April Fools day

Thankfully Madison doesn't know too many tricks, so I don't live in fear on this gorgeous Sunday. I'm typing this outside on my front porch; late afternoon enjoying the sun. Went for a run today since our "big race" is in a couple weeks. Still only did just over a mile. Might have to up the distance mid week and try and do a couple miles next weekend. And the beard is no longer. I had let the beard run wild for about a month straight and now I'm back to normal.

Beard before

During

After

I am most of the way through the book Quitter now, and along with close peoples encouragements, the seeds of inspiration are being planted. I won't go into detail now so I don't over think and create barriers which may or may not be there.

I've had a couple question on food related topics which I've so far neglected to respond to. Mostly because it seems there's already good write ups on the internet, but I need to research these things on my own and practice writing up concise, accurate posts. Otherwise, my posts all end up being the same "what I did this weekend posts."

First throw landed right under the basket.

And I will do that again here. :-) Disc golf on Friday morning, where I nearly got a hole in one... maybe next time. Then later that day Maddog and I met up with Karen and her dogs and went to the Wetlands for some dog play time.  Then we got some tasty sushi dinner with sake and good conversation. Saturday ended up raining a little in the morning and also a thunder storm in the afternoon so it was good we didn't go camping. But we did end up grilling out and eating a slew of delicious vegetables and fish. Two good days!

The weather should be nice this week and I'm planning on riding in as many days as I can. Now that sundown is after 7:30pm, I'll start riding my mountain bike and hitting the trails on the way home instead of just the usual road riding to work and back.

Look for posts on agave and brown rice vs white rice in the near future. I'll leave you with some more random pictures from the neighborhood along with my tomato plant that's flowering.

March flowers...

Usually March is pretty chilly, and we long for the coming Spring. This year, spring has come and there was no messing around. With it comes, the heat, and the rain unfortunately. It was in the 80's most of the week, and then this weekend it cooled off and rained, for what felt like all weekend. March showers bring March flowers; that's how the saying goes, right? Here's a couple random pictures of flowers I've taken, usually while out walking Maddog around my neighborhood.

We had planned to go to a St. Patty's festival, but got rained out. Ended up trying out a couple new places to eat though, which was fun. I did get to go riding on Friday before the weather came in, and I also planted a couple tomato plants and a few herbs. Mint, lavender, oregano, and rosemary. We'll see how they do in the pots on my porch. Times like these makes me miss having a backyard.

Running, riding, and green

Friday included some riding. I got passed and left in the dust by a 45+ yr old guy. I started out feeling strong, and then that happened... but it was good ride. Nice weather, good trails, and legs felt good. Had dinner at an Indian restaurant, which was a steal on a LivingSocial deal, and was really quite good and finished the evening very nicely.

Of course I played disc golf, but I did try out a new course. There's a relatively new course on the University of Richmond campus that I hadn't played yet, so Maddog and I went to check it out. The holes are considerably shorter and most of the course is in the woods, so it's a different style than Bryan parks long, open holes, but it was fun to try a different course. There was plenty of water in the pond and streams so the dog was happy and dirty, which meant he got a bath afterward.

Saturday of course was St. Patrick's day. Lots of expectations for people to wear green and get drunk. I went to a friends house to see the progress on the house renovations and let the dogs play around for a bit.  Saw the movie titled "Jeff, Who Lives at Home" which I hadn't heard of, but without TV, I don't see many trailers. It was actually really good. I enjoyed it. Lots of really funny parts, and quick comments. Some drama as well, since it wasn't strictly a comedy. Good all around. 

With the weather the way it is (scary nice) it felt like a good day for some spring cleaning on Sunday. I reorganized my "gear closet" and have set aside some stuff to be donated or trashed. Went for another run, and my calves are absurdly sore. With softball season coming up, I went to the batting cages again with a friend and then got in some throwing and a little fielding practice. Fought off the Sunday evening doldrums letting Madison play with a couple more dog friends, sitting out on the deck, practicing handstands and watching a little Bela Fleck and friends. 

Donors, chili and adventure movies

The WSJ had an article the other day scaring people out of being organ donors. Fear mongering is everywhere. Along with the "red meat causes cancer" article in my other post, this takes a little information, and distorts it into something horrible and scary, and people read this and think to themselves they are better informed. Keep digging folks.

Friday night Richmond hosted the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Tickets sold out incredibly quickly even though they recently started charging a nominal fee for tickets. I just wish they'd make the other videos available for distribution. The only video I've been able to find that we saw part of was All I Can. Close to 3 hrs of outdoor adventures, from skiing to kayaking and trekking 10,000 kilometers following the footsteps of Genghis Khan on a horse with a dog for 3+ yrs alone. Crazy. Very cool films.

For those of you who know me well, it's a good thing you're sitting down... On Saturday, I. went. for. a. run.
Yeah, I know. I signed up for this Primal Mud Run a few weeks back and started "training." I feel like I'm in decent shape, with biking and some occasional climbing and recent re-entry into lifting and I don't do a whole lot of sitting (except at work). But I figured I needed to get my legs used to the motion of running for more than half a block with the dog. So I went for a run that was just a hair over a mile. I went all out and wore my barefoot shoes (no I didn't pay nearly that much for them), which means you end up running a bit more on your toes and your forefoot absorbs the impact instead of your heels. All I can say is that my calves are still sore on Tuesday. The race is only 4 miles and there will be plenty of stops in between to complete the obstacles, but I'm starting to think I'm glad it's not any longer. Need to work up to a couple miles without wanting to amputate my legs the day after.

The dinner party Sat. night was really nice. Met some more really nice people who are also into climbing and biking and had a great time playing "Catch phrase." An intense team game where you give clues to your teammates about the phrase you're given and they have a short time to guess the words. There's lots of yelling, laughing and acting by some. Good times. We had chili for dinner, with a nice addition of homemade hot sauce and dried cherries. Turned out really well! And dessert, was delicious too! Good food, good company, good times.

Ice cream causes drownings!

Most 9th grade science classes teach that correlation does not mean causation. A lot of us tend to forget that sometimes. And even researchers with good intentions forget this and end up getting some egg on their face. The latest is this widely publicized research study that says red meat causes an increase in cardio vascular disease (CVD), cancer and mortality. I heard it on the radio driving in this morning too. What the media presents to the lay person is that the more red meat you eat, the higher your risk of death by CVD and cancer. Therefore to avoid CVD and cancer, cut out red meat.

What they don't mention is that the people in the study who had a higher death rate of CVD and cancer, where the same men and women that were "less likely to be physically active and were more likely to be current smokers, to drink alcohol, and to have a higher body mass index. In addition, a higher red meat intake was associated with a higher intake of total energy but lower intakes of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables."

So the obese, sedentary, smokers who don't eat enough fruits and veggies, end up dying of CVD and cancer, and because they also ate more red meat than the skinny, active, non-smokers, the red meat is what killed them.... really?! There's another classic example of this: ice cream causes drownings. Since people eat more ice cream in the summer, and drownings occur more during ice cream eating season, it must mean ice cream causes drownings. Right? Or maybe there was another factor involved, like people go to the pool/beach/lake more in the summer, spend more time in the water, and the likelihood of drowning increases. Ice cream has nothing to do with it. But ice cream consumption goes up, and drownings go up, and there is a correlation. But not causation. I'll continue eating my red meat, and veggies, and fruit and continue not smoking. Thanks.

 

Coffee, stink bugs and caving

Titling blog posts always takes me way too long. I always think it should be captivating and sum up the entire post in a couple words, but it never does, so I end up with a super simple useless title like the date or "weekends" so, I'm going to just start titling randomly. You'll just have to read the post to know what happened.

Todays title does have something to do with the latest adventures though. On Thursday, I emailed Chad and Andrew to see if they wanted to hang out. Andrew was out of town for the weekend in Chicago for work, and Chad texted me saying he had Friday off. So I met Chad at the Old Rag parking lot a little before noon. Maddog in tow, we hiked up through the woods to a, until recently, never before climbed area on Old Rag. The weather was cool, but nice enough to work up a little sweat on the hike up.

We made it to the wall and took a few minute break to snack and rest. As Chad was setting up the anchor, the weather took a turn for the worst and started raining. We hung out under a big overhang for an hour or so hoping it would blow over, but it became obvious we were going to be able to climb that day. So we packed up, and took most of our stuff back down. Chad left his crash pad since he was going back soon and didn't feel like lugging it back down. It was left out of the rain and hopefully out of reach of the mice which might like to use the foam in the crash pad as nesting material.

We ended up heading to the movie theater to see Act of Valor which was really good. I didn't realize the actors were real Navy Seals before hand, so I was a unfairly critical of their dialogue and banter. Knowing that, they did a great job. Really glad I saw it, and would recommend it. 

Chad's girlfriend Liz came up Friday night and on Saturday the three of us went caving. There's a hole in the ground somewhere around Martinsburg, WV that'll take you down a ways under ground. Through some smaller passages and mud covered rocks we made our way through the labyrinth into the depths to the center of the earth... okay, not really, but we did get pretty far down there. As my first caving experience, it was really fun. I'm told it was relatively tame in comparison to what "real cavers" do, but I thought it was awesome. We rappelled down about 40 ft at one point and had to squeeze through some pretty tight spots. Headlamps, rappelling and getting covered in mud. What more can you ask for?

 On our way back to Chad's we stopped for lunch at a surprisingly good Caribbean food joint, and peeked in to check out Big Bucks Bingo. Their website is about 100 times classier than the actual place. The blue haze of smoke coming from the doors, where close to 500 extremely out of shape people were all hoping for B-12, or N-7, was as intriguing as a car wreck. You really didn't want to look, but just couldn't help yourself.

On stinkbugs; Chad's house is a refuge for them. And they take advantage of his hospitality. To the point of extreme occupation. Dang stink bugs. So we escaped on Sunday too. We thought about going outside to boulder, but it was really windy and not all that warm, so we figured we'd be more comfortable and get more climbing in at the climbing gym in Warrenton. It recently opened and Chad's been setting routes, so we did a bunch of climbing and finished in the bouldering area. I felt weak and soft skinned, but it was fun and was great exercise.

On the way home I stopped by Karen's house to share weekend stories, let the dogs hang out, and had some light dinner. Another great weekend! Next weekend is already shaping up to be another good one, with the Banff film festival coming into town, Primal mud run training, and a dinner party. And why coffee in the title? Mainly because I was drinking some coffee when I started writing this post...

Mark Sisson video

A friend sent me this video the other day. If you read my grains blog post and found it interesting, you might be inclined to watch this video too.  He talks about lectins, grains and some other good stuff.

http://vimeo.com/33622882

Rip Rap hike

It's Friday! It was supposed to be pretty windy today with a chance of rain in the afternoon, so I decided instead of disc golfing like every other Friday I'm in town, I'd go for a hike. I went to Shenandoah National Park (SNP) for a short outing. The full hike is a little under 10 miles, with a lunch spot around 2 miles in. It was warm and mostly sunny for the hike in, and I spent most of the time just taking in the solitude. 

I took about 90 picutres of the clouds moving from a stationary spot while I ate lunch. After watching the most amazing video on Yosemite, I thought I'd just see what I could do with my little point and shoot camera. I set it up to take a picture every 30 seconds, and take 10 pictures in a row. I discovered that the timer in the camera must be a little wonky, because sometimes it would wait 30 seconds and other times it would take another picture about 6 seconds later. So the video turned out kind of choppy for that reason, plus the fact I was eating lunch and reading at the same time, so I would forget to push the button again after the 10 was done. A bigger more advanced camera would've been pretty sweet at the time, but this turned out better than I thought it would honestly. It's only 6 seconds so I didn't bother sticking a song in there, but here you go. 

The clouds did come in pretty heavy and it started to rain, so I decided not to do whole whole loop. I went back the way I came and was out pretty quick. I brought my rain jacket knowing it might come in handy. Luckily we got out before the worst of it. A little wet, but warm, and no harm done. I love this jacket because I can use it to cover my backpack at the same time, poncho style. 

The rain was off and on driving out of the park, so I stopped for another quick pic. Another good Friday!

Why "should" one consider avoiding even gluten-free grains?

In my last post, I said I'd entertain questions on food and health. Here was my first question, and it was a great one!

Why "should" one consider avoiding even gluten-free grains?

Most people know that folks with celiac disease shouldn't eat gluten and that, if they do, they can have a very bad reaction. To serve this population, a growing number of foods are being made with alternative grains and are labeled gluten-free. Most of us assume there’s something ‘wrong’ with those people with celiac, but lets look at grains in general and what they contain.

From an evolutionary standpoint, everything wants to survive at least long enough to procreate. Animals, plants, bacteria, viruses... everything has the same ultimate goal to keep the species alive. Animals have legs so they can run away from predators or they can use their claws and teeth to defend themselves. Plants on the other hand are stuck in the ground. Some plants have developed spines, thorns or thick skin to prevent themselves from being eaten. Some plants have developed bad taste as a deterrent, while others create toxins. That’s what we’ll be focusing on to answer this question.

Different plants, and the grains or seeds of those plants have different defense mechanisms for deterring their consumption.  The most commonly talked about, is gluten, which is contained in wheat, rye and barley. Gluten is one of a large group of lectins.  Lectins are essentially nature’s pesticide.  Lectins are toxins found in a variety of foods, including gluten-free grains; but not limited to, rice, millet, quinoa, buckwheat, oats, and corn.  They attempt to prevent the grains from being eaten by causing the eater distress. Some grains have higher concentrations or more potent lectins working through different pathways to prevent the eater from consuming too many grains and wiping out the species.

We’ll use rice as an example because it can be ground into flour and used in some gluten free recipes. Rice has “haemagglutinin-lectin” which can bind to intestinal cells, but instead of damaging them, it just causes the cells to be less able to absorb the nutrients you do want. Luckily, nearly all the “bad” stuff is contained in the rice hull, so white rice, which is rice with the hull removed is pretty safe. Brown rice though is rice with the hull still intact and, therefore, contains the lectin as well as phytates that bind to the nutrients. This makes even more nutrients unavailable to the eater, and also inhibits trypsin. Trypsin is used by humans to break down proteins, so you won’t be able to digest that steak you ate as effectively if you eat a bunch of brown rice at the same time. So remember, white rice is better than brown if you’re looking to avoid lectins.

These gluten-free grains contain different lectins that can cause varying degrees of discomfort to the eater, but most don’t produce any immediate acute symptoms. Some lectins bind to the sugars molecules on your cells. By binding to the cells on the intestinal wall, causing inflammation, and damaging the barrier between your guts and your blood, particles of incompletely digested food could make their way into the blood stream. This is sometimes called “leaky gut” and might be linked to a number of autoimmune diseases. You won't often notice this right away and might think “grains aren’t a problem for me”, until you start getting allergies, or arthritis, or diabetes.

Other lectins can also bind to insulin receptors on a cell, meaning the cell can’t get the vitamins and minerals necessary inside, or they can reduce leptin receptor sensitivity. Leptin is a hormone your cells release to tell the hypothalamus in your brain that they are full and you should stop eating so if your brain doesn’t get the “stop eating” message, it becomes much easier to over-eat.  

So, one reason to consider being “grain free” is to avoid the lectins in grains and therefore avoid the problems they might cause.  But it gets to be pretty slippery a slope, because other foods have other lectins, like soy, legumes, dairy and nightshades. You could eliminate a lot of otherwise good foods just to avoid lectins. Different lectins bind to different simple sugars (mono and oligosaccharides), so if you can eat those foods that essentially neutralize the particular lectin, you’ll get better absorption and nutrient use.  

There isn’t a lot of research on which simple sugars inactivate which lectins though. There is some research that shows glucosamine binds to gluten, but there’s no way to eat enough glucosamine to balance out the lectins. Overall it seems to be easier to avoid the lectins and get your vitamins from safer foods, and when you do eat a lectin filled food, properly preparing it to reduce the over lectin load is best.

At the end of the day, I still eat white rice and some corn chips on occasion, but one might consider avoiding grains all together to reduce a large portion of ones daily intake of lectins. Those with GI tract issues would be most likely to feel better from a reduction or elimination of grains.  Since their GI system is actively damaged, by removing some of the damaging chemicals, they might be better able to heal, as some lectins even prevent healing.  Most of the time replacement grains are used in recipes that could be questionable for other reasons anyway; like gluten free cookies...


Please let me know if there are more questions or I need to clarify or expand on something in this post.

February

Lots to catch up on... where to begin? First, I need to be better about taking some pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

We'll just dive in here with whatever comes to mind first. At the encouragement of a few people, I'd like to entertain any questions about food and health you may have. Anything from 'what is gluten?' to 'how does cholesterol effect your health?' and anything else you can come up with.  No question is too simple or complex. How food can be your medicine or your poison. We all might agree Doritos aren't good for you, but have you asked why? Or what is canola oil?  Maybe you eat whatever you want and never gain a pound, or you gain 5 pounds just looking at a donut. Curious why? Send me an email or post a question in the comments section.

Onto adventures of late: more riding and disc golfing as always. Went up to Northern VA to a trail called Fountainhead which was a lot of fun. A lot more hills than in Richmond, that's for sure. Visited Andrew and Janna for the Superbowl and hung out with fun folks up in MD. I finished up a book called Deep Survival, suggested to me by Chad, which was a great read. And I started reading Unbroken which was suggested to me by two people in the same day, and I can see why. It's excellent! And I have to put a plug for The Flinch, which is a super short, interesting, make-you-think, free book from Amazon.

This past weekend was action packed. While riding at Fountainhead last weekend, I came off a 'skinny' which is usually a narrow piece of wood a little ways up off the ground, which broke a relatively easily replaceable part on my bike. So on Friday I ran errands, picked up that part, fixed the bike, stopped by the yarn store to get some more hat making supplies, and took the dog out for some disc golf.

Saturday was awesome. After a reminder about when and where from Karen, I decided to get out and help maintain some of the trails I use for biking/hiking. I spent a couple hours in the morning hacking vines and digging and packing dirt for some new sections of trail. The afternoon consisted of attending a Buddhist lecture, making foam rollers out of PVC, and having the "Triple Nut Encrusted Opakapaka w/amaretto lobster cream sauce" for dinner at Tarrant's. Amazing! Great company and lots of learning.

Sunday was another cold day, but three of us went down to Pocahontas state park in my bike transporting machine, aka the Subaru, for a good ride on some different trails. We grabbed some lunch on the way home, and after dropping everyone off, I changed and grabbed Maddog for some more disc golf. It was in the low 40's I think at that point in the afternoon, and while I was tired and a little cold from riding, Maddog was full of energy and looked like he could've run around all day.

After using my new foam roller for a little bit to loosen up the legs from riding, I got a shower and a snack and went to Commercial Taphouse for some live music and hanging out with friends. Again, great company and I was happy to get out and take advantage of the under-appreciated Sunday night for more fun.

Here's a couple pictures just for those visual people among us.

The first is of Madison, and in the big tree behind him, is a good sized hawk. I couldn't tell what kind, but I told Madison to come closer to me.

There's a closer, but really grainy picture of the hawk.

This is the moon coming up over the Art Museum by my place. It just looked really pretty and felt a little surreal in its veil of wispy clouds along with the other lights.