One personal anecdote I have is that for the since switching to a whole-food plant-based (wfpb) diet in early 2017 (more than four years ago), I have not had any colds or the flu. I used to get either one at least once a year, even though I’ve always gotten a flu shot. That didn’t dawn on me until recently. I knew from Dr. Greger’s book How Not To Die, that the wfpb diet is protective against infectious disease, he has a whole … [Read more...]

If you want to live life at its fullest, do everything possible to keep your body in vibrant health in order to give back to life a little of what it has given you– Eknath Easwaran (Words to Live By) The time spent on some of the things that promote good physical and mental health, like exercise and meditation, can seem self-indulgent. But I like this idea of staying healthy to continue to be of service to others. SOURCE: … [Read more...]

https://www.parkinson.org/Understanding-Parkinsons/Treatment/Exercise/Neuroprotective-Benefits-of-Exercise Previously I described an inspiring video about Larry, who kept active by using a recumbent bicycle despite advance symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, so I was interested to see a new study that investigated how exercise helps with symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. I learned about it on Clarence Bass’s site, his discussion … [Read more...]

I’ll be having a treadmill stress test on June 16, a week from this coming wednesday. Today I did one of my last training sessions “peaking” for it. I’ll do one more in a couple of days, then “taper”, all of which is treating this upcoming challenge as if it were a race. This is looking up W. Dunne Ave, one of the steep local streets I like to power walk up as part of my preparation: And this is the … [Read more...]

A recent study shows that even a little bit of physical activity makes it much less likely we will be physically disabled as we age. “Mobility disability” is defined by the authors as inability to climb a flight of stairs, or walk more more than a block. This would certainly lead to impaired quality of life. But the good news is that for women studied in their sixties, those who commonly performed light activity were significantly … [Read more...]

I mentioned previously that I ride with a group called “South County Old Goats” that’s part of Almaden Cycle Touring Club. But that has been on hiatus during Covid. We started back up again a few weeks ago and it’s great to be out with friends again. I’ve ridden with some of them for more than 20 years. Today we did about 55 km, mostly flat. I very scenic ride that includes part of Coyote Creek Trail and lunch at the … [Read more...]

When I started doing research on regenerative grazing on the internet I was surprised to see “regenerative grazing debunked” come up as a suggested topic. I thought why is this even controversial? It turns out some of the arguments in favor of it are controversial, especially how much carbon dioxide can soil building through better grazing practices take out of the atmosphere? And is that enough to offset the emissions of cattle? … [Read more...]

The weather has been pretty nice lately, spring like and not too hot. But it has been windy enough to make biking challenging. My local group is back to riding together. We still try to stay “socially distanced” although all have been vaccinated. On a recent ride we went out to the end of Redwood Retreat road and and back, with a nice lunch afterwards. I Passed by Guillemlo Winery’s vineyards on the way On the way back on … [Read more...]

Grain By Grain This is the fascinating story of Dr. Bob Quinn’s career, that also contains an important nutritional nugget about heritage wheat for people with foods sensitivities. I’ll summarize that first, then describe his decades of contributions. I had read in the past that some people who think they have gluten sensitivities may actually be intolerant to modern hybridized wheat, which was developed to improve crop … [Read more...]

The term “pegan” was coined by Dr. Mark Hyman, a preventive medicine specialist who has helped his patients achieved good health with diet for many years. His recommended diet has elements common to both paleo and a healthy version of a vegan diet, so he calls it The Pegan Diet, and recently wrote a book with that title. This is a very good book which I review below. First I’ll give my take on the compromise between the Whole-Foods … [Read more...]

Alex Huchinson’s “Sweat Science” column has an interesting comparison of the power output data for two riders in the Tour de France. The first is Marcel Kittel, a great sprinter who has since retired. The second is Tom Dumoulin, a “general classification” contender, which means he tries to win an entire stage race like the Tour de France (where he once placed second), or the Giro d’Italia (which he won). … [Read more...]

I recently discussed the concept of regenerative agriculture in my review of the book Sacred Cow. I have been researching this fascinating topic further and am convinced that regenerative agriculture of both plants and animals (or a combination), is a crucial step environmentally. It can drastically reduce carbon emissions and even remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil. I also found that the evidence for regenerative … [Read more...]

Sometimes we can make too big a deal sweating the small details of healthy lifestyle. These few measures seem simple and doable, and as the study shows, make a big difference. FOOD, FACTS and FADS Americans don’t live as long as people in most other high-income countries. We hear so much about how healthy habits are the recommendations of the medical community, but often they come across as vague and not specific enough. How many times has your … [Read more...]

I discovered something interesting about doing isometric training using exercise bands: When you are holding against a challenging resistance, your muscles start to shudder a bit. This is quite noticeable because the bands start to vibrate. This interesting phenomenon is because your nervous system recruits muscle fibers to take the load. As fibers fatigue, and their strength “drops out”, others have to be recruited to replace them, … [Read more...]

That is the name of a fascinating book by Dr. Will Bulsiewicz. He is a well-regarded expert gastroenterologist (“gut doctor”) both as a practitioner and clinical researcher. The main thesis of the book is that our gut microbiome, or the trillions of bacteria in our small and large intestines, play a major role in nutrition and health. He gives strong evidence that a lot of individual differences in digestion and food sensitivities are … [Read more...]

https://www.eatsleep.fit/blog/ I found out about an interesting study on sports nutritionist Jeff Rothschild’s blog. There is a lot of advice out there about training and breakfast, often contradictory. My take was that it was fine to do a long low intensity session before breakfast (also known as “train fasted”). But I thought it was a good idea to eat breakfast, with a decent amount of carbs, before a higher intensity … [Read more...]

This is a great post that talks about doctors using food as a cure. I especially liked hearing that Boston Medical Center has a rooftop farm! FOOD, FACTS and FADS “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.” This famous quote is often attributed toHippocrates. But, asresearch byDiana Cardenas in2013shows, this quote can not be found anywhere in Hippocrates’ writings. Diana Cardenas discovered that the quote started to emerge from … [Read more...]

I biked to Harvey Bear County Park. the hiked to the top of the Willow Springs trail and rode back down and then home, about a 2 1/2 hour workout, one of my local favorites. It was a great outing, it was beautiful today. It’s been hot all week but cooled down nicely today. I caught what may well be the last of the green grass in our hills for the season. We’ve had a pretty dry spring, very little rain in April, so the hills are … [Read more...]

Nada GamalEldeen has a site with health tips. She asked me to contribute to her “GlowUp Challenge” which features health tips from various contributors. Mine is #9 under “go for a walk”: “The best activity for health is one that is fun for you, so it’s easier to be motivated. For example, walking. The best time to go for a walk is whatever time of day you can do it consistently. For many, that is first … [Read more...]

As I mentioned in the kick-off to my latest series on nutrition, I’m concentrating on what new things I’ve learned since I last concentrated on this area, and any ways my views have updated. One thing that has changed is that I would no longer categorize the whole-foods plant-based (WFPB) diet as an alternative to mainstream dietary guidelines. Now, in my opinion, I’d say rather that WFPB is a subset of mainstream guidelines, … [Read more...]