical food additives. 

The panel, established in 1971, consists of three people appointed by the president who report directly to the big guy.  Anyways, for years, the organic food movement has struggled to gain ground because many of our nation's big whigs have paid little attention to the industry's claims that pesticide-laden, chemically altered/laced foods are largely responsible for the constantly rising cancer rates in our country and elsewhere.  But now that the President's Cancer Panel has supported these claims, our grocery stores might change a lot. 
The Panel's statement will hopefully lead to increased nutritional education in schools, reformed cafeteria menu planning, and improved subsidies for organic farmers.  This might be a key step towards getting people to consume more healthy, chemical-free produce.  And towards starting children out in a healthier world from a young age.

In addition to buying organic, read food labels carefully.  The more "whole" your diet, the better.  We didn't evolve with preservatives, so there's no telling what all of those multi-syllabic chemicals are doing to you.  If you can't pronounce it, it's probably don't more harm than good.

The Panel's other suggestions for staying chemical-free in your daily lives are:

>Particularly when pregnant and when children are small, choose foods, toys and garden products with fewer endocrine disruptors or other toxins. (Information about products is at www.cosmeticsdatabase.com or www.healthystuff.org.)

>For those whose jobs may expose them to chemicals, remove shoes when entering the house and wash work clothes separately from the rest of the laundry.

>Filter drinking water.

>Store water in glass or stainless steel containers, or in plastics that don’t contain BPA or phthalates (chemicals used to soften plastics). Microwave food in ceramic or glass containers.

>Give preference to food grown without pesticides, chemical fertilizers and growth hormones. Avoid meats that are cooked well-done.

>Check radon levels in your home. Radon is a natural source of radiation linked to cancer.

5/5 Why do we exercise and diet?

Before you start reading, answer this question: Why do I exercise?

It seems like a silly question.  And there definitely isn't a right answer, but it's certainly important to have an answer.  Why do you wake up every day and go to the gym?  Why do you count calories?  Why do you worry about your weight?  Why do you feel guilty for not participating in local road races?

Exercise isn't easy, but it should always be fun.  Furthermore, you should always be able to justify time spent designing your workout plans or diet.

The Pittsburgh Marathon was this past weekend, and I can't tell you how many people came in to Fleet Feet for supplies, begrudging the fact that they "have to run the marathon on Sunday".   Even after the race, people say things like: "I'm glad that's over with".  If it's so terrible, why the hell are you doing it?

The fitness industry has drawn many into its ranks, and, simply by following the beat of some unknown drum, many of us have fallen into a routine of dieting and exercising without asking ourselves: Why?

I have thought hard about this, and I have compiled a list of reasons that I think people work out and diet:
- to lose/maintain weight because you think other people like your "fit" look
- to lose/maintain weight because you like your "fit" look
- to improve athletic performance
- to mimic the look/behavior of a celebrity
- to improve your body's regular functions (e.g. complexion, digestion, hormonal function, energy levels)
- to simply remind your body what it feels like to be mobile
- to ensure that you live a long, healthy life
- to try to fit into your wedding dress

There are obviously an unlimited number of responses to this question, and I certainly won't try to convince you that one of these is the correct answer.  But there is some truth to the suggestion that one or more of these reasons could lead a healthy activity to become an unhealthy one.  Those people that diet and exercise in order to lose weight could be doing it because they know that diet and exercise are part of a healthy lifestyle, and skinny, toned bodies must mean healthy bodies, right? (wrong)

The fitness industry has been built around precisely the idea that skinny = healthy.  Unfortunately, it just isn't so.  90% of runners think that - since they are runners - they can eat whatever they want.  They pound down calories, but they never put on any weight because they're burning so much through their run training.  Unfortunately, the hidden dangers of poor omega 6s: omega 3s ratios, insulin insensitivity, lower brain function, atherosclerosis, reduced liver function, skewed gastrointestinal function, and kidney failure are just a few of the hidden dangers that come with a poor diet.  If you're skinny, then congratulations!  You burn more than you eat!  The fitness industry has preyed off of this concept for years.  It's always about weight-loss.  Magic pills sold at GNC that equate to little more than legalized speed bring in billions per year. 
The same could be said for body builders.  They are drawn into the fitness industry by meat heads with biceps bigger than watermelons on the cover of muscle magazines.  It's unclear as to whether or not these guys (you know who I'm talking about) are doing it with health in mind as opposed to a new bench press max.

While diet fads come and go and while exercise strategies ebb and flow, there is some advice out there that has persisted over the years: 
- everything is ok in moderation
- some things are better in excess; others are better left alone
- the body is an amazing machine, capable of amazing things
- vegetables are good for you
- sugar is bad for you
- if you read an ingredient on a food label that you can't pronounce, it's probably not good for you
- listening to your body has always proven effective in deciding what's right for you
- logic almost always prevails
- a well-performing body is a well-rested body
- moderate stress results in large increases in performance
- form follows function

Ask yourself why you exercise and for what you purpose you eat whatever it is that you eat.  If you are exercising to burn off those cookies you ate the night before, you are exercising for the wrong reason, and you probably ate those cookies for the wrong reason, too.  Working your ass off in the gym isn't going to change the source of the problem, which is your relationship with food and exercise.  Developing these relationships starts with asking yourself: Why?  From there, you can slowly begin to love exercising and eating better foods. 


I diet and exercise in order to live a long, healthy life.  Why do you do it?

4/30 Neanderthals & joggers

In "Born to Run", author Christopher McDougal spends a chapter describing the hunting strategies of early hominids.  Early man is commonly thought to be Neanderthal, a species that was similar to Homo sapiens in that it walked upright.  Neanderthal man was beastly in size.  It had stronger bones, a hulking structure, a larger brain, and bigger muscles.  However, it competed in parallel with (and eventually lost to) Homo sapiens, which was much smaller and nimbler.  McDougal poses the question, if Neanderthal was so much bigger and stronger, how did its smaller, weaker fellow hominid actually win out long-term?

The answer apparently lies in their hunting techniques.  Neanderthal was stronger, so it could certainly stand up to some of the beastly mammoths and cats that were hunting them.  They also had bigger brains, meaning they were likely better at eluding the bigger beasts.  Homo sapiens, on the other hand, had the advantage of speed and a light frames.  By now, you should be making the connection between Homo sapiens and runners, Neanderthal and linebackers.

Although Homo sapiens couldn't take down the bigger beasts, they could in fact chase down smaller prey because of their lighter, nimble frames.  Think about the deer that you saw in your yard as a kid growing up (assuming you lived in the northern top half of the United States).  There's no WAY you could catch it even if you were Usain Bolt!  However, when a deer sprints, it simply dashes through the brush out of earshot, then stops to catch its breath.  If it's spooked again, it would sprint for another 50-100 yards then stop to catch its breath again.  If you continued to chase it for several miles at a jog, however, you might actually be able to outrun the damn thing.  Applying this concept to stone-age Homo sapiens, you could imagine a group of nimble, little hunters jogging patiently behind a pack of antelope until one is sequestered from the pack.  The hunters continue to jog after it, forcing the antelope try to keep up its pace.  But the antelope wasn't designed to run long distances, just short sprints.  Eventually, the hunters, who were designed for distance running, come across an antelope that has literally fallen over with exhaustion, and they kill it.  This is what Dr. Dan Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist, proposes in McDougal's book.

This seems like very rational logic to defend our tendency to go out and run for hours for the sake of fitness.  But there's a problem with this, and it didn't occur to me until I listened to a recent EconTalk podcast. Russ Roberts interviewed Art De Vany, an economist and a generally thoughtful guy about evolutionary fitness, about his opposition to the current running trend.

Now, before I go any further, I want to point out the obvious elephant in the room.  Yes, I'm about to try to bring into question the hypothesis of a very reputable SCIENTIST, and defend the theory of a guy that works out independently and has (at least from what I get from his website) zero credentials as any form of scientist.  However, De Vaney looks like a million bucks and he's 72.  Plus, his argument is extremely logical, as are most arguments made by economists.

De Vaney's theory stems from Lieberman's hunting hypothesis, only he describes the runners as sprinters rather than joggers.  They were more fit than bigger, bulkier Neanderthal because they were constantly challenging their hearts and muscles to move faster multi-dimensionally.  When you think back to the hunting picture created by Lieberman, it seems unlikely that a bunch of paleolithic hunters are running after a pack of antelope, casually strolling along at a constant eight-minute-mile pace, keeping their prey within eye-sight for miles at a time until finally stumbling upon the exhausted animal, killing it, maybe sitting down to squeeze in a deep groin stretch, then carrying their booty back to the village. 

My vision is very different.  Instead, I picture a group of nimble, little hunters taking off into a pack of antelope until one is sequestered and running in a different direction from its brethren.  The hunters then sprint in various directions to keep the antelope running in a generally straight direction.  They would be strategically ducking, crawling, sprinting, strafing, side-shuffling in addition to jogging in order to prevent the animal's escape around their advance.  An aerial shot would look much like it does when you try to catch your puppy who is running around the yard like a maniac.  Each member of your family takes a post in a semi-circle, and you shift your positions accordingly as you close in on the frisky pup so that the dog can't escape.

This seems like a more accurate description of how a paleolithic Homo sapiens hunter could chase down an antelope. Rather than maintaining a generally slow pace for miles, such a hunter would be doing very dynamic movements, both linearly and laterally, at varying speeds throughout the hunt.  Logically, De Vaney's hypothesis makes better sense than Lieberman's.

So, looking at the running industry, it is silly to continue to beat ourselves up for hours per week jogging gracefully through the park.  The fittest hunters were those that could move dynamically, not constantly in a straight line until a desired mileage was obtained five days per week.  Evolutionary fitness - the specialty of both Lieberman and De Vaney - can tell us a lot about how we got to where we are as a species, so why not respect what has worked to help us knock species like Neanderthal?

Not only has it helped us in life's survival of the fittest, it's also clear that faster, more intense, but shorter workouts are better for our bodies than slow, boring, knee-agitating long runs if you have ever worn a heart rate monitor during one of your long runs.  I use the Garmin 310XT, because it's superb to all others on the market!  Actually...it's the only one I've ever used, so I don't care if you think it's great or not.  It cost me one and a half fingers to buy it, so I'm shamelessly plugging away!   I digress.  Looking at my data output, I notice that my heart rate climbs steadily for the first few miles of a 20-miler, then it slowly falls to maybe around 150bpm, and it stays there for the remainder of my run.  I could run at this heart rate for hours on end without fatiguing.  On the other hand, I could run one-mile repeats, and it would leave me feeling like I was hit by a semi traveling 80mph down I-279.  Some of my Crossfit workouts, which can take as little as 5 minutes, make me feel like vomiting, while 2-hour runs have become annoyingly easy and simply leave my knees hurting.  Crossfit, track workouts, and hill runs are shorter, yet they make me work much harder.  Forcing your body to work harder than it's accustomed to leads to fitness gains.  We didn't win in the evolutionary race because we were joggers, we won because we were better able to deliver three-dimensional motion and fast- and slow-twitch muscle response.

I'm not trying to bash the running industry, necessarily.  I work at Fleet Feet Sports Pittsburgh, the city's best running specialty store and part of one of the United States' most-renowned running specialty chains.  Some exercise is better than no exercise, but the weight-loss potential, joint-saving, energy-boosting, and time-saving benefits of short, yet intense exercise shouldn't go unheeded.

Don't believe me?  Head down to your local Crossfit gym for a WOD or over to your local track and bust out five 800m sprints and you'll see what I'm talking about.  Save the slow stuff for recovery.

Come, come children! Antelope soup for dinner!

4/28 Tomato & Mushroom saute

In my quest to raise my daily servings of vegetables to 10, I executed less than perfectly the following recipe:
http://www.canadianliving.com/food/cherry_tomato_and_mushroom_saute.php.

It tastes great.  I always whipped up the rest of the kale that I purchased yesterday.  The first round, I tried sauteeing it, but it was REALLY chewy, as I'm told kale is supposed to be.  However, this time, I boiled it, and it softened up surprisingly well.  I boiled in a 2:1 water:vinegar mixture. It tastes even better if you sprinkle it with crushed red pepper flakes.

I'll take photos of final products from now on before I eat them.

On an unrelated note, the Washington Capitals just lost to the Montreal Canadiens in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.  The Canadiens were seated in 8th place in the conference (out of 8), and the Capitals were seeded 1st.  Suck it Ovechkin.

4/27 Artichokes are weird-looking

I've been taking a lot of cooking inspiration from my friend and Crossfit workout partner Nicole.  She's the author of Primal Kitchen Chaos, a sweet blog devoted to the mastery of cooking foods that conform to the standards of a "Paleo Diet".  More on the Paleo Diet in a future post.

Anyways, she inspired me to try to cook some different veggies for once: kale & artichoke.  I had never before tried kale, which has a very rich GREEN taste (you know what I mean...I hope).  Artichoke is just plain good.

How to Cook Kale (by: Sarah Sandori)
How to Cook and Eat an Artichoke (by some chick named Elise)

If you are going to try it, don't use too much soy sauce for the kale.  It will become way too salty.

These two veggies pack a ton of nutrition.  Kale has probably the best calorie-to-nutrient ratio of any veggie on the planet.  Sauteeing kale will keep the nutrients from leaking into the water in which you are boiling it.  Having said that, look at the shit-ton (metric) of nutrients in this stuff!

You would also have a hard time coming up with a good excuse to not eat artichokes.

Eat 'em up.

Introduction

The world has many problems.  In reflecting on these issues, you have two options: 1) You can play the blame game (unproductive); or 2) You can change yourself.  You might be right if you think that your actions won't directly correct the many injustices in the world.  So, why urge you to reform yourself?

First of all, the only thing you really do have control over is your own actions.  Second, your actions are - to some degree - unconsciously influenced by those of others. Lastly, little things can make a huge difference in the world.  Here are two examples to illustrate how small things can cause big changes:

Example A: Imagine yourself walking down a street with garbage being blown hither and thither.  If you pick up a piece of newspaper blasting past you, and a whole bus stop full of people sees it, it's likely going to stick in their heads, and they're going to be more inclined to do the same if they're ever in a similar situation.

Example B: If you shape yourself into a well-tuned, fit, well-read intellectual with a lot of friends, you might actually rub off on people that cross your path, and they could think "Hey, what a cool cat!  I want to be fit too!" (this scenario is unlikely, but I've seen crazier things happen)

The point here is to not accept your surroundings as they are but instead to try to change them.  And the change starts with you.  A little fellow named Gandhi once said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

I'll leave you with a personal anecdote of my own.  I traveled around the world via Semester at Sea when I was a student at the University of Pittsburgh.  By the time I returned, I had developed a new appreciation for the synergistic effects of other disciplines on health.  Being a pre-med student, this fascinated me, and my new global perspective led me to start a group called Student Leaders in International Medicine (SLIM) at my home institution.  The organization was meant to a serve as a forum for like-minded students to discuss the relationship between economics, politics, agriculture, health, and other topics as this type of environment was not available at the time on Pitt's campus.  That was in 2006.  Today, SLIM has grown from my original eight members sitting around chatting to a group of nearly forty students planning annual trips to Malawi, hosting an annual 5k/10k to raise funds for projects proposed by community-based organizations in Malawi, and organizing campus-wide lectures at Pitt that draw hundreds of people.

On my blog, you'll find information (primarily) on the following topics:

1) Triathlon
2) Crossfit
3) Fitness
4) Books
5) Nutrition/Diets
6) Healthcare reform/Politics
7) Technology
8) Culture
9) Medicine
10) General health

I don't consider myself an expert in anything, but I do my best to inform myself whenever I discover something that I don't know.  Plus, I'm open to learning anything in which you consider yourself an expert.  

My name is Nathan Riley.  I'm a medical student at Temple University.  I'm training for an Ironman triathlon.  And I have a particular interest in nutrition and health care reform.  I will eventually change the world. 

Reform yourself.