Free Supply of Human Growth Hormone (HGH)!

I recently read an article suggesting that at the end of a 24-hour fast (fasting means no food, and only water as a beverage; fruit juice fasts are not fasts), men produced 2,000% more HGH, and women produced 1200% more HGH, than when they were free-feeding.

I will try to track down the study referred to in that article, so I can link to it; but today, I am fasting.

Just in case the article was accurate! 

Because HGH is apparently pretty good for you, and free is My Favorite Price. So if I can produce plenty of HGH notwithstanding my advanced age, well, I'm down with that!

Remember, before you consider fasting for 24 hours or more, talk to your doctor first!

Chantix: What Are You Waiting For?

There is no question that smoking will kill you, eventually.

There's a reason that cigarettes are called "cancer sticks" and "coffin nails", and have been called those things for roughly forever.

But there's a new, interesting and far more scientific way to go: a smoking cessation drug called Chantix".

And when I read about the life-threatening side-effects of Chantix, I have to wonder what the FDA is thinking when it limits access to life-saving alternative medicines, and approves expensive and dangerous medications like Chantix.

Putting it a different way, when a medication makes you so nutty that truck drivers and air-traffic controllers are forbidden to take it, why should soccer moms be taking it when it's their turn to car-pool all the kids to the game?

And putting it another way, not everything built in a laboratory is good for you!

An Early, Violent, Ironic Death: Protest Against Motorcycle Helmets Reaps Grim Result

Riding a motorcycle, I'm told, is the best thing next to flying with your own wings.

That's because of the wind in your face, the sun on your back, and a lot of horses between your knees, and the feeling of freedom that goes with riding a big bike.

Sadly, I've lost several friends who should never have taken early check-out. They were riding bikes, and they weren't wearing helmets.

I can understand not wanting to wear a helmet. Frankly, I kinda like the idea of far, far less government intrusion into our lives, so I'm uncomfortable with a mandatory helmet law. And if I had the huevos rancheros (which, ironically, is the name of a dish made with eggs) to risk my life for that feeling of flying, I know I'd enjoy it far more without a helmet.

But I'd probably wear a helmet, because I'm a belt-and-suspenders, bullet-proof vest, seat belt, and stay indoors at home anyway kinda guy! Actually, if I had a bike, it would probably sit in my living room, and I'd start it every now and then to listen to the patented throaty roar, and then shut it down and polish the polish on the polish.

 But a bunch of motorcycle enthusiasts have staged a helmet-protest ride for years, and this time a rider was thrown, hit his helmet-free head on the pavement, and died. Doctors indicated a belief that he would have lived had he been wearing a helmet.

Now, I don't much care what other people want to do for fun.

And I'm glad the rider died without extended suffering, because there's too much suffering in the world.

I expect that there will be many more fatalities on bikes over the next few years; some people ride bikes, not because they're fun, but because of fuel economy.

And if they're not riding for fun, then I'd much rather see them wearing a helmet!

Because I don't like losing friends to early check-out!

p.s. you may wonder what a discussion of motorcycle helmets is doing in a health and longevity blog. But if you give it some thought, you'll remember that accidental death is one of the top ten ways to go to heaven ahead of schedule. And that makes accidents, and the prevention of death from accidents, fair game.

Right?

And I know I've promised it previously, but soon I'll talk about bug-out bags, because analysts believe that the upcoming scheduled Zombie Apocalypse may make fatality statistics from auto accidents look trivial! So if you want to survive that Zombie Apocalypse, stay tuned!

p.p.s. I had lunch with a good and beautiful friend recently; she had gotten rid of the bike and the leather because of a small ooopsie that had resulted in a leg shattered into a thousand pieces or so. She said that it was relatively painful, and gave rise to a moment of clarity: she said she'd prefer a longer life, and less exciting.

Of course, if Cu Chulainn had made that decision, where would world literature be today?

Inversion Table by Teeter Hang Ups; Threat or Menace?

After I experimented with lifting eight hundred pounds a few years ago, I reached this experimental conclusion: don't lift eight hundred pounds, you idiot!

I'd been reading a neat book about short range heavy weight lifting, as opposed to full range of movement-type lifting; the advantage of short or static contraction is that your can lift much more weight.

The disadvantage of it is that you can lift much more weight!

As a result of my eight-hundred pound lift, I developed a little tiny bulge in a little disc. Next to my little bitty sciatic nerve. And then I learned the meaning of pain.

Long story short, I recovered completely, except that occasionally I'll sit for too long, and get a twinge, and that makes me more than anxious, because I have some traumatic memories of sleeping on the floor with ice-packs and ibuprofen for company.

And so I went to the local Relax the Back Store in Phoenix at Camelback and Central, and picked up a Teeter Hang Ups Inversion Table. If I told you I was the model in the pictures with the washboard abdominals, would you believe me? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I experimented with it in the store, and I loved the ease of use.

Now it's at my house; and I'm about to experiment with the I.Q. Test that is the assembly instructions.

They sent along written instructions, in three languages, which already ticked me off.

But my next project is to watch the instructional video to get a living color explanation of the assembly process (which had better not be in three languages; I don't want to spend three times the needed time watching the darned thing!).

And the theory of inversion tables is pretty simple; it's to provide traction in an opposite direction from the usual pull of gravity to give your discs a chance to move back to their normal, non-squashed shapes. And away from nerves like the ever-popular sciatic!

By the way, many folks have herniated discs, and no symptoms at all! If the bulge doesn't impinge on a nerve, well, there you are!

And that is just another example of words to live by: it's better to be lucky than smart!

And am I smart enough to assemble this bad boy?

I'll let you know!

p.s. I also have buddies who swear by their inversion tables, telling me that they actually gained height after use, as well as shedding pain. If it works for me, I'll tell you! Bear in mind, of course, that there isn't any guarantee that if it works for me it'll work for you, because bodies and pathologies differ.

And always talk to a doctor instead of a Phoenix, Arizona Bankruptcy Lawyer about your health issues, especially before you strap yourself into ankle shackles and hang upside down like a bat!

Who Says There's Nothing Funny About Dementia?

A friend of mine sent me this yearly dementia test.

It's funny, unscientific, and it's a little trickier than it looks!

Enjoy! And remember, this one is only for fun. If you think you have an issue with dementia, talk to your doctor, not some bankruptcy lawyer in Arizona!

Our Yearly Dementia Test-- only 4 questions

Our Yearly Dementia Test It's that time of year for us to take our annual senior citizen test. Exercise of the brain is as important as exercise of the muscles. As we grow older, it's important to keep mentally alert. If you don't use it, you lose it! Below is a very private way to gauge how your memory compares to the last test. Some may think it is too easy but the ones with memory problems may have difficulty.   Take the test presented here to determine if you're losing it or not. The spaces below are so you don't see the answers until you've made your answer.   OK, relax, clear your mind and begin.   1. What do you put in a toaster?         Answer:  'bread.'  If you said 'toast' give up now and do something else.. Try not to hurt yourself.   If you said, bread, go to Question 2. 2.  Say 'silk' five times. Now spell 'silk.' What do cows drink?         Answer: Cows drink water. If you said 'milk,' don't attempt the next question. Your brain is over-stressed and may even overheat. Content yourself with reading more appropriate literature such as Auto World. However, if you said 'water', proceed to question 3. 3. If a red house is made from red bricks and a blue house is made from blue bricks and a pink house is made from pink bricks and a black house is made from black bricks, what is a green house made from?           Answer: Greenhouses are made from glass.  If you said 'green bricks,' why are you still reading these???  If you said 'glass,' go on to Question 4.             4.  Without using a calculator - You are driving a bus from  London  to Milford Haven in  Wales  .   In  London  , 17 people get on the bus. In  Reading  , 6 people get off the bus and 9 people get on. In  Swindon , 2 people get off and 4 get on. In  Cardiff  , 11 people get off and 16 people get on. In  Swansea  , 3 people get off and 5 people get on. In Carmathen, 6 people get off and 3 get on. You then arrive at Milford Haven   ..         Without scrolling back to review, how old is the bus driver?                 Answer: Oh, for crying out loud! Don't you remember your own age?  It was YOU driving the bus!! If you pass this along to your friends, pray they do better than you. PS: 95% of people fail most of the questions!!

I'd Like a Favor, My Fellow Hope-Ridden Geriatrics!

Loyal readers will recall that my day job, when I'm not blogging about canaliths and Vitamin C, is practicing as a bankruptcy lawyer in Arizona.

My SEO Advisors (can anybody explain what SEO actually is?) have told me that it would be good to have my buddies go to my Arizona Bankruptcy Lawyer site on Facebook, and click "like" when they arrive.

So that's the favor I'd like from you: if you have a Facebook page, go "like" my Arizona Bankruptcy Lawyer site.

And thank you!

Wanna Be a Star? Have You Been Downsized Lately?

I'm a bankruptcy lawyer in Phoenix, Arizona. Because of that, I'm contacted by a lot of people in the insolvency industry for lots of reasons.

I seldom dance around much with Hollywood, but I guess it was bound to happen, what with my videos, and my remarkable profile.

But if you think you qualify, and you want your fifteen seconds of fame, there's a show that's in casting; and it's a companion to the series "Downsized".

Here's the email I got from Lauri:

Name:
Lauri Lannan

E-mail Address:
lauri_lannan@pietown.tv

State:
California

ZIP:
91607

Phone:
DID NOT RESPOND

How would you like to be contacted?
E-mail
Phone

Brief description of your legal issue:
Hello Joseph,

I am the development coordinator at Pie Town Productions, a high volume, Emmy-nominated production company with more than 47 series under its belt. We’ve produced programming for networks such as Discovery, TLC, A&E, WE, Lifetime, The Food Network, HGTV and OWN. Some of our current shows include House Hunters on HGTV, Meat & Potatoes on Food Network, and Downsized on WE.

I am reaching out to you in regards to a current casting of a companion show to Downsized.

Downsized is our critically acclaimed docu-series on WE that follows a large, charismatic family that has been downsized in the recession and documents their challenges and successes of adjusting to new financial constraints.

Here is a link to information about Downsized on the WE TV website:
http://www.wetv.com/shows/downsized

We are now casting for a companion series to Downsized, and are specifically looking for a large and compelling family who is no longer bringing in the big bucks, is having to adjust their lifestyle, and would like some assistance getting back on track.  The ideal family is fun-loving, honest, emotional...and willing to “put it out there”.

While we understand that you can’t share personal contact information, we do hope you will pass along our information to clients, and anyone else you feel could potentially benefit from a series based around their situation.

Any interested persons may apply here: http://www.pietown.tv/Shows/downsized_ourstory.php

We are happy to answer any questions you may have, please feel free to contact me any time.  And please check out our website which will give you a greater understanding of our programming: www.pietown.tv

I look forward to hearing from you.

Many Thanks,

Lauri Lannan
Development Coordinator
Pie Town Productions

Lemmie Get This Straight: You Can Make a DOG'S Joints Work Right Again.

Hmmmmmmm.

I read an interesting article about the use of specialized cells from a dog's fatty tissue; the specialized cells taken from the dog are exposed to magical fairy dust (sorry, a particular sort of light source) and then injected back into the dog.

And the pain and inflammation in the joints goes away.

Well, I found out about Glucosamine initially when I was reading up on joint problems in dogs (I sure loved my Airedales!), and it's worked very well indeed for me.

This stem-cell procedure to make a dog's joints work better costs $2,000, and the news article left me with just one question.

If I wear a dog suit with floppy ears, can I sneak into the clinic and throw myself on a gurney?

p.s. dogs and humans are not very different in terms of their fundamental biological processes. I wonder why such a simple procedure wouldn't work well on humans? That's assuming it actually works on dogs, of course.

The Most Boring Way to Increase Your Risk of a Heart Attack by 70% !

Drumroll: the way to increase your chances of a heart attack by 70% is to brush your teeth less than twice a day. 

Once again, your mother was right, right?

Magnesium; It's not Just for Poop Anymore!

Milk of Magnesia has long been a staple medication for relief of constipation, a topic about as attractive as...well, constipation!

By the way, remember that if you're going to go under general anesthesia for a surgical proceedure, you'll want to take milk of magnesia soon after you wake up, and until you successfully move your bowels.

That's because general anesthesia will just plain stop the activity of your digestive system, and you may wind up with poop that's dehydrated, and about as hard as kryptonite, and as large as the planet Krypton!

That's not our topic for today; I just wanted to remind you not to make the mistake I made before a minor surgery a few years ago, when I spent far too many hours in the reading room, praying for death, or for the passage of that large kryptonite meteor sitting inside of me. Either way!

You have been warned!

And remember: if your friends won't tell you, who will?

But Dr. Whitaker believes that supplementing with moderate amounts of magnesium is a pretty good idea for just about everybody. He figures that it improves the electrical system in the heart that makes it run like a Mazda Engine, and prevents it from needing a defibrillator, which is a good thing, right?

He's also noted a relationship between adequate intake of Omega 3 fatty acids and a tendency for your heart continuing to pump properly.

I don't buy every conclusion that Dr. Whitaker makes, but I think a lot of most of his suggestions.

And some studies have appeared to show a relationship between higher magnesium intake and a failure to die of sudden heart stoppages, you know?

Now, with either Vitamin C (which you need to take in divided doses for this very reason), or magnesium, or fish oil, you need to increase your intake sloooooooooowwwwly, so you don't desperately need Depends during a business meeting or afternoon tea.

So go and find some magnesium and fish oil and Vitamin C, and take it every day, after you discuss the issues of supplementation with your doctor.

And live!

With or without Depends!

Dead for an Hour and a Half. A Nifty Lazarus Story.

I was delighted to learn that people can come back after much longer than previously believed.

Apparently, if you're lucky, and they don't give up on you, you can come back to life with no brain damage after your heart has been on vacation for an hour and a half and more! 

And that's a lot of Jimmy Buffet Time for your heart, you know? 

On the other hand, here's a question: if your electrolites are in balance, and you take Vitamin C and fish oil, will that reduce your risk of sudden cardiac death?

Well, I'll keep taking my Vitamin C, fish oil, magnesium and potassium, and I'll let you know in another sixty years!  My Vitamin D may help me avoid the flu, as well.

We'll see!

The Most Boring Thing You Can Do to Live Six Years Longer!

It's flossing. No kidding.

Standing in the bathroom, in your bunny slippers, trying to get that skinny little string between your teeth.

And is it worthwhile? Well, yes.

While precise numbers are the subject of some dispute, six years more on the right side of the grass has been bandied about as a benefit of flossing.

If you don't floss, use a Sonicare Toothbrush; that's reputed to give you a lot of the benefits of flossing, without the string. There are studies!

And there are some studies that say that swishing Listerine Mouthwash (the kind with the old-school ingredients) between your teeth for sixty seconds also gives you many flossing benefits, without the string.

My suggestion: do all three. Doesn't cost you much, might help you a lot.

Does a Belief in God Make You Live Longer?

Maybe.

There are studies suggesting that it does. There are studies suggesting that it doesn't.

Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn. If you go to Church because some study said it might make you live five years longer, you're missing the point!

Going to Church is its own reward, and those who try it as a medical therapy might well hate it, experience more stress, and therefore go earlier to their just reward!

During Mass this morning, our 95 year old priest, Father Tom, needed to take a bathroom break just before the Consecration of the Host. He tottered out of the Church on his little walker, clearly embarrassed that his physical shortcomings had interfered with his work, and came back a few minutes later to a thunderous ovation from everyone in the Church.

My best guess is that being loved, and feeling valued, is one of the reasons he's still up and moving when most have taken early check-out.

Longevity Studies: Threat or Menace?

Studies are interesting, particularly this longevity study.

And when I get a Round Tuit, I'll order the book based on that study, and page through it, sifting for information I can turn into action.

But aside from the unsurprising fact that unmarried guys have the life spans of mayflies (because we need keepers), and the unsurprising fact that women don't need to be married to live long (because Nature loves women, and tolerates men), I didn't run into a lot of information that was useful to me.

Now, some studies get my attention, and keep it. The study published in the 2001 Issue of The Lancet, which told us that the folks in the highest quartile for Vitamin C lived, on average, nine years longer than those in the lowest quartile...that study was useful.

Because after you read that study, you knew that you were going to go and get a vat of Vitamin C, because the precise mechanism of the life-extension is not important when you can get that many years on the right side of the grass with a pill that costs essentially nothing, and that has no adverse side effects unless you take so many at one time that you get benign osmosis-related diarrhea (although you won't think it's benign if it happens during a business meeting, I suspect).

And all of the studies since 1935 on the life-extending effects of caloric restriction without malnutrition were useful as well. The action plan is obvious: don't eat a bunch of empty calories, and if you feel like it, reduce caloric intake some moderate amount, while you pay close attention to make sure you're getting your vitamins and minerals.

And the studies out of Harvard on the life-extending effects of exercise have an action plan built right into them: find something you like and get moving, and stay at it!

So I'll keep you posted if I find a useful nugget in the longitudinal longevity study that was published recently, and if I do, we can both live longer!

Mother's Day, and My Health

Your mother brought you into this world, so if you're reading this, go give her a call and thank her.

When I was a kid, many years ago, my snot-nosed generation had no idea what our parents had done to keep us safe and alive during World War II, and we thought our parents were boring and knew zippola.

My mom was a cryptographer during the war, and my dad was Coast Guard. Other parents of my buddies made James Bond look like a wuss, but we had one thought for all of 'em: ordinary.

One characteristic of growing up in a family that was formerly military trained was this: while I was certainly permitted to think and believe anything I wanted, I was required to display respect and obedience. My mother (and father) believed that they were my parents, and not my friends. That changed a bit as I got older, although either one would have cheerfully knocked me through a wall if I'd showed disrespect to them, or used the language I acquired while digging ditches or at the University, in their home. 

My mom was a nurse after the war, and she was smarter than doctors, as nurses must all be (I finally figured that out when I was on an ambulance crew, and watched more than once when an alert, focused, steely head nurse slapped a cardiac needle-tipped syringe into the hand of the sleepy, befuddled doctor).  She was also trained that if a doctor entered a room and she was seated, she should immediately stand and give him her chair.

She never really adjusted well to that imperative.

Note: if you want to live, make sure your hospital has a very good nurse-patient ratio; the better the ratio, the better your chance of surviving your hospital stay.

My mom also wanted to make sure that we kids went to a Church; she never cared which Church, and we usually went without her, because she worked nights and Church Services were typically held during the sunny, sunny days, but we went or caught hell. I learned, by memory, a fair chunk of the King James Bible at various different Sunday Schools, and still believe that it contains inspired language. Some people don't like that translation, but the bland, committee driven language of many modern translations sounds to my ear like pablum, not the Word of God.

When I was still a kid in early primary school, my family was rear-ended by a drunk without insurance, and my mother's life was shattered.

Her neck was never the same, and ultimately she developed torticollis; the pain was extreme, and the head tremor was so extreme that she was never able to read for pleasure after the accident, which she regretted greatly. She was also embarrassed by the uncontrollable head tremors, so she began to withdraw from her social network after the accident, and that was sad to watch.

She ultimately took graveyard shifts working as a psychiatric aide at Arizona State Hospital, and I was periodically invited to the "Fair" that was occasionally given by the patients there; and back then, restraints were used frequently on particularly violent patients, and electroshock therapy, because psychotropic drugs had not yet reached their current state of development.

So the docs there used talking therapy on the patients who were able and willing to talk, and the rest spent a fair amount of time watching television. And everybody was well fed, and they were kept clean and safe, although they would have a difficult time of it if they attacked the caregivers.

Today, of course, we are more enlightened, and the chronically mentally ill wander the streets of large cities, and they make useful targets for predators of all kinds.

Progress is a wonderful thing.

After a while, my mother became semi-retired, and spent a fair amount of time doing what was called "registry work", which meant that she would sort of baby-sit rich folks who had puny parents. And because she had a sunny personality, she had all the work she wanted.

Ultimately, she destroyed her health by the simple expedient of her awful nutrition and her cigarette habit and her nocturnal employment preferences; no vitamin d will turn your bones to chalk, and that was one of her downfalls.

But given that she survived exclusively on caffeine and nicotine, and the occasional chunk of protein, she lasted a very long time, suffering extensively during her long decline, which was punctuated with heart attacks and mini- and maxi- strokes.  She was a devotee of Jack LaLanne, and would fit exercise into her days in increments that she could tolerate, and her lifelong, dogged determination to exercise kept her alive long after she stopped having much fun.

Her iron will to rehabilitate herself was something I admired, although I wished she had been a little more skillful about her nutrition.

But my mother taught me the value of exercise and supplementation, both directly and indirectly, and she was a fanatical believer in the value of education, which she passed along to me.

All in all, she was exactly the right mother for me, and I miss her very much.  I look forward to seeing her again, when Our Father calls me home.

Top Ten Health Articles This Week!

I never know which posts my reader's will like the most, and it's always interesting to me to see which posts won the prize!

Enjoy!

Top Ten Popular Health Posts of This Week!

• Sitting, Lethal? And Squatting the Best Exercise EVER?

  There were two useful articles in the New York Times recently about exercise. One involved a discussion of sitting for long periods and i...
• Niacin for High Blood Pressure? And CANCER PREVENTION?

  I already knew that niacin had some nifty effects. For one thing, it increases the amount of good cholesterol more than any other drug, a...
• Trader Joe's All Natural Toothpaste with...Fennel, Propolis and MYRRH?

  I like it when I see a place where I can buy a "natural" toothpaste, because I hate sodium lauryl sulfate , and that's a component of "unnat...
• What's the LEAST Exercise I Can Do for Great Results? Exercise and the 80/20 Rule

  Exercise will keep you young. Okay, exercise will keep you younger. All right, already! Exercise will keep you less horribly old than yo...
• Honey Fights Bacteria! REALLY?

  Modern allopathic medicine is wonderful stuff, in its strong areas. Alternative and complementary medicine have areas of strength, also. ...
• Your Perfect Body Weight for Longevity and Reducing Morbidity and Mortality

  This is not a complicated question, although it can seem complicated if you consider reading everything you find when you Google a search li...
• The Top Ten Multivitamins Available in the United States

  I recently ran into a bundle of well-meaning health articles; some of them said that there was little evidence that taking multivitamins did...
• Does Exercise Keep You Young?

  I always enjoy it when common sense becomes front page news. For instance, we recently saw a lovely article saying that a scientist had di...
• Fasting: It's not Just for Breakfast Anymore!

  This will ultimately be a long post, with a bunch of links to sources and studies. The short version is this: fasting has therapeutic bene...
• Mini-Fast, Maxi-Fast, Midi-Fast, and Fasting

  Does anybody remember the Midi? Ugly dress!! What you had there was a dress that was longer than a mini, of course, and also longer tha...

Honey Fights Bacteria! REALLY?

Modern allopathic medicine is wonderful stuff, in its strong areas.

Alternative and complementary medicine have areas of strength, also.

But modern "mainstream" medicine is so clueless in some ways that it's always made nurses laugh.

Today's headline about honey, which has made the rounds of the media, is that honey kills germs.

While it's a news flash, all right, it is about 4,000 years late to be a scoop.

p.s. I'm not quite as dumb as I look. If you've been in an airplane crash, and every bone in your body is broken, you'd better be taken care of by an allopathic physician, because otherwise you'll die. If you have a head cold or a backache, there's little in his toolbox that's helpful.

Generally, for chronic conditions, I prefer folks trained in chiropractic, or naturopaths, or D.O.s, rather than M.D.s.

For acute conditions, get thee to an emergency room staffed with medical docs!

Sitting, Lethal? And Squatting the Best Exercise EVER?

There were two useful articles in the New York Times recently about exercise.

One involved a discussion of sitting for long periods and its effect on, well, conditions leading to death; and  another involved asking a lot of experts what was the single best exercise, period.

The anti-sitting article was straightforward and full of studies and statistics; but it wasn't terribly useful, although I loved the title (Is Sitting a Lethal Activity?), because it told us what we already knew.

If you are really, really inactive, you die sooner, and your life will be less nifty while you're on the right side of the grass.

In that sense, the article was like articles telling us that smoking would make us die; we already knew that, you know?

The article by Gretchen Reynolds about the single best exercise of all had more practical application, and I agreed with the expert who said that the single best exercise was the squat. Sort of.

The intellectual framework of the exercise article was nifty; one of the useful pieces of advice was that an exercise, to pass muster as "the best", needed to be sustainable. That let out a series of exercises that were painful and difficult.

One of the exercises that was the subject of fewer objections than others was the squat, which is a lot like its name.

I prefer a variation of the squat that is the preference of many serious martial artists (which I am not; I work at it, but I'll never be good at it). That variation involves standing in a squat position with no weights. For a long time. Practicing slow breathing exercises.

The most amazing martial artists of my acquaintance swear by it, and at it, on occasion.

On the other hand, the issue of the best exercise you can do in the least time to get the biggest bang for your time and effort is one that comes up frequently, and I've written about it myself.

And the squat made my short list, also.

So Why Doesn't He Just Eat AS THOUGH He Had a Bypass?

I recently had a great conversation with a great guy who was as smart as a whip and highly sophisticated about medical issues.

He also weighed a little north of three-fifty, and he had more co-morbidities than a dog has fleas.

He also knew exactly how, given his particular genetic makeup, he could lose tons of weight; he'd already been on a carbohydrate restricted diet during one of his many hospital stays, and he'd lost body fat during that entire stay.

But the solution (and he'd give it a lot of thought and deliberation) that he'd come up with involved going to a center of excellence and getting a Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass, and living for the rest of his life on very small amounts of blender puree.

Now, is that ever a good idea for anybody?

Well, probably.

I have another buddy who's digging his grave with his teeth, and I worry about him because on some day, without any particular new warning, he'll wake up some morning dead of diabetic ketosis. Or a heart attack. Or a stroke.

And waking up dead is a bad way to start a day, you know?

Now, one of the problems with a gastric bypass of the sort that my buddy is contemplating is that you lose the ability to absorb some vitamins and minerals and other nutrients along with your reduced ability to absorb calories, which is a primary reason to have the surgery.

And if you stop absorbing Vitamin B-12, for instance, you may get to have a variety of senility that looks and sounds a lot like Alzheimer's, and that's a bad thing, particularly because I understand that reversing it is not easy.

Now, losing fat is a big pain in the behind, and I get that. I'm genetically gifted in weight loss, and I found the key for me when I saw the Hawaiian Vacation Photos; I just have to cut the beautiful Ms. Carbohydrate out of my life, no matter how seductive she is, and spend my time with her homely sister, Ms. Protein.  And maybe cheat on her with Sally Spinach, which is sort of like a carbohydrate, but a carbohydrate that has so much fiber and so few calories is really not much of a carbohydrate at all, for purposes of my dumping fat.

And even though I finally figured out how to dump fat, every now and then I don't pay attention and pick up an additional fifteen pounds of fat, and then I pipe general quarters and get serious about the dumping project.

For me, if I've gotten sloppy about weighing every day, the warning signal is simply that my trousers are too darn tight.

And that makes it an emergency, so I do whatever it takes, and get it fixed.

Some people have more trouble than I do losing weight, and I feel for 'em; that's got to be a big pain in the behind, as well.

But if I needed a bypass, I think I'd want to try going first to the fasting farm at TrueNorth, or trying Atkins for a few months.

Or even getting my hands on a bypass patient's diet book, and living on that; and I'd ask myself, if I hate this a lot, do I really want to stay on this diet for the rest of my life?

But I'm not as stupid as I look; if I had a dozen co-morbidities and was a few weeks from a meeting with Mr. G. Reaper, I'd let 'em give me the gastric bypass, which would cause my blood sugar to normalize, and which would by necessity make me lose weight, which would make my heart work better, and then my arthritis and my gout would improve, and...you get the idea; everything would work better.

But first I like to think I'd get a book with a title like "Eating Well After Weight Loss Surgery" and see what eating in exactly that way tasted and felt like, and then I'd see if I could trick myself into pretending I'd actually had the surgery; so I'd get most of the benefits, with none of the detriments!

p.s. recently I've heard announcers on the radio pitching gastric banding as an easy, certain, cool and hip way to lose weight. I was horrified. Surgery can be a miraculous tool in appropriate cases; but it shouldn't be Plan "A"!

p.p.s. I run into some folks every now and then who are "more healthy than thou." They think that because they have good health habits, they're better human beings.

They are not, by the way, morally superior human beings. They are also not necessarily smarter (both of my morbidly obese buddies have genius-level I.Q.s).

On the other hand, folks with good health habits often have a little more energy at the end of the day, and tend not to wake up dead with quite as much frequency, which is a good thing.

And more importantly, people who have the entire collection of nifty health habits tend to feel better during the course of each and every day they're on the correct side of the grass.

On the other hand, some of us just decided to get to a healthy weight because we saw the darned Hawaiian Vacation Photos.

Never underestimate the power of simple vanity. Especially when those darned high-school reunions keep coming around!

p.s. I loved this story about a woman who lost over a hundred pounds by following four simple tips from her doctor. 

Trader Joe's All Natural Toothpaste with...Fennel, Propolis and MYRRH?

I like it when I see a place where I can buy a "natural" toothpaste, because I hate sodium lauryl sulfate, and that's a component of "unnatural" toothpastes, one and all.

Essentially all mass-produced toothpastes contain the stuff, even though many folks (like me) are sensitive to it, and it may increase the frequency of canker sores, which are not nearly as much fun as their press agent say they are.

Enter Trader Joe's to the rescue: their all natural AntiPlaque Toothpaste with fennel, propolis and myrrh, which is the weirdest prescription for a toothpaste I ever ran into, doesn't have the offending goo.

It does have fennel, propolis, and myrrh.

Why?

Well, fennel is an herb, and it kills germs. Something that kills germs in your mouth is presumably a pretty good thing, because germs there cause gingivitis, tooth decay, and bad breath.

Propolis is made by bees, and kills...germs. Do you sense a trend here?

And myrrh, which you all remember from Vacation Bible School, isn't just for breakfast anymore.

Now, I don't want you to fall too deeply in love with this product, as I have, because Trader Joe's sometimes stops making or selling an item if it doesn't sell well.

Myself, I bought four tubes. Just to be on the safe side.

Reading Your Own Obituary Is a Surprisingly Sobering Experience

I think about health and longevity a lot; not quite as much as I think about bankruptcy, but a lot, in any case.

And whenever a buddy of mine has another heart surgery, or goes through chemo, I think again about health and how to stay functional as long as I can; because I love a lot of people, and I want to keep them in my life, and to help them as much and as long and as well as I can.

And that last paragraph discusses keeping people "in my life", which presupposes...life! 

Now, Google has an interesting tool that provides "alerts" when your name shows up on the internet.

And I recently received an alert telling me that my name showed up someplace new on the internet! Naturally, I thought it was a press release about my being named to "Arizona's Finest Lawyers", or a comment on another bankruptcy blog, or maybe a wikipedia reference (footnote 3) to my Shotokan Karate Blog (I ran into one of those recently and realized that I was now officially famous!).

It wasn't any of those things. Instead, when I clicked on the link to "Joseph McDaniel", I saw this; I decided to light a candle this Sunday for my namesake, who I never met, and to make sure I get in my vitamins and exercise today, and to tell everybody I love that I loved them, today:

Obituary

Joseph L. McDaniel

FLORA - Joseph L. McDaniel, 72, Flora, former owner/co-operator McDaniel Transit, died Wednesday (March 30, 2011). Graveside services: noon Saturday, Golden Cemetery, Louisville. No visitation. Arrangements by: Frank & Bright Funeral Home, Flora. Memorials: Clay County Cancer Support Group. Send condolences: www.frankand bright.com.

Published in Decatur Herald & Review on April 1, 2011

Sinus Rinse by NeilMED Should Win the Nobel Peace Prize. Really.

I've written previously about the use of saline solutions to rinse out sinus cavities using a gravity feed approach.

But there's a better mousetrap in town, and it looks like nothing special, but it rinses sinuses like a loving, supportive, non-irritating firehose.

It's totally cool!

The product is simply called "Sinus Rinse" by NeilMED, and it is a Godsend to those of us living in Pollen Central.

Now, a lot of people who have never had allergies make fun of allergy sufferers, and that's okay. We know where you live.

But really, if you have allergies, you need this product!

It's nothing more remarkable than a medium sized translucent plastic bottle, with a nosepiece attached to a fairly wide tube that goes down to the bottom of the squeeze bottle.

You put a pre-mixed "sachet" of salt and baking soda in the bottle, fill it to the mark, and then put in the tube/nosepiece combo and screw it down.

Then you put the nosepiece up to your nose and squeeze.

The results are dramatic. The saline solution travels up one nostril, and out the other. In one glorious rush of salt water.

Note: the correct sequence is lean forward over the sink, and then squeeze. Don't think about squeezing and then leaning. You'll only get it wrong once, of course.

Then you repeat with the other nostril.

The effect is to get everything out of your superficial sinuses that doesn't belong there, and to do it quickly and easily with no muss and fuss.

It is so simple that it's hard to explain why it's so much better than a cup full of salt water sniffed up your nose and spit out your mouth.

You'll just have to take my word on this; it's an amazing product, and my current plan is to buy about twenty of 'em, just in case they ever stop production.

Does Exercise Keep You Young?

I always enjoy it when common sense becomes front page news.

For instance, we recently saw a lovely article saying that a scientist had discovered that mutant mice aged far more slowly if they exercised.

Let's give that a moment of thought.

This is news how?

Does anybody remember things called "cigarettes"?

They used to be very popular.

And everybody with half a brain knew perfectly well that they would, eventually, kill you. Hence their sobriquet.

"Coffin Nails."

Remember? 


In the same way, exercise has always had a series of nicknames, including the fountain of youth. Which it's not, exactly. Even if you exercise, you will still die.

You'll just die a lot farther down the line, and you'll look a lot prettier in your coffin.

Remember Jack LaLanne?

Now, can you think of anybody else who looks great at an age when most folks would fit right in for a "People of Walmart" Photo Shoot?

How about one of my personal favorites, Lillian Muller?

How about Sly Stalone?

Or Suzanne Somers?

Or Sensei Shojiro Koyama, who is only about 73 in this clip; he's had a few birthdays since this video.

I worked with a personal trainer who goes by "Sarge"; he's an old black guy who looks like a young black guy, and after his stint in the military, is awesome at teaching old guys how to reestablish muscle without awful side-effects, like soreness, joint issues, and hernias.

The technique he uses is simple, because he doesn't want to drive away clients by making them cripples for days after a workout: he starts people with a weight light enough that they can do a lot of repetitions. When they are able to do 100 repetitions, he moves up the weight by the smallest possible increment, and then keeps that as the goal until they can do 100 repetitions with the slightly larger weight. Rinse, repeat.

Another trainer (and advanced martial arts instructor) in Arizona is a gentleman named Mack Newton, who runs an exercise class that is not for the faint of heart, but which has been known to work miracles in difficult cases.  His approach to exercise emphasizes body-weight exercises like mountain-climbers. Lots and lots of mountain climbers.

Now, don't go to a gym and put yourself in the hospital by working out without getting clearance from your doctor.

And start gentle, because you don't want to give yourself an excuse to quit.

Recruit your emotions and your vices, and use them to get leverage on yourself so that you don't quit.

For instance, find a belt. Take a look at it. If your belt is like most men's belts, it has a wear pattern that shows how much you've gained since you bought it.

Think about how long it's taken to gain the weight, and plan on taking it off over the same time period.

And monitor everything you do to see if you're getting results. Remember to use a Tanita Scale, because you want to have a baseline when you start, and to know that you are 40% body fat, and you want to get to watch as you move to 15% body fat. Hard to tell without your Tanita!

And take your time; be gentle with yourself, and bribe yourself with mental pictures of how young you're going to be, and how happy, when you reverse your own aging process!

p.s. after you do exercise for six weeks or so, you'll be lighter, stronger, and more functional. You'll be younger in a lot of different ways. And you're going to want to keep it up for your entire life, because that's a good idea. You'll need to develop workarounds, of course, because eventually you'll get a hitch in your gitalong, and you'll need to find a different way to exercise that bundle of muscles.

The Maltese Falcon and "The Fat Man"

There is a brilliant book, which was turned into a brilliant movie, called "The Maltese Falcon".

The acting is brilliant, the camerawork is better, and the dialogue is snappy.

It speaks to an earlier, simpler time when cops sweated your story of you overnight, everybody smoked cigarettes as a matter of course, and guys knocked each other out with one punch just because they could.

But there was one aspect of the movie that reminded me of modern times; when Bogie was ratting out the bad guys to the cops at the end of the movie, he referred to Gutman and said, "You can't miss him. He must weight three hundred pounds!"

And in 1941, when people worked more with their hands, walked more, and knocked each other out with frequency, people didn't get as fat as they do now; after all, they didn't have high-fructose corn syrup or hundred-ounce thirst quenchers, sometimes called "liquid candy".

Note: do not try practicing to knock people out; it's not as easy as it looks, and people don't take it as lightly as they did in 1941. Besides, they may knock you out, and that could result in chipped or missing teeth, and that's a serious health problem! And don't even get me started on concussions!

Back to obesity: there is a series of photographs, called "The People of Walmart", which depicts a number of interesting clothing choices, in connection with a lot of obesity.

But it is clear that simply suggesting, today, that you can't miss somebody because he must weigh three hundred pounds is an inadequate description.

What are the reasons for the huge obesity epidemic?

Well, my personal favorite villain is high-fructose corn syrup; it's just not something that most people process very well, and for some folks, it triggers fat conservation that's remarkable. And makes "Gutman" from The Maltese Falcon look like a ballerina.

Surprisingly, cigarettes will kill you, but you will probably weigh less in your coffin; note that people have known approximately forever that cigarettes would help keep your weight down, and that cigarettes would kill you eventually (hence, "coffin nails"). Note that I DO NOT suggest smoking as a way to reduce weight.

There are also antidepressant drugs that have, as a side effect, massive weight gain. I've seen people change from ballerina to Person of Walmart status in as little as a year, with an upper weight of more than Gutman on a five foot frame; this is not a good thing.

Another reason for obesity is the fairly crazy conviction that spaghetti and other pasta meals are good for you. Since they tend to spike blood sugar, they tend to increase fat formation and retention.

Putting it a different way, if you tend to eat spinach, for instance, with meat, or chicken, or fish, you tend to lose fat. Or green beans. Or any other green vegetable with zip calories and lots of fiber.

And I intended to say fat, not muscle; one of the things you want to lose on a fat loss program is fat, not muscle. So check what you're doing while you're doing it with a Tanita Scale, so you know whether you're losing water weight, fat, or muscle.

I would avoid a juice fast (which is really a juice orgy) with as much enthusiasm as I would avoid smoking. Because both of 'em are very bad for you! An ordinary water fast seems to be a useful tool for some people, and a once or twice a week fast day has been a fixture in a number of world religions. My guess is that fasting while drinking plenty of water, if approved by your doctor, could be a helpful way to dump fat.

And I know someone who fasted for a month under medical supervision, drinking only water, and they were a good deal healthier thereafter; but that's the sort of extreme solution that really, really has to be undertaken only under medical supervision.

And recently I've heard reports of folks who have been defeating their lap banding procedures, simply by eating all the time, and specifically eating liquid ice cream.

Sorry, that just seems silly to me; why spend money on a stomach stapling or banding procedure, and then defeat the result by changing your eating habits to get around your reduced stomach size?

Oh, well. Everybody needs a hobby.

Gutman's was the Maltese Falcon.

Texting is Very Dangerous to Your Health

Particularly when you're driving!

So there I was, waiting for the light to change. And it changed. And, as my driving instructor had told me those many years ago, I didn't jam my foot on the gas, because that's a bad idea.

And those driver's ed classes just paid for themselves again, because as I was easing my foot down on that gas, a nice gentleman (the "pre-corpse") zipped through the intersection at high speed, after the yellow, and after the red was quite red, thank you very much.

Was the nice gentleman merely stupid? Yes, and no.

He appeared to be about thirty-five, well-dressed, well-nourished and bilaterally symmetrical; and well-focused on the telephone in his hand, upon which he was texting.

Now, if a hot blond had just sent him a spicy photo by electronic transmission to his cell phone, I could understand his distraction.

But it was still stupid.

If the bank had told him that they'd accepted his offer to modify his mortgage, I could understand his distraction.

But it was still stupid.

IF you are going to take early check-out of this particular life, that's jake by me; I can't stop you.

But don't do it in a way that may take other people with you!

That's just poor planning.

p.s. I absolutely get it that being constantly in touch by way of emails and text messages and cell phones is addictive; and I don't care if you're simply rude, talking loudly in the restaurant or texting like a demon there. We'll all talk about you, of course. But if you are texting when you are driving, you will get squashed as you deserve, like the bug that you are.

And if you're driving a so-called "smart car" that weighs as much as a toaster?

God help you!

Arizona Group Collects for Organ Transplants; Public Service Announcement

A group of heavy-hitters in Arizona, some of them former organ-transplant recipients, has formed a group to collect dough to fund organ transplants in Arizona. It's called the New Life Society.

And here's an article about the group.

Here's their facebook page; I'll be joining as soon as I get finished with this post.

Okay, I'm back. Now, go and join this thing, because why not? It doesn't cost to click; in fact, joining their facebook page is just a nice thing to do. And if you can kick 'em a couple of bucks, well, it might count as a contribution to a charitable organization and help you pass the Means Test so you can file a bankruptcy! Check with your attorney, of course; I only practice in Arizona.  And I never guarantee that the sky is blue.


Why do I care whether people contribute to a group that helps people get transplants? Well, I have a buddy who walks around with another guy's heart in his chest, and the world is a better place with him in it.


I just wish I could convince him to stop smoking!

Niacin for High Blood Pressure? And CANCER PREVENTION?

I already knew that niacin had some nifty effects.

For one thing, it increases the amount of good cholesterol more than any other drug, according to Mayo Clinic! It also reduces BAD cholesterol! 

And note: I called it a "drug" because that's what the Mayo Article called it; but remember that while you can call it a drug if you want, you can also call it a...vitamin! 

Now, when you take a gram of the stuff, you'll probably experience an interesting side-effect, which is an intense flush that spreads over your neck and face, and makes you look as though you're...blushing. It's transient, and it goes away over an hour or so, and it's more intense in some people than others.

Some people hate it, and some like it. A lot. Like me. It reminds me of the point in my life when I had something called "circulation".

But I was surprised to hear the following story from a good friend: he had very high blood pressure, and he was on pills for that condition.

He wanted off the pills for high blood pressure, because even though he didn't want to have a stroke, he also wanted Willy to be Free! Many of the drugs for high blood pressure have a side effect that men, in particular, hate and fear.

So, without talking to his doc, he substituted niacin for his blood pressure meds every other day for a month, and monitored the results with a home blood pressure cuff every six hours or so.

That worked fine for him, so then he substituted niacin for the blood pressure pills on the alternate days as well, for a month.

Then he went to the doc, who said that his blood pressure was now fully controlled; and then he fessed up to the doc. His doctor was smart enough that he knew about niacin, and the doctor pointed out that the niacin would help his cholesterol issues as well as his high blood pressure.

BUT DO NOT DO IT THE WAY HE DID IT; THAT'S JUST STUPID!

Instead, if you prefer the HDL-increasing, flush-promoting effects of niacin to the stuff your doc is currently giving you for high-blood pressure, talk to your doc about it.

Take your doctor copies of studies showing that niacin makes HDL go up, LDL go down, and blood pressure go down.

Since all of those are good things, your doc should be more than willing to let you take a shot, because it may get you off of both your blood pressure meds and your cholesterol medicines!

And if your doctor is unwilling to talk to your about it, well, track down a doctor who knows about this stuff, and is willing to talk to you about it.

Mind you, the doc won't be able to spend much time talking to you about it, because a general practitioner needs to "visit" with eleven patients an hour to make enough dough to buy beanie-weanie, but you and the doc can talk fast, you know?

p.s. there's an interesting recent study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology,  which says, generally speaking, that folks with higher levels of HDL (good cholesterol), there were lower levels of cancer. That is, as the HDL amounts increased, cancer rates dropped.

Now, that's the sort of study that makes doctors say, "More studies are needed!" It's the sort of study that makes me say, "Where's the niacin, honey?"

Vitamin D Cuts Your Chances of Flu in HALF!

When I talk about vitamins, I often hear the paid-for propaganda of Big Pharma: "these are not the Droids you are looking for. You do not need to take vitamins if you eat a healthy diet."

On the other hand, when Yale University speaks, many people listen. And according to Men's Health Magazine, a study at Yale University showed that the folks with the highest blood levels of vitamin d had half the chance of catching the flu, and that the flu was less severe if they did catch it!

Which, if you think about it, is the reason that winter is flu season (normally, humans can generate some vitamin d when their sun is struck by sunlight, but in the winter the sunlight is weaker, so less gets generated; and remember that some places are cold enough that everybody with survival instincts stays indoors in a parka!).

p.s. that study reminds me of my favorite study of all time, published in The Lancet in 2001, which said that folks in the top quartile for blood levels of vitamin c lived, on average, nine years longer than those in the bottom quartile.

p.p.s. when I talk to people I love about taking vitamins, and they laugh and start talking about expensive urine, I still love them. I just know they're still hypnotized.

p.p.p.s. the reason that the Lancet study is my favorite is simple; it avoids any controversy over the mechanism whereby vitamin c extends life. Maybe Linus Pauling was right and vitamin c cures the most common kind of heart disease. Maybe it prevents the spread of cancer by making tissues stronger, so the tumors stay isolated longer. Maybe cancer cells suck up more vitamin c than healthy cells and go kaboom in the night. I don't care why vitamin c makes people live longer! I just know that I'll keep taking a couple of horse pills (grams) of vitamin c every morning, night, and whenever else I think of it.

I want to average at least five grams a day, and much more when I'm sick and my bowel tolerance level for vitamin c goes up.

And yes, that topic is quite gross, but far less gross than death from heart disease, or cancer, nine years earlier than it needs to be.

Jack LaLanne Finally Ruins His Image.

Jack LaLanne was famous, among other things, for saying that he can't die because it would ruin his image.

Well, so much for his image. He only made it to 96.

On the other hand, there is no question in my mind that St. Peter is going to be in much better shape from now on.

Along with the entire Harp Section of the Heavenly Marching Band.

Top Ten Health and Longevity Articles!

Blogger added a new gadget that tells me which of my blog entries get the most views!

Enjoy!

• Your Perfect Body Weight for Longevity and Reducing Morbidity and Mortality

  This is not a complicated question, although it can seem complicated if you consider reading everything you find when you Google a search li...
• The Top Ten Multivitamins Available in the United States

  I recently ran into a bundle of well-meaning health articles; some of them said that there was little evidence that taking multivitamins did...
• Stallone Training for The Expendables: What 62 Years Old Looks Like!

  Here's the deal, and you know this because you went to the high school reunion: there's about a 28-year swing in normal aging by the time yo...
• Curcumin Beats Plaques that Cause Alzheimer's?

  I've been reading a lot about a study that concludes that, in rats, curcumin stops the formation of the plaque that causes Alzheimer's Disea...
• Mini-Fast, Maxi-Fast, Midi-Fast, and Fasting

  Does anybody remember the Midi? Ugly dress!! What you had there was a dress that was longer than a mini, of course, and also longer than m...
• Pity the Poor M.D.; It's Not Easy Being a Doctor!

  A buddy of mine recently called a great local doc and tried to get into see her on short notice. The notice wasn't short enough for my tast...
• Better Living Through Gummy Bears!

  Once upon a time, there was a wonderful pill. It made severe allergies vanish. That's right, vanish! It had three ingredients, one of wh...
• The Most Interesting Man in the World Does Talk About Aging and Death

  The beer commercials featuring "The Most Interesting Man in the World" are among the funniest things I've ever watched. Donno why. Maybe i...
• An Extraordinary Example of Healthy Aging

  I'm not a doctor, and don't ever take medical advice from me on any topic. On the other hand, as I was reading about vegan diets (which ar...
• Do X-Rays Cause Cancer? Should the TSA Force X-Ray Exposure on Frequent Flyers?

  Once upon a time, x-rays were discovered, and x-ray machines were adopted as a diagnostic tool; after all, without the x-rays, how you gonna...

Artificial Will Power and Synthetic Determination!

I recently read a very interesting book that spent a lot of pages describing in detail how helpful it is to do one-armed push-ups and one-legged squats.

As of today, by the way, I do not routinely do one-armed push-ups and one-legged squats.  Putting it another way, I'm sixty, and I've never trained for those in the past; if I develop the ability to do them, you'll be the first to know.

The book I read was written by Pavel Tsatsouline, and is called The Naked Warrior. It also contains advertising for other materials by the same author, but that didn't bother me in the slightest.

In fact, I liked the book quite a bit, even though it taught, with a lot of fanfare, exactly two exercises, and variations on that theme.

But there is great value in that motivational approach; after all, there are a lot of great exercises, and there are a ton of magnificent exercise machines.

And in general, exercises of all sorts aren't practiced, and exercise machines, from Nordic Tracks to Bowflexes, are used as coat-racks. Kettlebells aren't usually used as coat-racks. If kettlebells are not used as exercise devices, those are better suited to life as door-stops. And if they are coated with an anti-rust surface, boat anchors.

Now, any of the above exercise machines and devices, and many more, are wonderful for building many kinds of fitness. Just wonderful!

Old-time strongmen had to improvise, and often had accidents involving gravity, which is a harsh mistress. Or accidents involving cannons (note to self: do one-armed pushups; do not do the trick with the cannon).

There is, however, a somewhat extreme option to force yourself to exercise, and I have used it in the past, and I will use it in the future.

It is called a "personal trainer".

Now, everybody I have trained with was the best. Not because I'm smart. I'm just lucky.

I found "Sarge" by blundering into his gym after I went to the doc for the sniffles. And he, after all that time with raw recruits, was very helpful in providing motivation. And, since I'd paid him, I was darned if I was going to miss a session. And since I liked him, I wasn't going to miss a session, and thereby disappoint him!

And beside, I certainly didn't want to make him angry!

The same sort of analysis worked for me and Sensei Shojiro Koyama, who is extraordinary. Actually, there's not even a word to accurately describe his remarkable qualities.  But that's a topic for a different blog.

Now, not all of you are as lucky as me, but there are personal trainers where you live.

What are the critical characteristics of a personal trainer, from your perspective?

Well, it might be nice if they knew how to use the machines in their gym. You know?

More importantly, they need to know how to gradually move you up the food chain; if they push you so hard that you are injured, or excessively sore after Day One, you might just quit!

The third item, and by far the most important, is that you like them. Some.

Because in a commercial gym of the most common sort, a personal trainer is half-trainer, half-salesman. His job is to make you feel guilty if you don't show up, and to make sure you don't quit. Training or paying.

So you will, more often than not, show up!

As Woody Allen said, Ninety per cent of life is showing up!

And I tend to agree with that statement.

Now, don't sign up with the first gym or personal trainer you find in your neighborhood. Do some research, and actually read whatever agreement they want you to sign; if your answer on the contract has to be today, a good answer is "no".

But once you're wired in to a series of classes that cost you money, and that you schedule with your trainer, you're likely to actually show up at the gym, because you know that your trainer will otherwise lose income which is important to him.

Which is why the likability of your trainer is really fairly important to you.

Actually, really, really important. In effect, the eeevil gym says, "Show up or the fluffy pink trainer starves!" And that functions as a substitute for will power and determination for you, until you grow your own.

Now, is there a reason for you to show up at the gym and do a conventional workout there?

Absolutely.

Is the conventional workout you get at a gym with your trainer likely to be a perfect workout for you?

Well, of course not. You are probably not yet an expert in the entire range of exercises available in the world, and you don't know from experience which exercises work best for you, and you don't know which exercises will tend to correct your particular weaknesses.

Fortunately, if you are a complete couch potato, you are a complete and integrated bundle of weaknesses.

Is your cardio lousy? Check. Is your upper-body strength miserable? Check. Is your lower-body strength missing? Check. Is your flexibility inflexible? Check.

So almost anything the trainer has you do will be of great benefit for a year or so! And after that, your car will know the way to the gym by heart, and so will you.

And workouts will become a habit for you.

Habits are often good, if they don't involve nicotine or alcohol or heroin or pizza.

Now, a fairly common way a trainer might work with you after the first few weeks is the following: sticking you on an exercise bike or treadmill of some sort for half an hour, just to get you sweaty and warmed up a bit.

Then a tour of the machines around the gym, with a stop at the machines that work your biggest muscle groups.

The way "Sarge" worked with me was, I thought, pretty smart. He had me work with a series of exercises, and the resistance was set looooooooow! His goal for me was to get me to a point where I could do a hundred reps on all of the major muscle group exercises, and that worked pretty well for me.

When we got to a hundred reps on any given exercise, we moved the weight up by the smallest possible increment, and the number of reps nosedived, and then we started toward a hundred again.

That's a pretty good approach for an old guy like me, because the chances that I was going to hurt myself (and quit training) were about zero, and the chances that I would experience improvement in a number of vectors (body fat percentage, strength, muscular endurance) were about 100 per cent!

The curve of improvement was also very fast, so that was a good thing!

Now, do I want you to do exactly that?

Nope.

Do any sort of exercise you want!

But prepare yourself for success. Read ten books on exercise, and on the specific sorts of exercise you want to do.

You'll feel overwhelmed by information, but just let it wash over you.

Because if you currently do zero exercise, and move to any exercise whatsoever, you have made a huge improvement.

And monitor your results!

Be especially careful not to confuse weight with body-fat percentage. When you start to work with resistance exercise of any sort, you will lose inches, and not lose pounds, at first.

That's because you will be building muscle (which weighs more than fat). Because you will at first be building muscle and losing fat, your weight won't go down much at first; but your inches will, because muscle takes up less space than fat.

Also note that you want to start to monitor (don't try to change it yet) the food that you eat.

And is there a reason that you should do some sort of exercise, so you become stronger, more flexible, and breathe better?

Well, to steal a phrase from a hair color commercial, you're worth it!

p.s. I have watched many people age, as you have. I have a number of friends who are further along the aging path than I am. All are walking schoolbooks. Some are cautionary tales: do not smoke five packs of cigarettes every day of your life, because you will need to drag an oxygen tank behind your muscle-wasted, smelly, yellow-tooth-stained self, right? 

Some are exemplary tales of The Physical Culture Saints: do resistance exercise and aerobic exercise and monitor all you are, even if your self-monitoring is just refusal to grow into the next larger size!

I know folks who look and feel three decades younger than their chronological ages, partly because they continue to exercise, and that's a good goal!

And I know you can do it!

p.p.s. I have written previously about the quickest, easiest way I could think of to keep the Demon Sarcopenia at bay.  Any version of progressive resistance training is a remarkably good idea for those of us who plan on passing over only after St. Peter has dragged us to heaven, kicking and screaming and dragging the ground behind us with our fingernails, when we are 120 years old. And after we have died of precisely no particular cause whatsoever.

Remember that sarcopenia is one of the easiest to read biomarkers of aging, and that if you can maintain your muscle mass with any sort of progressive resistance training, you will be, effectively, younger than if you...well, waste away!

So Which New Year's Resolution Did You Make? Perfect Weight for Longevity, or Vitamins for Longevity? Consider BOTH!

Now, my personal New Year's Resolution is to watch the calendar more closely next year, so I have time to MAKE some New Year's Resolutions!

But a lot of people resolve to reach their perfect weight, without having a clue how to determine their perfect weight.

And others make a resolution to take vitamins and supplements, without having a clue which vitamins to take so that they feel better and live longer.

So here is my input on both topics: perfect weight, and vitamins!

Do X-Rays Cause Cancer? Should the TSA Force X-Ray Exposure on Frequent Flyers?

Once upon a time, x-rays were discovered, and x-ray machines were adopted as a diagnostic tool; after all, without the x-rays, how you gonna set that broken arm?

But besides being diagnostic, they were also declared to be healthy, so they were used to cure all sorts of diseases and conditions, sort of like an electromagnetic Lourdes.

X-rays were also pressed into service for big stuff (x-raying girders to see if the welds were good), and little stuff, like the shoe-and-foot x-rays that were in so many shoe stores when I was growing up.

Then somebody figured out that x-rays caused cancer, and the party was over.

There is a fairly clear risk-and-benefit calculation associated with diagnostic x-rays these days, and in particular there are rules for determining how much radiation pregnant women should endure.

The calculus of safety is an interesting calculus. Apparently, any increase in x-ray exposure will result in an increase in cancer rates, so the next interesting question is this: how much safer do the TSA x-ray machines make U.S. Citizens, and how many absolutely predictable cases of cancer will result from increased exposure to radiation?

There is another variation of the question: how many air travelers will simply avoid U.S. travel, and how much will that cost industries that rely on those travelers?

It will be interesting to watch statistics shift over time, as more folks are exposed to more radiation. Apparently, it will take ten to fifteen years for new cases of cancer to show up after x-ray exposure, or any radiation exposure, so politicians ten or fifteen years from now will get to explain to unhappy survivors or unhappier families exactly why these x-ray machines were the best tools for the job.

Myself, I'd rather see more dogs; dogs are nice, you know?

And since some dogs have been trained to sniff out cancer, we could reduce death rates from cancer by cross-training Airport Detection Dogs to find both explosives and cancer!

And folks could lower their blood pressure by petting the dogs!

A Tri-fecta!

The Top Ten Multivitamins Available in the United States

I recently ran into a bundle of well-meaning health articles; some of them said that there was little evidence that taking multivitamins did any good, some said they might do some uncertain scary damage to you, and others had an opinion that many people taking multivitamins didn't really need them.

And I agree; many people don't need multi-vitamins and minerals, particularly if they don't care whether they live or die, or about the quality of their lives.

This one drives me a little crazier than most, because the cost/benefit analysis of daily vitamins and minerals is so obvious! And there are a million studies showing benefit from multivitamin use, but they tend to sink beneath the waves without a trace. Here's one, for instance, and here's another; did you ever hear about these studies?

On the one hand, what happens if you take a multivitamin/multimineral that you don't need?

Well, you just wasted four pennies, and your urine is that much healthier.

And what happens if you are among the sixty percent of U.S. Citizens who are deficient in Vitamin D during the winter? Or the sixty per cent who get inadequate Vitamin C every day? Or the many who get inadequate selenium?

Well, let's look at it.

Statistically, you are overwhelmingly most likely to die of heart disease (first) or cancer (second).

After that, it's the also-rans.

What would happen if you could take a pill with an ingredient that reduced your risk of most kinds of cancer by almost half?

What would happen if you could take a pill with an ingredient proven to make you live nine years longer than you would otherwise?

Well, you know the answers to those questions already. And the price of those pills would be amazingly high! And doctors and hospitals would be sued, routinely, for failing to prescribe them, or failing to administer them.

Now, here's the funny part.

The ingredient in multivitamins/multiminerals that will make you live nine years longer is Vitamin C.  There's some of that in a multi; probably enough to move you into top quartile of folks who live nine years longer, all according to the brilliantly conducted study reported in 2001 in the Lancet.

And you say you'd like to reduce your chances of cancer of almost all kinds by almost half? That was the result in the study conducted in Arizona, and the mineral was selenium (200 mcg per day). Selenium has been heavily studied for cancer prevention. It doesn't work against skin cancer, by the way.

And have you heard that most folks are Vitamin D deficient in the winter, and that's why epidemics of influenza take place in the wintertime? Of course, people in northern latitudes tend to be Vitamin D deficient year round, and folks who work indoors and live indoors all of their lives. Oh, and folks who wear clothes over essentially all of their bodies.

Now, there's a chance that you're not currently deficient in Vitamin C, although not a big chance. Essentially zero chance, if you're a smoker, or around smokers.

There's a chance that you get enough selenium to cut your chances of cancer in half.  Particularly if you eat brazil nuts, and if those brazil nuts come from the correct part of Brazil. If.

And there's a chance that you aren't deficient in Vitamin D, if you eat a lot of lightly cooked liver, or a very small amount of polar bear liver.

So, do you drink a giant glass of orange juice every day, along with your brazil nuts and tiny portion of polar bear liver?

Now, I'm sometimes a betting man, especially if I'm playing Zynga Poker, because the stakes don't mean anything! I can afford to be a wild and crazy guy, and take Agent 007-level risks!

But if the states are death, never go in against a Sicilian! Sorry. Princess Bride moment.

But sometimes the stakes are death. And there are people I love, and I want to be with them as long as I can manage, and not become an excessive burden.

Do you feel lucky?

I don't, particularly.

And so the very least I do for my health is supplementing with multivitamin/multimineral pills. And if I'm traveling and I don't have easy access to the bunchapills I normally take, I feel pretty safe if I double up on my multi. Or triple up.

Now, what's the very best multi you can take?

And that's a pretty good question, but not a perfect question.

A better question is, what's the very best multi-vitamin/mineral tablet that you are likely to pay for, and that is immediately available to you as you blindly sprint through the drug store or the Big Box Everything store?

And that is a pretty good question. But I don't need the very best multivitamin multimineral on the planet, because I'll be changing brands every time I run out of the gigantic, inexpensive vat of multis that I take, and that I jam down the throat of anybody in the vicinity.

Can you find a lousy brand of vitamin, and can you pay too much for your vitamins?

Sure, if you work at it really hard. But bear in mind that the one area where the money you pay the feds is not entirely wasted all the time is in the Food and Drug Administration; if they could find a vitamin pill being sold that wasn't good for you, they'd take it off the market and brag about their heroism until you died. Of boredom.

And that's confirmed by the Consumer Reports study of the contents of vitamins. They didn't find harmful stuff, and most of 'em dissolved properly, and one of 'em had about 25% less of a nutrient than was listed on the label.

Recap: most multivitamins dissolve fine, and contain most of what they say they contain, and don't contain excessive levels of plutonium.

So here are my requirements for a multi: I want as high a dose of Vitamin C and Vitamin D as mad scientists can jam into the thing, and I want to get close to 200 mcg of selenium. After that, it's all gravy. And my preference is for a one pill package, although I'll buy Trader Joe's Super Crusade Vitamins, because they have around 200 mg of Vitamin C, even if I have to pop two pills.

But if I find Centrum Silver, I may grab that, even though they don't have nearly as high a dose of C as I'd like, or selenium. On the other hand, if I pop four of 'em, I'm covered!

Or if I find a Kirkland House Brand Multi, I may well buy that. The Vitamin C level is a little better, although the selenium is still low. But the price is great, and it fills in any major deficiencies.

Or a OneADay Product on Amazon; I like convenience as well as the next guy!


What is the Function of a Multi-Vitamin Multi-Mineral?

I'm glad you asked.

It's to provide a cheap, easy insurance policy.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that you have multiple sub-clinical vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and that you function pretty well right now.

On the other hand, a car will go a long, long way without an oil change.

And then the engine dies, and you get to buy a new engine.

Buying a new engine after you drive your body into a ditch is not as smart as it could be, in a number of ways.

How Would I Know If I Had A Vitamin Deficiency?

Well, you probably wouldn't. Until your transmission fell out.

Once you are fully deficient in a particular vitamin, bad things happen; but you can limp along, in very bad shape, for a very long time, before the baling wire and duct tape gives way.

Think Columbo's car, right?

You don't want to be Columbo's car, do you?

Conclusion: Take Your Multivitamins and Multiminerals and Eat Your Veggies! 

If you eat a perfect diet, as set out in a book like The 120 Year Diet by Roy Walford, you probably don't need vitamin supplements. If the food you eat was grown in soil rich in selenium, and several other minerals. Do you eat a perfect diet?  


I don't! I can't do a bin-packing math problem that complex!


p.s. you may have noticed that I didn't give you a list of the top ten mulitvitamin and multiminerals available in the United States. If you want to compare 'em, go see the Consumer Reports comparison of 21 products. And you'll notice that comparing the amounts of vitamins and minerals in each product makes watching paint dry seem very, very exciting.