The Size of the Fight in the Dog

A couple weeks ago, I had to wince when the chubby young anchor mispronounced Jack Lalanne's name while announcing his death at 96, although it was hard to blame her because by the time she was born, he was already a TOJ and could only be seen pitching his electric juicing machine on non-prime time informercials.

The anchor wouldn't have known that in his prime he accomplished some amazing feats of strength and endurance, like doing 1,000 push ups in 23 minutes and towing a half-ton boat behind him as he swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco. More, importantly, he single-handedly championed the benefits of exercise to the masses on his daily TV show. He was also one of the first to encourage women to lift weights. He was ridiculed by many "authorities" that if people exercised as hard as he recommended, all kinds of problems might befall them. Of course, all these fears were bogus - Jack LaLanne was a pioneer.

I rarely watched his show when I was a kid because I was outside playing sports. Besides, who needed to stand in front of a TV screen to be lead by an over-enthusiastic guy through a series of calisthenics and weight routines? And he looked sort of funny in his one piece jumpsuits with padding in the shoulders. He didn't need any padding because he had good muscle definition and was very strong.

It wasn't later that I realized his outfit was just part of his show. His appearance became his brand. From early in his career, he understood the importance of diet and exercise. The famous English physicist Sir Isaac Newton once credited his achievements to those scientists who came before him; in his words, he "stood on the shoulders of giants." Likewise, the legions of personal trainers and exercise celebrities from Richard Simmons to Tony Horton all stood on Jack Lalanne's shoulders, those of a man only 5"6" tall.

While reading some of the online tributes, I ran across an article that implied Jack LaLanne had failed because despite his life long crusade,  the percentage of obese people in the U.S.  rose from 13% to the present 34%. The author said, "But there are questions about how effective the exercises offered by LaLanne and his peers can ever be for people whose main goal is losing weight."

I don't remember LaLanne promising exercise was the primary means to lose weight. He wasn't selling a fast-acting, six weeks to a new you diet. He didn't have a reality show called The Biggest Loser. He admitted exercise is tough, but the results are worth it. He just made the case that it could help you stay healthy and feel good. He placed a heavy emphasis on good nutrition, i.e., nutrition and exercise control weight.

Exercise has many, many benefits (I rant about them all the time), but weight loss is not one of the main ones. What you eat has much more impact on your weight than exercise. Skinny marathoners are skinny not because they were once fat and now train 100 miles a week, but because they are predisposed to be skinny. In fact, if you exercise a lot, you will get hungrier and have to be vigilant to eat foods rich with the right vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Read the third chapter, "The Elusive Benefits of Exercise," in Gary Taubes' excellent book entitled Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It.

Jack LaLanne was true inspiration for TOJs everywhere, and a shining example of the truth of the old coach's adage: It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's  the size of the fight in the dog.

Closing the Fitness Gap

When I'm not TOJing, I work at a community health center in the rural resort area of Colorado. Last week a radio reporter called me to talk about childhood obesity. Colorado has the lowest obesity rate in the U.S., but in the past few years, state health officials have noted an alarming trend -- the rate of obesity among children is rising fast, especially in poorer Colorado families.

The reporter asked me why this is happening. I offered several reasons: poorer families don't always have the health education to make good food choices; fresh food is less affordable than mass produced food loaded with fat, salt, and fructose corn syrup; less affluent kids don't have as many opportunities or encouragement to exercise because  fewer PE courses are offered in schools and there are fewer affordable after-school exercise opportunities (many schools now charge money for varsity sports); and cheap sugar and fat laden fast food is heavily marketed and available everywhere.

The day after the interview, I was dismayed to read that basic training of U.S. Army recruits has been altered to eliminate long runs and sit-ups because too many are so obese and unfit that these basic strength and endurance exercises pose a serious risk of injury. Army officials speculated that the causes of this sorry state of affairs were similar to those I guessed: too much junk food and video games, as well as high schools reducing gym classes.

Last Friday I was in Fort Collins, Colorado, for a meeting. Fort Collins has a well-developed trail system for running, hiking and biking. Early in the morning I went to a trailhead at the foot of the hogback just to the west of the CSU football stadium. The sun had just come up and I figured that early I'd have the trail to myself. But, surprisingly, the parking lot was jammed with cars even though I could see nobody out on the trail.

I took off running on a rolling single track for about a mile, then started a zig-zag climb up the rocky face of the hogback. As I neared the top, I saw one, then two, then a long line of runners making the tight hairpin turns down, headed my way. When the first got close, I stepped off the trail to let them pass. There were about thirty of them, mostly men and a few women. They looked lean and fit. The men all had close cropped hair and were clean shaven. As each of them passed, they said, "Good morning, sir." The way they each said "sir" left me with the distinct impression that they were a university ROTC unit out for a training run. It was good to see such a fit group of twenty-somethings out on the trail.

I thought about the difference between these young men and women and the recruits showing up for basic training, many of whom are less affluent young people without the funds to go to college and hoping to pick up some work and skills in the military. My guess is that the young university students had the advantage of mom and dads with the time, income and values to encourage them to participate in gymnastics, soccer, karate and other sports when they were young. This is not to take anything away from their excellent physical condition and discipline to be out on the trail when most of their college buddies were probably still asleep, but these gave them an advantage when they grew up. Most likely, many of the enlisted recruits did not have similar experiences growing up. 

A recent study from the transportation department at Rutgers University discovered that people in countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Spain are generally leaner than the average American because they walk and bike more. We need to import more of their lifestyle and city planning to make this possible for Americans, especially children.

We should expand our "inalienable rights" to include life, liberty, justice and fitness for all. And we should walk-the-talk by ensuring, first and foremost, that every child in American has access to a healthy diet and regular exercise. Children who can do sit-ups aren't just stronger, they're smarter. They will develop into adults who can protect our country and compete in the global market. Everybody wins.

Food Fight

You'd think for as long as humans have been around, we'd have the optimum diet for health pretty well figured out.  Yet, here we are in the Twenty-First Century still arguing about food - low carb, high fat versus high fat, low carb, Paleo versus vegetarian, vegetarian versus vegan, corn fed versus free range beef, beef versus buffalo, farm-raised salmon versus wild salmon, gluten or gluten free, vitamin supplements versus nutrients from food only, and so on.

For thousands of years, people ate food based on where they lived and what was available. Our ancestors discovered a lot about food, such as what's poisonous, how to plant and harvest crops, animal husbandry, and how to use heat to kill dangerous bacteria. Most of them still died before they were 50 due to infectious diseases.

But science changed that. We stopped infectious diseases, and new tools and techniques were developed to measure the impacts of food on human health. Strangely, while we've advanced in our understanding of the biochemistry of food, based on the number of obese people and rise in diseases of civilization like cancer and heart disease in our society, the positive impacts on how we actually live well for our investments in food research are mixed,

And, unfortunately, the science can be bought, or strongly influenced, by conglomerates in the food industry. It's very possible the entire FDA food pyramid was built as much by political lobbying by the dairy and cattle industries as it was by bona fide scientific discoveries. Read T. Colin Campbell's The China Study or Howard Lyman's The Mad Cowboy.

This situation makes it hard on a TOJ who's a student of food as it contributes to health and fitness. Some people fuss over food to help them improve athletic performance. Most of us don't need to worry about that and, instead, should focus on what makes us feel good, controls our weight, and gives us the energy to follow our exercise passions.

I think maybe the one-size fits all food plan doesn't exist because our dietary needs vary based on how much we exercise and our body types. Whether ancient Ayurvedic medicine or modern day metabolic body typing, some theories hold that food affects each of us differently - what's good for one person may not be as good for another. Usually, your body let's you know. My wife's a vegan, healthy and follows her TOJ routines fine. I, in contrast, need some dairy and meat to feel satisfied, lucid, and ready to hit the trails or weights. I tried to eat like her once and felt I was starving.

Like you, what I eat is a mix of science and religion. The science is what I've read and observed in my own body, and the religion  just means there's an act of faith involved - I eat (most of the time) what I hope is good for me and probably many others as well.

Here are some food basics In which I believe:

-- Eat lots of fresh veggies and fruit, much of it raw or minimally cooked to keep the nutrients and enzymes intact and     bio-available.

-- Eat only lean cuts of red meat or poultry, and only a few times a week. It should be hormone and antibiotic free.

-- Eat organic foods as much as possible. Some pesticides here and there are unavoidable, but don't ignore them.

--  Focus on nutrients, not calories. When you follow a nutrient rich regimen and exercise, your weight takes care of itself.

-- Avoid fast food. It has no redeeming qualities other than to  temporarily satisfy your hunger.

-- Minimize your consumption of processed food, including so-called "natural" foods. The industrial processes required to produce and preserve them lower their nutrient value.

Over the years, I've changed how and what I eat. I used to be a meat and potatoes guy. I've learned there's another and better way. Now I eat foods that taste good, but also have a strategic health advantage. There was a time I thought healthy food like kale had to taste like grass clippings. Not so. Below this blog is a recipe for kale chips, which taste great, even with beer. And kale has a very high rating for anti-oxidants, imporant to a TOJ recovering from hard exercise.

One of the big questions related to the good fight is this: Is the body a garbage disposal or a temple? Adovocates of the garbage disposal believe that the disgestive tract is such a hostile chemical environment that it can take whatever you eat and will convert it to fats, carbs or protein. It doesn't care if the food came from a discount warehouse or Whole Foods. Young people who frequent fast food joints consider themselves living proofs of this.

A TOJ doesn't go into temples very often (too sweaty), but his or her body has to last to run the next trail, ride the next pass, lift the next kettlebell, ski the next hill, and there's plenty of evidence if you make poor food choices year in, year out, it won't.

CHEEZY KALE CHIPS

2 bunches Kale

1-2 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

juice of one lemon

1 cup sunflower seeds ground in a coffee grinder

1/4 to 1/2 c. nutritional yeast (gives it a cheezy flavor)

1-2 Tablespoons Tahini

Wash kale well and remove stems. Pour on olive oil, salt, and lemon juice and massage into the kale using your hands. Sprinkle on sunflower seed and nutritional yeast. Mix in thoroughly. Put on parchment covered dehydrator trays. Heat at 115 for 1/2 hour, then turn dow to 105 degrees and leve overnight. Remove from sheets onto mesh and dry until crispy.

If you don't have a dehydrator, can be dried in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 to 30 minutes. Watch carefully.