Healthspan Blog

At the end of last semester one of my students who took a job selling gas ovens told me that microwaving food destroys it’s nutritional value. I’ve been a bit scared of my microwave ever since because it kind of makes sense – I mean microwaves are unnatural so why wouldn’t I believe that they do all kinds of weird things to my food?

Well partially because that reasoning is no good – as a debate teacher I have to warn students not to appeal to nature. For example, “marijuana is natural and therefore it must be good” would lose points for fallacious logic.

And partially because when it comes to health too many people give bad advice. I still remember thinking that pizza was very healthy for 20+ years because an elementary school teacher said it was. After all it contains 3 different food groups (bread / veggies & fruit / dairy). Never mind the high carbs and fat. I still eat pizza but only because I am trying to gain weight.

Anyway, according to this article microwaving food is sometimes better and rarely or never worse. What robs veggies of nutritional value is boiling them or steaming them for too long.

This interview goes back and forth between football and health but Ray Lewis, the famous Baltimore Ravens linebacker gives us a few health tips. He mentioned Underarmor compression suits for sleeping and airplane rides. And he mentions different types of combat sports:

I just think that I train totally differently. I don’t train for football; I train more for a lifestyle. I do so much, and it’s not just football-specific things. You see a lot of these guys; they just do football-specific things, and that ain’t what life is about. Life is about being a versatile athlete and training in all realms of life. That’s why I try any form of [martial] art – kempo, taekwondo, karate, whatever it is. Then moving into boxing and wrestling, and that’s what I think helps your body out, when you try all these different things. Because a football game is just sixty minutes, but I’m training six, seven hours in every day. So, going for sixty minutes becomes easy. More importantly, I think that your muscles mature and can move in all different directions.
So, if I give any credit, besides giving all credit to God, for being totally healthy, it’s just my workout and how much torture I put my body through in the offseason.

Considering that he has aged very well despite running into people for a living I think we need to consider what he says.

This is one of the most impressive athletic performances I’ve seen:

This is the Firecracker jump rope team made up of 4th through 8th grade students.

Great explanation on how to position yourself for a deadlift here:

If you don’t already know the exercise well, this alone is not nearly enough to start pulling real weight off the floor safely. I’m not going to try to teach the deadlift (especially online) but there are plenty of videos if you want to learn more. Here’s a start:

This blog entry attacks the recent Consumer Reports article on protein drinks as “hack science”. I’m with him when he says the random PhD who said 5-9 grams of protein per hour is totally unqualified but when he says the tests should be totally ignored, I start to lose him.

Why not use the tests to start buying protein powder with less crap in it? Although it wasn’t tested, my next purchase (well I just ordered it last night) is Perfect unflavored Isopure – is anyone surprised that the stuff with artificial ingredients and whatnot might contain bad crap? Hopefully Nature’s Best does not.

Scary stuff from Consumer Reports where Myoplex had way too much arsenic and cadmium while Muscle Milk had way too much lead. Even ON (Optimum Nutrition) Gold Standard 100% whey which passed the test had some lead, some arsenic, and some cadmium. Not too much according to government standards but still isn’t anything too much?

Here is a link to the chart.

These are the ones that tested below dangerous levels. The ones with stars tested with below “dangerous” levels of everything:

BSN Core Series Lean Dessert Protein Shake, Chocolate Fudge Pudding
BSN Core Series Syntha-6 Ultra Chocolate
GNC PRO PErformance AMP Amplified Wheybolic Extreme 60 Chocolate
Jillian Michaels Natural Whey Protein Vanilla Cream Shake
MuscleTech Nitro-Tech Hardcore Pro-Series Vanilla
*Optimum Nutrition Platinum Hydro whey Velocity Vanilla
*Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Extreme Milk Chocolate
*Six Star Muscle Professional Strength Whey Protein French Vanilla
*Solgar Whey to Go Natural Vanilla Bean

Some people will be cutting down on shakes and most knew that real food was better anyway – now they just have numbers to prove it. “Food and Drug Administration research suggests that foods such as milk, yogurt, eggs, poultry, and red meats are generally good protein sources that seem to contain little or no cadmium, lead, arsenic, or mercury.”

I know what you’re thinking – the NSF said Muscle Milk was safe. And if you go to the NSF website, it states the following:

Muscle Milk Chocolate and Muscle Milk Vanilla Crème have been certified to NSF/ANSI Standard 173. The samples analyzed met the maximum acceptable limits of the standard based upon our validated test methods. NSF’s maximum limits for finished products are:

Arsenic (inorganic), 10 micrograms per day
Cadmium, 6 micrograms per day
Lead, 20 micrograms per day
Mercury, 20 micrograms per day

The maximum limits for them in dietary supplements proposed by the U.S. Pharmacopeia are: arsenic (inorganic), 15 micrograms (µg) per day; cadmium, 5 µg; lead, 10 µg; mercury, 15 µg.

So basically, the NSF is way more tolerant of lead than US Pharma. I prefer less lead myself….

And we should let them defend themselves I guess:

To our CytoSport Muscle Milk customers,

A recent Consumer Reports story raised questions about the trace levels of cadmium and lead found in popular protein shakes including CytoSport Muscle Milk Chocolate and Vanilla Crème powdered shakes. We want to assure you that there is no safety risk from the responsible use of CytoSport Muscle Milk protein shakes.

Consumer Reports testing was based on consumption of three shakes per day and the testing applied proposed U.S Pharmacopeia standards – not current, accepted or approved guidelines. Our recommended up to two servings of Muscle Milk daily, as stated on the label, is well below the current accepted standards and below the proposed U.S. Pharmacopeia limits.

Trace levels of these elements are naturally found in the environment and in many foods we eat daily (such as shellfish, potatoes, rice, and leafy greens). We conduct extensive testing to ensure the quality of our products. Each time the shakes have been tested for elements, such as cadmium and lead, the results are below the limit of all current, well-established safety standards.

You can continue to use Muscle Milk shakes with confidence.

Seems like many people are vitmin D deficient and have no idea. It hurts immune system functions and athletic performance. This article on the Chicago Blackhawks (who hopefully will continue to beat up on the Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup finals) says vitamin D has made a big difference over there.

Interesting article here with some exercises for ankle stability. This is an issue for me (martial arts stress my ankles) and the article gave me a couple of additional ideas:

Tree pose (yoga) – a bit harder than simply standing on one foot.
Juggle on one foot – probably a bit more advanced than catching a ball while standing on one foot and no partner needed.

There are some stretches here for the ankle that I don’t fully understand thanks to all the big words. And here we have a warning – do calf raises correctly or hurt your ankle.

So three nights this week I practiced hapkido for 1 – 1.5 hours. I’m encouraged because the master is in great shape but concerned because of all the wrist locks we practice. I have no problem dealing with a little pain and toughening up some as long as it doesn’t indicate that my wrist is actually being damaged.

Today the master said that hapkido was an old-fashioned martial art because it’s designed to kill (not for sport). I don’t plan on entering any MMA tournaments or anything so I don’t care that this is not for sport. Then again I don’t plan on killing with my bare hands either…

So far I’ve been practicing wrist locks – in practice we use these to take people down to the mat. In an emergency you would have the option of breaking the other person’s wrist. And I’ve been practicing a circular spin kick that will at least look impressive once I get it down.

Here’s an article that talks about some exercises for strengthening the core. These are done in addition to ab isolation exercises like crunches and in addition to glute activation work and are said to improve core strength, posture, and physique:

The goal of glute activation work isn’t just getting the glutes firing; it’s actually fixingthe postural flaws that cause lack of glute firing, most notably excessive lordosis of the lumbar spine and anterior pelvic tilt (APT).