Day 7... Downhill bike race in Chile is insanity at its finest

Downhill bike race in Chile is insanity at its finest

by Justin Delaney (RSS feed) on Mar 3rd 2011 at 3:30PM

I have seen insanity and it happens on the streets of Valparaiso, Chile. The Valparaiso Cerro Abajo Race is a legendary urban bike race and is more extreme than skydiving out of an exploding F-18 piloted by Charlie Sheen - while chugging a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. The rider must brave jumps, stray dogs, and flights of stairs along the steep downhill path. The first person perspective provided by the excellent helmet cam lets us take in every glorious and frightening detail. Do yourself a favor and watch this one in full screen mode.


Also, check out this roundup from the 2011 race, which was won by Filip Polc.

Day 6... Is Sugar Toxic?

April 13, 2011

Is Sugar Toxic?

By GARY TAUBES

On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.

Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.

The viral success of his lecture, though, has little to do with Lustig’s impressive credentials and far more with the persuasive case he makes that sugar is a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”

Day #5 The Race

Day 3... THE AIR GENERATION

Watch more video of Parkour on SICFIT on sicfit.com



Day #3 of the Paleo challenge... we are just scratching the surface.... 

Workarounds: Moving Past Self-Imposed Limitations

Over these many years of helping people move from whining to winning, I have remained resolute in my focus that each of us is capable of far more than we typically give ourselves credit for. As I have pointed out in many ways, you can have the results you choose, or you can settle for all the perfect reasons that you don't have those results. I have learned that it really is just a choice.

However, as with all choices, the art is that of choosing wisely. I can imagine those who read these articles simply to find something to disagree with, or worse yet, something else to be disagreeable about, are already having a field day. Perhaps today is the day we can all "wise up" just a little and focus on what it is that truly matters, on what the results are that we truly seek.

Amongst the various newsletters and blogs to which I subscribe is Seth Godin's daily blog. In Sunday's blog, " Accepting False Limits," Seth wrote about being perplexed by all the people who stop themselves from succeeding in life by declaring failure before they even get started. You know the drill, especially if you have children. "I can't" has probably killed more ideas than book censors.

Workouts...

Workout #1
Complete four rounds of the following:
10 KB snatch R/L
25 KBS
10 KB clean & jerk R/L
Then.... Run a mile


Workout #2
Complete 5 rounds of:
20 DB facing burpees
20 DB thrusters
40 mountain climbers


Workout #3
Part 1
"Isabel"
30 snatches for time


Part 2
OHS
3-3-3-3-3

CrossFit Palo Alto Member Climbs 52 Flights, Wins Race

View Gallery

• Email
• Tweet
• Print
• Start Following
• Add photos / videos
• Submit a tip

Sean Falconer competed against more than 1,000 climbers, climbing 52 flights of stairs in 8 minutes flat.

By Maggie Beidelman | Email the author | March 28, 2011

Sean Falconer climbed 52 flights of stairs in eight minutes to take first place in the American Lung Association’s “Fight For Air Climb” event Saturday morning.

Falconer had been training for more than a year atCrossFit Palo Alto to run to the top of the former Bank of America Center at 555 California Street in San Francisco. Teammate Heather Newberry, also a member of the CrossFit Palo Alto gym, took first place for women and 26th overall, with a time of 9:54.

“We’re really excited. Sean’s been working hard at it…he has been training pretty hard since the last year,” said owner/founder Tim Dymmel of CrossFit Palo Alto, which participated in its second year of the challenge as one of 20 Bay Area CrossFit affiliates.

Out of all the competing teams—comprising more than 1,000 total climbers—CrossFit Palo Alto’s group was the largest at 28 racers. The team has raised $9,814.81 to date for the American Lung Association—the most out of all competing teams.

Falconer, who got second place by two-tenths of a second in last year’s race, finished a whole 19 seconds ahead of the second place climber Saturday morning.

“Pretty amazing considering last year we didn't have enough members from CFPA to even make a proper team. Lots has happened in one year,” commented Falconer, a computer programmer by day, on CrossFit’s Facebook wall post Sunday evening.

“Our community is really involved. That’s the most exciting part,” said Dymmel, whose Facebook post about the Fight For Air results garnered several comments from the CrossFit community. It was a member of CFPA who first suggested entering the race as a team last year.

At the gym, CrossFit members exchange headphones for conversation, encouraging others to reach their goals and suggesting diet and exercise plans.

Dymmel calls it the “antithesis of what you think of as a gym.”  Instead of walking in and deciding what machine you are going to use first, every CrossFit member participates in the same variable one-hour session that includes: warm-up, strength movement or skill building (such as squats, pull-ups or barbell press), 5-15 minute conditioning workout (high-paced, high intensity), and a cool down and stretch.

“It’s efficient. You don’t leave absolutely destroyed, but you definitely know that you did something,” said Dymmel of the unique CrossFit workout experience.

A quarter of CFPA’s members participated in the climb this year, and Dymmel plans on recruiting even more members next year.

“We said, hey—we want to do this as a community,” said Dymmel of the race. “After, we drank our water, recovered and walked over to get breakfast together at Sears Restaurant—all of us.”

Happy Mothers Day

Eagle naturopath touts benefits of paleolithic diet

Something I found online: 


For many, many years, I have been touting a whole foods diet and urging anyone who would open their ears to my health rants to eat a diet full of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds and small amounts of animal proteins. We know that diet plays a tremendous role in our health and that what we put in our mouths affects everything. Time and again, I have stepped upon my soap box to lecture about the merits of this whole foods diet. And then, I learned there is a healthier way to eat. At a continuing education conference, I heard it mentioned that the ultimate human diet is the “Paleolithic Diet.”

It was mentioned as a side note, but my interest was piqued and I started to investigate.

My research started with websites, which led to books, which led to research papers. Eventually I adopted the paleolithic diet myself and started recommending it to my patients.

The paleolithic diet is just what it sounds like; the diet our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate. The pre-agriculture, pre-industrial “cave man” diet. This translates into animal proteins (beef, chicken, turkey, wild game, fish, eggs, etc.), vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. It excludes any processed foods, grains, beans and legumes, alcohol, sugar, dairy and white potatoes. It is a true whole foods diet without any item that has to be processed to be eaten.

The foods inclusive in this diet are rife with nutrients; much higher in vitamins, minerals and protein then the standard American diet. It is also devoid of processed foods (which tend to be devoid of nutrients), sugar and alcohol ( both of which greatly spike blood sugar and insulin levels), and grains, beans and legumes, which release anti-toxins upon digestion leading to inflammation and irritation of the digestive tract. The Paleolithic Diet, therefore, is a low carbohydrate, low glycemic, hypoallergenic, anti-inflammatory diet, all rolled into a lifestyle aimed at treating chronic diseases and promoting optimum health.

Eating the paleo diet has many health benefits. Scientists and anthropologists have found that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were actually much healthier than we are today. They lived without chronic diseases such as osteoporosis, cancer and heart disease. They had a larger stature and thicker, denser bones. In modern times, this translates into a stronger frame, lower body fat and more muscle mass.

Hopefully, your interest is piqued, too. 

The Politics of Sugar

We -- Americans, and ever more of the global population -- eat too much sugar, and eating too much sugar is bad for us. ("Too much" of anything is bad for us, hence the name.)

One of the reasons we eat too much sugar is because high-fructose corn syrup can be derived inexpensively from subsidized corn. An inexpensive sugar source makes it economical for food manufacturers to add copious amounts of sugar to our diets. The more sugar we get, the more we eat, and the more we want. So high-fructose corn syrup is an important reason we eat too much sugar, and eating too much sugar is bad for us. That, in turn, is why high-fructose corn syrup is bad for us; because it contributes to our excessive sugar intake. What makes HFCS bad is far more about quantity, than quality.

Qualitatively, HFCS and table sugar -- sucrose -- are all but identical, both biochemically and metabolically. Sucrose is comprised of pairings of glucose and fructose in a 1:1 ratio. HFCS can have a bit more fructose than glucose, or vice versa, but averages out very close to that same 1:1. Swapping out sugar for HFCS, or the opposite, is a lateral move -- and not one for which food manufacturers deserve any credit or thanks.

That's just about the whole story, stripped of any sugar coating.

Since my recent post on sugar, I've "enjoyed" comments from many of you; learned lots of new things about hummingbirds; entered an ongoing and spirited dialogue with Dr. Robert Lustig I look forward to continuing; shared in a briefer and slightly-less-cordial exchange with Gary Taubes; and have had cause to rethink my indulgence in literary flourishes