Wednesday 30 March 2011

Training update

Back in the pool buiding up to 3x1500m wearing a 1kilogram ankle weight. 1x500m of balls in hands, 1x500 with no cheat catch up (catch up with stick in hands), 1x500 with paddles with only finger straps. Today I managed 3x200 (the 200 as 4x50). Training on the bike is more sprints in 53x12 and starting to buildup my long Sunday rides slowly up to 3hours again. Every 4th Sunday I'm doing 30 min timetrial on the turbo, it will break the routine and eventually get me ready for racing ( again doing something I've been avoiding over the years but I know I should be doing it).

The only downside has been my ankles, hips and legs have all been sore not sure why some is because of the minimalist shoes but some have been caused on the bike. But I don't know if they were also caused by the changes I've been experiencing in the minimalist shoes.

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Relearning how to run - drills


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Friday 18 March 2011

An even prouder dad

This coming Sunday I may possibly burst with pride or be at risk of having my face split in 2 by a extremely large smile . What you might ask could cause this paternal pride? My Emily has entered her very first triathlon - a sport I have been enjoying for over twenty years.

I was saying to her the other day that she is already, at 8 and a half, a better swimmer than I was when I started triathlon in my 20's

Next Friday after cricket she and a friend are doing a dance in the school talent competition. Sometimes I can't believe how much self confidence, self belief and an I can do anything attitude she has - the way I see it she is going to unstoppable.

Cameron who is 6 is reading chapter books on his own - he has discovered Zac Powers please tell tell me boys don't like to read.

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Taubes' book refine my thinking

Taubes' book and the Primal website had me questioning things for a long time now. Now having read the book for myself there is even more to think about and as a result I am re-drafting my own thoughts and re-fining my opinions. And in some cases helped make sense of stuff I've always thought. A really good example of this is exercise and why I do it. It always makes me feel better - as Teresa can attest if I have to miss a training session I'll be like a bear with a sore paw. It makes me fit. But I never really saw it as away of losing weight - I did think of it as a sort of by-product of exercise.

It the book it says that you can't exercise to lose weight because if you burn energy the body will need to replenish that energy. And (I don't do this) most people replace it with convenient junk food and because they think they deserve for being good by exercising they actual have way more than the exercise they've actually just had - so in effect they are now worse off. It is Taubes (backed up by real scince in his book) the only way of losing weight (or getting to and maintaining your body's ideal composition - which is different for everybody) is eating when hungry food that your body actually needs , which excludes anything with refined carbs and sugar in it.

In short ... exercise to keep your body fit and strong...eat to maintain the optimum body composition for your body. Or if you aren't at the optimum then eat natural foods until your body finds it.

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Wednesday 16 March 2011

Intermittant Fasting

I can tell I've gone fully Primal because of the sense of fullness and larger periods between eating. I am now only eating 2 meals a day. Main evening meal with family usually at some time between 4.30pm - 6pm. Then my next meal is breakfast/lunch at around 9am. Then on Saturday I wasn't eating till 11.30am and still wasn't always hungry. So this last weekend I decided to eat when I was hungry, I finally ate at 4.30pm 23hours later and then I wasn't really hungry but I was cooking yummy steak and red wine sauce for the family and couldn't help myself.

I finished the Gary Taubes book Good Calories , Bad Calories. I found it hard to understand in parts. But my final takeaway from the book is that with the inception of carbohydrates especially sugar and other refined carbs into the western diet a whole plethora of diseses happened. Including obesity - which is not caused by overeating but overeating caused by getting fat. The body's main source of fuel is fat and if it doesn't get any intake of fat it creates fat from other sources including converting carbs and then stores that fat. Carbs also don't make you feel full so you eat more and eat less fat (the bogus low fat diet) and the cycle goes on.
Of course this is my clumsy simplified explanation. I did know all this from the gary taubes video and the Primal website.


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Tuesday 15 March 2011

Cool new vibram fivefingers website

You are the technology .com

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Wednesday 9 March 2011

Swimming time trial 5thMarch

I nervously went to Pandora's on Sunday to swim a timed lap of the course. Not quite the full course as it normally starts on the beach. I timed myself at the beginning of the summer at 12.17 for approx 700m which was really good for me, and demonstrated all my technique work was paying off , this time I did in 11.20 a 57sec improvement. However the best bit was how easy I swam - it demonstrates all my hard work on technique and hard intervals in the pond was paying off. I'm starting to feel like a real swimmer. I plan to do another one in a month which will be my last open water swim for the summer. I have been swimming 3 times a week in the pond and as much as 5 times a week altogether. On my neat time trial I want to try and get close if not go under 11, so I've got to push it towardsthe end but not try too hard.

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Making jerky/Biltong/dried meat

I finally got round to making a Jerky maker, I've had the instructions for a while but never got to make it. However because I have gone fully Primal and wanting my children to have a Primal snack for school I decided last week to give it a go because it was expensive to buy and I wanted to know the ingredients. So I made it from a cardboard box and a light bulb on the Saturday and by Wednesday we had dried meat, Jerky if you're American, biltong if you're South African. I buy delicious locally grown, grass fed beef from the lady who produces it , she only slaughters 10 cows at a time (we also buy her eggs). And it is better than shop bought.













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Thursday 3 March 2011

Attempted Homicide Charge for Driver Who Hit Brazilian Cyclists

By NY TIMES
3/2/2011

A car deliberately plows into a large group of cyclists in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, injuring at least 40 people, some of them seriously. The ride was organized by the group Critical Mass, which advocates cycling as an environmentally friendly form of transportation. The driver, held by police on a charge of attempted homicide, says the cyclists threatened him. The lead investigator on the case calls his claims “fanciful.”

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