New River Gorge 30th

Chad turned 30. Luckily his birthday is really close to Memorial day weekend and we can all get out of town for the long weekend to celebrate. We went to the New River Gorge, as we've done many times in years past.

Are we lost?

Yup!

I left Friday midday after breakfast with Karen. Met up with Chad and Liz for a really good climb late in the afternoon called Supercrack. Dinner at Rio Grande, a staple, was just as expected. Delicious after climbing. Saturday was filled with climbing. Classics like flight of the Gumby and some harder than usual stuff went down. Endurance wise, I struggled, but felt strong pulling down on some fun climbs.

Of course we went to Pie and Pints for dinner. And we beat the crowd which was great. Birthday cake and tequila followed at the cabin. Sunday was "boat day." We always rent a pontoon boat and cruise around Summersville lake looking for rock faces to climb. I went for a bike ride in the morning and then got on the boat at noon. So I got some boat day and some riding and it was awesome. Bike ride trail map is at the bottom there.

Turtle!

Deep water solos

We cruised around the lake until late afternoon when the skies opened up and dumped on us. Most of us made it off before the worst of it, but a few unlucky souls got hammered. The rain didn't last long though, so the rock was climbable on Monday. We got a few more good routes in a then called an end to the weekend. Picked up Maddog and stopped by Karen's to share weekend stories and a little down time. Amazing weekend! Happy Birthday Chad!

Here's some pictures: NRG2012

And a video Jesse put together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_Km78adZg

River Rock festival

Slacklining, bouldering, dog distance jumping and bike park stunts were the main attractions. At least for me. I met Karen down on Brown's Island and along with her mom and some friends we watched as lots of outdoor lovers participated in all kind of events. We stayed through the end on Sat. night watching Galatic, which is a band that does some good New Orleans style music.

Earlier in the day Karen and I went biking. We drove out to the Ashland area to a place called Poorfarm park where I went mountain biking and she went road riding. It was nice to be able to head out there together. I hadn't ridden those trails, and she enjoys riding the roads out there as they are less heavily trafficked and the land is nice out there.

Friday I spent most of the day studying and then we had a make up softball game from last weeks rain out. The game was decent. The ump was the worst ever. Total grumpy jerk. Rushing everyone, being rude. Took some of the fun out of it. But I hit a home run and made a sweet catch in the outfield. Then we went out after for some food and drinks and ump bashing. Good times.

Thursday I saw the bike film, Strength in Numbers with a few people and it was sweet!

Sunday involved more studying, taking quizzes and then "Funday" evening activities including drinking painkillers, eating avocado deviled eggs with super good salad and shrimp and other goodies with friends. Great weekend; minus the quizzing and feeling rushed and quite stressed.

This week is more stress with textbook reading and quizzing and doing it all ahead of time so I can enjoy the long weekend at the New River Gorge for Chad's 30th birthday! Looking forward to it. No pics of this weekend, but be sure there will be some of next weekend.

Nurition class

1 week into the nutrition class now. Have taken 3 quizzes, and started one assignment and finished a second. This week will be even faster paced as I need to get stuff due next Monday and before, done by Thursday night so I can go out of town for the long weekend. Since I won't have computer access, I need to take quizzes and turn in assignments several days before hand. It is incredibly fast paced. Less time for blogging, and disc golfing, and lots of other things. But making time for the New River Gorge trip will be worth it. And remembering the big picture helps when sacrificing time I'd rather be doing something else or with special people. It's only for a short time. Looking forward to getting a slow paced day.

Brown Rice vs. White Rice

In my grains post, I bashed grains in general and talked a little about white rice and brown rice. Hopefully in this post we’ll learn a little more about eating rice. If you should eat it at all, and if you do eat it, if it should be white or brown.

The big difference between the two is that brown rice is the whole rice grain, bran and hull included. It’s also called hulled rice or unmilled rice. Some people would say it has a mild “nutty” flavor and is more nutritious. Looking at the nutrients brown rice provides vs. white rice and what is lost, the list looks like this: (numbers are approximate and averaged from a couple sources)

1 Cup	Brown Rice	White Rice	Nutrient Reduction	RDI	Brown Rice% of daily total
Calories	232	223	4%	~2000-2500	~10%
Protein	4.88 g	4.10 g	16%	50 g	10%
Carbohydrate	49.7 g	49.6 g	negligible	300 g	17%
Fat	1.17 g	0.205 g	83%	55 g	2%
Fiber	3.32 g	0.74 g	78%	25 g	13%
Thiamin (B1)	0.176 g	0.223 g	-22%  ?	1.5 mg	11%
Riboflavin (B2)	0.039 mg	0.021 mg	47%	1.7 mg	2%
Niacin (B3)	2.730 g	2.050 g	24%	20 mg	14%
Vit B6	0.294 mg	0.103 mg	65%	2 mg	15%
Folate	10 μg	4.1 μg	59%	400 μg	3%
Vit E	1.4 mg	0.462 mg	67%	20 mg	7%
Magnesium	72.2 mg	22.6 mg	69%	400 mg	18%
Phosphorus	142 mg	57.4 mg	60%	1000 mg	14%
Potassium	137 mg	57.4 mg	59%	4700 mg	3%
Selenium	26 μg	19 μg	27%	70 μg	37%
Zinc	1.05 mg	0.841 mg	20%	15 mg	7%

If you look at the percentages, it seems like a lot is lost. Besides the conundrum of B1 increasing with the removal of the germ, if you look at the RDA for most of the nutrients, even the brown rice is a pretty poor source of vitamins and minerals. The highest RDA is 37% with Selenium. In comparison, 1 or 2 brazil nuts have more than enough selenium for the day. We could pick and choose which foods would be better sources for each nutrient, but we’re here to compare brown and white rice. 


Nutritional value is usually gathered by looking at the amount of what we as people require from foods, and leaving off or marking zero for the absence of other nutrients. What we don’t see on the labels, or anywhere else, are the things we don’t need but are included like anti-nutrients. Labels don’t include the amount of phytic acid or kinds of anti-nutrients included in rice. But we do know that the phytic acid is stored in the brown part of the rice. The hull and bran contain virtually all of the phytic acid. 


The question you are probably asking is “why should I avoid phytic acid?” Rice has a specific phytic acid called phytin.While a lot of animals can digest this compound, humans cannot. Phytin will chelate (or bond to) zinc and iron, and also calcium and magnesium rendering them unusable by the body. This means these nutrients in the nutrition label, will be significantly less absorbed by the body. So when you see zinc and magnesium on the label of rice as being a % of your daily value, you’re really not getting all that into your system. The bran also has some amino acids that inhibit trypsin, which helps digest proteins. So when you eat meat, and brown rice, your ability to digest the meat is reduced. 


So while the phytin and the trypsin inhibitor probably aren’t doing much to rob you of nutrients already in your system, it isn’t allowing you to use the nutrients coming in with the rice. Both brown and white rice with its high carbohydrate value is a big source of carbs that can negatively affect weight loss and insulin sensitivity. Brown rice with its whole grain goodness is said to have a lower glycemic index (GI) than white rice, (brown basmati = 45, white basmati = 50) but even the GI idea could be called into question. So while brown rice has a slightly lower GI, it’s not exactly good. 


You can find an endless supply of articles online on why brown rice is better. Nearly all focus on the brown rice being a whole grain which gives it more fiber, and how it has additional nutrients. I don’t disagree, but the idea that those nutrients aren’t useable to the body and the fact that the brown rice has anti-nutrients doesn’t come up. Fiber may not actually the cure all that the government and cereal boxes claim either. To read more about the myths of fiber, take a look at Chris Kresser’s fiber post. 

There’s always that argument that Asians eat lots of rice and are lean and healthy. That’s true. And the people that this argument is usually based are, active, insulin sensitive, metabolically healthy, from a healthy ratio of Omega 3 to 6 fats, McDonald’s free diet, type people. So comparing an overweight American to this Asian, and thinking that just changing the American’s diet to include rice will result in weight loss and ideal health is a little far fetched. It’s not just the rice that makes this hypothetical Asian healthy.  
 


In summation, brown rice has more nutrients, which may or may not be used by the body; it inhibits protein breakdown; has more fiber, which might also be over-hyped; and has a slightly lower GI, but is still high. If your glycogen stores are low after working out, and you need some easy carbs, rice could be a good filler, but otherwise seems to be a pretty poor staple. This doesn’t negate the fact that it’s easy to grow in humid, wet areas, and feeds a lot of people around the world. But if you had a choice of eating rice, brown or white, or some other carb like a sweet potato, I’d pick the sweet potato, with its lack of phytates and more nutritionally dense, more bioavailable vitamins and minerals. 

If you have any questions or arguments I failed to mention, please post them in the comments section or send me an email. Thanks!

VSU

Virginia State University will be a big part of my life in the near future. I went yesterday to talk to the Professor about the Dietetics program they offer. After some chit chat and a few questions, we talked about the courses and I found out they started today (May 15th) which was tomorrow yesterday. To miss out on the summer courses would mean not being able to take the Fall classes and in turn not being able to take the Spring classes, so the options were to do it now, or wait another whole year.

So I signed up for two summer classes which start today, but I don't have access to the online system yet and don't have any books or information on professors or anything. Feeling a little unprepared, but I'll get it all sorted out in the next couple days and be a legit student again. Exciting in that I'll be studying something I like, and intimidating because I'll have a lot less free time with the homework and class time. Looking forward to the future.

Braley Pond camping and Mother's day

The weather on Friday was phenomenal. Low humidity, no chance for rain, warm in the sun, cool in shade. Ideal. I ran some errands and dropped off a gift to the nutritionist I was allowed to shadow. Which was awesome! Another post on that. I got all my camping stuff prepped and ready and loaded and picked up Kaz and we headed west to Braley Pond.

My friend Kirk found this place a couple years ago and I'd been a couple times with him and a big group as it's a great spot for large group car camping. Nice fire pits, secluded, free, and there's a bathroom near by. We used it before as a base camp for biking. We'd shuttle our bikes up the hill a ways away and ride down to Braley pond and get picked up. It was great! But there's also hiking there which is what we did this past weekend.

trillium flower

On our way west, we stopped by Rebecca's Natural Food Store in Charlottesville and picked up some interesting snacks. Found some interesting "pasta" in the Pumpkin and Ginger as well as Sweet Potato and Buckwheat varieties. I got some hot sauce too. More on that in a second. Good stuff and interesting stuff you don't see in the regular grocery stores. 

We got to the campsite and started a fire and set up camp and made some dinner. Chicken and purple sweet potatoes and peppers and onions over the fire. Since we forgot to bring any seasonings for the chicken we thought the hot sauce might be a good addition. It was supposed to mango flavored and it was "raw" with probiotics and such.  Well, for some reason, still a mystery, it exploded like a beer bottle after shaking. And got all over Kaz and her warm jacket. Luckily we had some sake to drink. Which I spilled a little on her jeans... it was a rough night. But still fun. Stars were amazing though, on the cool, cloudless night. Just a little bit of awesome!

fire pit

Sleep was hard to come by though. After eating a gluten free brownie for dessert, which unfortunately had espresso powder, the caffeine high, along with the big pick up truck that kept driving by the camp site, neither of us slept very much. We hiked the Little Bald Knob Ridge the next day. It was a nice trail, although the views were few and far between. It was another ideal day though and it was great to just be outside in the woods with great company and no distractions. It really was a great hike.

We did a minor off road excursion to check out another camp site on our way out which was also fun. I love me some all wheel drive and higher ground clearance. While not the Tacoma Kirk has or a true off road vehicle, the Subie was great. I installed a hitch on the car mid December, and it actually helped keep my mufflers in place at one point. Here are some more pictures.

We got back in town tired but happy, and met up with Jen at Stella's for some Greek dinner. Octopus, calamari, cheese and dolmades were our choices and finished off with a rice pudding. Great food, expensive drinks, but all very enjoyable.

On Mother's day, I drove down to Norfolk to see my Aunt, her mom, and cousins. We had a nice family dinner and watched the dogs run around. It was nice catching up with them since I've been bad about visiting the family that is so close. All in all, another fantastic weekend. Lots of driving and lots of great places to be, and great people to be with.

Just a couple links

Carbs threaten heart disease, not fats. Coming to your mainstream magazines!

On the same topic: Heart surgeon talks about what really causes heart disease.


Crazy push ups video: Raw Bras pushups

Kid rides his bike to kindergarten. Awesome!

Birthday party

I flew out on Friday to Denver and drove down to Colorado Springs to surprise my Dad for his 60th birthday.

I caught just the end of the sunset as I pulled into the drive way where my parents were just finishing up mowing the lawn (good timing on my part).

Maddog stayed with his friends Layla and Sydney.

The party had a German beer fest theme, so there was a variety of German beer tent songs like the Chicken dance, Hey Baby and In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus. There was also some home brew and wine, German pretzels, mini sausages, and black forest cake in the shape of a beer mug (first pic). It was a great time!

We saw the usual slew of deer walking around neighborhood and although it was cloudy we did catch a small glimpse of the super moon. Thanks to my parents for having me over, and thanks to Karen for watching Maddog and carting me back and forth to the airport. I'm still working on the brown rice vs white rice post. I'll be done soon. Agave will be next. For now, don't touch the agave stuff unless you're popping vitamin C pills along with it. Your poor liver...