Free The Animal

And Chris Gabel Rings In

Richard Nikoley — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:24:32 +0000

I was going to include this in a link roundup I'm doing but then I thought nope, this really deserves it's own entry, the roundup can wait a bit.

You remember Chris, right? A mere shadow of his former self at 106 pounds lost in 7 months. He's not done, yet. Via email.

It's been awhile since I checked in. Last week I weighed in at 253 - 121 lbs lost now. This is officially the lowest weight I've been at since my 20's (I'm now 51). At 6'3", I'd like to get down to at least 210. Frankly, I'm not sure what my "mature adult weight" really should be. But the mirror is telling me I've got a way to go yet. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled with the results. To say the least, life is much better these days.

I asked what sorts of reactions he's been getting from family & friends.

Well, you can imagine the reactions are one of the best parts. One of my quartet mates has taken to calling me "the incredible shrinking man". And there's nothing quite like running into someone who hasn't seen you for a good while. It's often: "I almost didn't recognize you!" or "HOLY CRAP! You look great!" One of my favorite comments was - "Who invited Chris' younger brother?" I've been reluctant to spend much money on clothes, because I'm changing sizes so fast. Recently, we invaded the closet in my son's old room & I grabbed some shirts he wore in high school, much to his chagrin.... I've gone from 4-5XL down to XL shirts & 2XL on the bottom (unfortunately, I've always been pear-shaped). I've got to take some shots of me in my old clothes - hilarious!

Lots of people ask me what I'm doing, but I've learned to just say - "Oh, you know.....good old diet & exercise." Because, frankly, most people don't really want to know (unless you tell them about a secret pill or something). Once you say they have to make changes, their eyes glaze over......oh well. I've frequently referred people to your site & MDA, though. I figure the results speak for themselves & if they're really interested, they'll check it out.

As you can tell, I'm not much of a writer, but I can respond to promptings just fine. Let me know if there's anything else you're looking for.

Be so kind as to drop in a word of encouragement for Chris in comments and let him know if you want to know more and what. Yea, I love how this only solidifies the Palo way, but most importantly, Chris has gained a lot of health and I would imagine: self love. That's the healthiest place to be in life.

Modern Paleo

Richard Nikoley — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:50:57 +0000

I'd like to announce a great new resource that I hope you'll check out and enjoy. My friend, Diana Hsieh, whom I've been aware of as an Objectivist philosopher since the mid 90s -- and who emailed me out of the blue a couple of years ago to let me know she'd been reading my blog and had "gone paleo" -- has now really contributed to the movement in a big and unique way: Modern Paleo.

One thing that has irked me to some extent about the paleo movement and I'd bet far more for Diana, is a sort of romanticizing of the primitive. If that also bugs you then you'll be right at home where...

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. --Ayn Rand

And how that works in paleo and in practice is...

We live by that philosophy. We do not seek to return to the past: we want to fully enjoy the amazing benefits of modern life. We do not cling to dogmas or submit to authority: we think and act for ourselves, based on our best grasp of the relevant facts. We do not sacrifice our judgment or our values to others, nor ask others to sacrifice to us. We seek the best for ourselves by producing and trading voluntarily with other rational, productive people. We reject government controls and welfare on principle: every person should be free to live as he pleases, so long as he respects the rights of others. [...]

We regard Objectivism as compatible with a paleo approach to nutrition, fitness, and health. Yet we recognize that most Objectivists do not eat a paleo diet, just as most paleo diet advocates are not Objectivists. We're happy to forge our own path to secure our life, health, and happiness. That's what it means to be human.

And Diana has put together quite a list of resources. There's the BLOG, of course, an amazing and comprehensive statement of paleo principles with expandable text with tons of resource info (including many, many links to articles here and other blogs you know so well), three email lists and that's probably just to start with, an enormous list of resources, and finally, a description about what makes this particular approach to paleo modern & different.

So there you have it and rather than take up even more time talking about it, just go have yourself a good look and explore.

The Primal Blueprint Push

Richard Nikoley — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:08:00 +0000

One of the more rewarding aspects of this whole health & fitness venture and blogging about it has been making so many friends amongst other bloggers. What you may not always be aware of is some of the "back chatter" that goes on from time-to-time.

One of those fellow blogger, email buddies is Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple. And I'm here today to lend a hand with a very worthy goal Mark has set for himself. Mark is offering an amazing deal for anyone who purchases a copy of his most excellent book, The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health, and boundless energy, from Amazon, but you have to do it today!

Mark explains.

Since the release of The Primal Blueprint readers like you have helped propel my book to the top of the Amazon.com book charts; it’s been as high as #4 on the bestselling Health and Fitness list. But I think we can do better. In the next 24 hours I’m looking to push The Primal Blueprint to #1, so I’ve put together an irresistible offer. It’s a win-win situation – you get all kinds of free gifts and get to have a hand in helping spread the word, and I get The Primal Blueprint the sort of exposure it needs to affect real change.

This offer is only available for the next 24 hours. It expires at 12 pm PST on Thursday, March 18.

Mark has delineated an impressive list of incentives for various numbers of copies purchased. Even if you purchase only one copy for yourself, friend, family member or co-worker there's five bennies Mark is making available to you.

So you get those, you get the book (for only $16.19), you help yourself or the person you give it to, and you help the Primal / Paleo / Evolutionary Fitness movement in general by helping to propel this state-of-the-art book to a #1 sales rank which will earn it a lot of publicity on Amazon & elsewhere.

So don't wait. If ever you were thinking about giving this book out, think of who all that might be and go ahead and get them today.

The Primal Blueprint

Update: If you want to read an extensive, excellent review of the book that just went online today, see my good friend Karen De Coster's review on LewRockwell.com: Healthy, Moving, Modern Humans – Not Cavemen.

Update 2; 3/17/10, 12:45 PST: As of this update, The Primal Blueprint is now at #3 on Amazon, for all books. Very impressive. Also, I just learned that Dr. Stephan Guyenet at Whole Health Source posted a very positive review of the book today.

Update 3; 13:00 PST: Just hit #2 on Amazon. Let's help bring it home. I've ordered 5 copies so far today. They will be easy to make use of. And also, the price has dropped to $14.84.

Lierre Keith Gets a Cayenne Laced Pie in the Face During San Francisco Book Fair Speech

Richard Nikoley — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:26:09 +0000

And here's the gloating over it.

Bound Together Books and PM Press continue to try to prop up and foist veg*n antagonist Lierre Keith onto the radical community in the Bay Area. Today, at the 15th Annual San Francisco Anarchist Bookfair, where she was scheduled to be a featured speaker, Keith was served her just deserts for her obnoxious attacks on veg*ns in The Vegetarian Myth. She was pied in the middle of her speech in the main auditorium at the SF County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park.

According to the various reports by eyewitnesses -- many who have now commented at that link and condemned the actions of the three young "men" who assaulted Ms. Keith -- she was just beginning the part of her speech critical of factory farming.

While I'm tempted to rage a bit about this and call names, I think the assault & battery speaks for itself and is an excellent representation of vegetarianism and veganism in general. They deserve those three "gentleman" as their standard bearers.

Here are my past posts about Lierre Keith and her excellent book, The Vegetarian Myth. It would be great to see a good spike in orders for her book, so if you're inclined to help out, please do so. You can also listen to Lierre's recent podcast interview with Jimmy Moore.

Update: Jimmy Moore has now published an extensive entry on this incident. And when I exchanged an email with Lierre last night, she echoed the same thing she wrote to Jimmy: that the worst part was hearing the cheers of onlookers in the audience as the assault took place. Shameful.

Update 2: Now Tom Naughton has weighed in.

Update 3: Lierre Keith responds. This is a 15-minute interview with Keith in the beginning of Jimmy Moor's normally scheduled podcast for today.

Update 4: Comedian Tom Naughton has a new post on True Believerism using the attack on Keith as inspiration.

Update 5: A Local News report on the incident.

The Crock Pot: Dinner in 10 Minutes

Richard Nikoley — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:58:43 +0000

I've done a few crock pot dishes lately and am really enjoying the simplicity. Basically, toss a few ingredients in over the space of 10 minutes, turn it on, and you're done preparing dinner (or whatever). Another thing is that the last couple of times I've used it I get things started at 1pm in the afternoon, turn it on high, and all is perfect 6 hours later for dinner. I see no advantage to the slower cooking on low for 10-12 hours, though if it's a weekday and you've got to be at work, then that makes perfect sense.

Yesterday I just decided to experiment with some adding some unusual ingredients added to a basic crock pot of boneless pork ribs, cabbage & onion. Click for the HQ version.

Boneless Country Pork Ribs

This was 2 pounds of pork, a large bulb of fennel, one medium yellow onion, one large jalapeno pepper with seeds, a half head of cabbage and about 1 cup of chicken stock. Six hours on high.

It was fantastic.

Human Intelligence, Part I (Sexual Exclusivity and Intelligence)

Richard Nikoley — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:58:51 +0000

I think the only thing one could possibly take from this study is that people who tend toward marching to their own drummer, charting their own path, preferring contrarianism when possible, going against the grain -- and any other metaphorical descriptions you can think of -- tend to be more intelligent. Does running your life that way make you more intelligent or, does innate intelligence just make it more likely that you tell the rest of the world to go get stuffed? Ah, mere observation can be confounding!

Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning -- on the order of 6 to 11 points -- and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people's behaviors come to be.

So, just to get this out of the way, I'm a sexually exclusive (married 9 yrs), anarchist atheist. IQ tests pretty high, but that was a long time ago. And I really can't get over the fact that IQ tests are designed by smart people to test things they're probably interested in. I don't really trust them. I just have to wonder if they are designed more to test for non-ignorance. Ignorant people can be highly intelligent. It's just that the right software has yet to be installed and executed. Perhaps knowledgeable commenters (Aaron?) can enlighten me.

I've always far preferred being around "hands on" people to intellectuals, except perhaps at fancy, exclusive cocktails and/or dinner parties. Intellectuals are really, really good at that shit. Auto mechanics? Not so much. I draw from people I've known and learned from in my own family & surroundings since I was a kid. I learned mostly hands on stuff like hunting, fishing, gardening, woodworking, auto working, painting, construction and a host of other things. Me and my family: we can beat ourselves out of concrete paper bags. Always have. Perhaps this is why I was the top rated junior officer by wide margin on my first ship in the Navy as a missile maintenance officer, then deck officer, and then electrical officer, obliterating guys with engineering degrees from top schools (I was a lazy business major) -- even an MIT honors grad with a photographic memory who got 100% on every single test at Surface Warfare Officers School. I barely scraped by in that school with him, 'cause so much of it was bullshit and I figured I'd kick ass when we got down to practicalities: hands on, driving ships at all hours, and leading a division of men, some of which have 20 years and more of experience. So I sized 'em up and had no fear. For once, things went exactly as planned.

So that's a lot of boorish self-indulgence in one paragraph. Kinda nauseating, but there you have it. I don't really know of a better way of explaining where I'm coming from and this sentence is being written five days after I started this uncomfortable post. Let's move on then, and take the variables one by one in hopefully an evolutionary context.

Sexual exclusivity. Well there's hardly any doubt in my mind that a big part of our success as a genus, over other Homo, is reproductive success. Fecundity (the Nova series Becoming Human makes this point). But if you look at most of the animal kingdom, males are pretty much dogs. They'll fuck anything they can stick it in, often by brute force. But don't discount females in the human species, the tamers of males and the root of human success in my opinion. This is a tough one to work out for me. The animal is always there, but it's easy to resist for all that a good female offers. Getting by with your teeth & claws (or human brain) is possible but it's a hard life if that's all that gets you by (or you're too fucking stupid to get it). Females balance things out. For my money, we wouldn't even exist but for the innate female-to-male taming...the frustratingly obvious, annoyingly practiced, devastatingly effective ability of females.

Fuck them! [with a grin]

But could you chalk it up to shame...and where does that come from on the evolutionary scale? I bet shame is old. Hell, you can even seemingly make a dog feel shame. Shame, whenever it came from, was but another arrow in the female quiver of lots of arrows. Or, perhaps it was the first...

Given that males could physically wipe out females in almost any species easily, combined with the fact they don't, and never will, makes for a most interesting existence and I think the best, smartest and most practiced females are those who realize this implicitly. Is it that we hate to love them, or love to hate them, or a bit of both? Passion; love & hate, are two sides of the same coin and indifference is not indifferent. Questions...

...I just think that men who screw around on their wives or committed relationships are weak pussies unless all is out in the open and everyone is game, which is rare and probably irrational, which'll come home to roost eventually.

Nothing I'm more motivated to avoid than shame.

Liberalism. Part II, maybe tomorrow. Or maybe I'll do Atheism first. And I have a related article on cultural evolution to integrate. We'll see.

Saturday Afternoon Rock Roots: Rush

Richard Nikoley — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:48:10 +0000

While 2112 isn't my favorite album, there's this. I like the whole thing surrounding The Temples of Syrinx, and here it is, in two parts; 1976, B&W, and when they were all still long-haired hippies. I like Part II a little more, which I'll explain after the show. Oh, and watch Lifeson tune his guitar mid-solo at about 6:10 or so on Pt 2.

They say that The Blues is the root of rock (true), and that Folk is the root of country (true too). But I think that this sort of themed album-rock is a bit different. One goes from hard-driving rock to some tender moments (especially in Pt 2) and I have often thought that for Rush and a few others -- even Led Zep at times and certainly Pink Floyd -- what really prefigures their music is Classical music. I have a lot of classical that I listen to often, love, and I can never escape wondering what the fuck Mozart could have done with an electric guitar, bass, & a drum set.

Remember, Rush has always been a 3-man power band, never more that I'm aware of. They ought to go down as the greatest rock 3-man power band in history.

Lazy, Guiltless Dogs on a Cold Saturday Morning

Richard Nikoley — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:02:22 +0000

Just for fun and click the images for the HQ versions.

Guiltless

Who, Me?

How to Eat Out With Care

Richard Nikoley — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:06:53 +0000

Headed off to the cabin in the mountains in a bit. Sometimes that brings on a blogging whirlwind 'cause I love it. Haven't been up there since Xmas/NY, and had a tree take out power (like, the whole junction box, meter & pole) in the interim but the insurance Co treated me very well and the repair by phone went off without hitch.

with so much rain, lately here in the Bay Area when the sun finally came out all I wanted to do is go have lunch whilst bathed in rays, on a patio at a nice place. Rive Gauche, AKA, Left Bank was the place. Santana Row was the location.

A couple of oysters to start, served in the French manner, with red wine vinegar (my favorite).

Huîtres

You can make a nice vinaigrette with the vinegar, a bit of garlic, horseradish, lemon & chopped shallot. Yum.

After that, a salade frisée with a light creamy bluecheese dressing, and crumbled bluecheese on the bavette grillée.

Salade de Bavette Grillée

A tout a l'heure.

A Rare Workout Update: A New World of Hurt (and I’m lovin’ it)

Richard Nikoley — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:30:58 +0000

Probably the biggest deficiency on this blog from a Whole Paleo perspective is that I don't post much about the workouts -- which is ironic, given that's exactly how this whole thing got started in the first place, via this post right here: May 29, 2007. That, amongst my political observations formed the basis of what was to become; I think, now, a reasonably popular paleo health & fitness blog. It was always an evolution, more rapid lately.

I wish to report to you that in terms of the workouts that I believe I've stumbled a bit, lost the path and my way. But I could only known that having regained it and being so surprised.

I'm not going to look up the posts but some months ago I was blogging about how I had begun to do more compound lifts, heavy stuff, assisted negatives. I was doing back squats at 200ish, deadlifts at 175ish, and also doing a lot of very heavy negatives, using my trainer (like lat pulldown negatives at 280, requiring both mine and my trainer's bodyweight combined to get the weight into extended position. Then hold and slowly release. I did heavy negatives on bench, seated chest press, and barbell bent over rows as well.

And I now know that I was slowly losing ground. I think I've figured out why. Due to the nature of the lifts, setting up equipment, doing heavy volume that really demanded rest in between sets I was simply not using my 30 minutes twice per week efficiently anymore. Whereas when I began this whole thing there was little rest in-between work, I had extended that. So, while sticking with the 30-minute routine, I was actually doing less and less work in that 30 minutes while fooling myself into believing I was actually doing more, given the far greater weight.

So what have I done lately? I've dropped almost all weightlifting except when it's in conjunction with a circuit of various functional and compound exercises. Basically, my trainer and I have put together a highly varied hodgepodge of Crossfit and P90X stuff utilizing various weights, kettlebells and the fantastic & versatile TRX straps. And lots and lots of bodyweight stuff like pushups, dips, pullups, lunges, squats, jumps and so on. Oh, and we use the medicine balls a lot. My very favorite there is explosive, all-you-got throws. First, unto the ground hard, bounce, then as high as possible onto the wall. You use your entire body explosively and it wears you out quick.

Here's a question I recently got from reader Benjamin.

In the PB community, we stress that 80% of our results of how we look, feel, and perform is based on nutrition. The other 20% comes from sleep, fitness, genetics, stress, etc. On different websites, I read, "Burn Fat Workouts," that focus on doing as much work in as little time, similar to CrossFit's metabolic conditioning workouts. Then I read, "Gain Muscle Workouts," which focus on doing big compound movements like squats, deadlifts, presses, pulls in a lower rep scheme with heavier weights. If it's all about nutrition, what is the idea behind these workout claims? Is there really such a thing as a "fat burning" or "muscle gaining" workout? I thought if we wanted to lose body fat we cut the carbs, insulin will lower, calories will fall, and it's that simple. If we want to gain muscle and minimize body fat gain, we eat more protein and fat while still limiting carbs to limit body fat storage. So what is this whole "burn fat" vs. "gain muscle" workout idea?

I'm sure there are a bunch of guys who can help sort through that tangle better than I, but isn't that kinda the point? Many of us have gradually worked hard to simplify the apparent complexity of the diet into: Eat Real Food. And, c'mon, you know what real food is.

So this is partly why I don't pay as much attention to the conditioning side of things and Benjamin illustrates exactly why. If you though the diet was complex...

So, how about: Just Move Fast & Hard? And, c'mon, you know what that means.

And just like you have virtually unlimited choices in real foods and combinations therefrom, how many ways are there to move fast & hard with various heavy things (including your own body)? And since it stands to some reason that given so many food choices that you're best off mixing in as much variety as possible, doesn't it make sense to do the same thing in your workouts?

Frankly, I'm now doing so many dozens of different exercises -- most of which I'd have no idea what to call -- that I don't even remember them all. But one thing I do know is that no workout is the same, and I'll tell you what: I've been in a new world of hurt the last couple of weeks, and I really love it. Workouts are exciting, again.

Here's an example, from Wednesday, and keep in mind that I often don't know the technical names for some of these exercises so I'll just describe them, "all thumbs" style:

5 minutes alternating sets between the TRX straps doing pullups from near horizontal off the floor (feet against the wall) and 15lb dumbbell pushups alternating row from the top. The idea is to not really count reps or sets (at least for me). Just go until ready to stop, take a quick breath and go to the next.
20 minutes of grueling basketball court torture, all four corners. I begin at one corner with 65lb barbell and do 10-15 reps from off the floor to shoulders and press (kinda like a snatch, clean & press combo), then sprint to the opposite corner, 30 mountain climbers, then lunge to the close corner with 12lb medicine ball & horizontal twist thrown in. Then it's 15 reps of 35lb plate swings (like kettlebell, but all the way to vertical, controlled descent), then sprint to the opposite corner where I explosively throw a 12lb medicine ball from a squat as high as possible against the wall as many times as I can without collapsing in fatigue, then lunge with the medicine ball to the original corner and do it all over again.
5 minutes doing a little weight work on triceps, biceps and then some seated flys.

I gotta tell you that I've probably given up most of the machines and most of the weights for good. One thing that motivated this change was just intended to be a bit of a break because I strained my lower back a few weeks ago from doing too many back squats and too many deadlifts on the same day. On my last few deadlift reps I wasn't paying good attention to form, going too fast (I always release the bar, stand, and reposition for the next set) and I believe that's what got my back. So I had to push my next workout a day or two beyond the regular schedule and then I said to Michael, "hey, let's do one of those crossfit styled deals this time," which I had gotten started on some time ago but them moved onto doing the high volume stuff.

Well was I in for a big surprise because my body hadn't ached properly -- from head to toe -- in quite a long while and it really felt good.

It's great to be back on track.