Category Archives: Health

Eddie Halls Documentary Now on Netflix

Eddie Hall Body Power 2016

Eddie Hall Body Power 2016

I don’t do Netflix, but I do have NowTV and I’ve watched it maybe twice in the last 5 months. If I didn’t get an amazing deal on vouchers when buying a new TV (pretty much 2 yrs worth of movies, tv, kids and 9 week passes for sports for about £100 a year with 3 boxes. I have Amazon Prime and don’t really watch that other than binge watching the odd series.

I have however watched Eddie Halls Documentary and found it really quite interesting. I will warn you, every other word out of Eddie’s mouth is Fuck or some variation thereof. There are also some strong discussions about drug use too, so be aware of it in the case of your children watching. I know lots of children are fans of Eddie “The Beast” Hall.

Better to review the movie before watching it with you. 

The Bacon Beast

The man also loves bacon, in order to increase his calorie or protein intake he adds bacon to everything. I mean literally everything. Much of his system is reliant on his wife, its nice to see her preparing meals and supporting his quest to the worlds strongest. 

What I liked about this, is a bunch of guys openly talking about steroids and their use, no one denying it. I don’t believe Eddie contributed but others did. Many body builders and the likes deny steroid ab(use), because yeah that bulging abdomen and keg belly is all natural, because body builders and the strongmen of the past had those guts too. Hearing guys opening talk about it, is refreshing. I have spoken to many of these guys none of them directly deny it, they just use “swim” type language. 

SWIM stands for “Someone Who Isn’t Me” and is used on various forums to actively ask theoretical questions where 99/100 times you are talking about yourself. Someone who isn’t me uses X, Y and Z but wondering about taking A as well, do you think SWIM would be ok, stuff like that. 

Netflix and Strongman is the New Chill

If you have Netflix and are interested in Strongman and Strength Sports its well worth watching it. If you have a missus who is into strongman, then I’d say this movie is the successor to Netflix and Chill, its Netflix and Storngman with some chill later in the day. 

There is video footage of his Arnold Schwarzenegger “Classic” deadlift where Arnold is willing him to break the record. There are interviews with almost every name in the strongman world and many of the body building greats.

Its good to see Zydrunas Savickas actually talking, I’ve met the guy half dozen times and generally the language barrier means he says very few words and seems almost overwhelmed. Hard to not like the man, he seems very intelligent and is actually a political force in his home town all while being a gargantuan beast of a man. 

Nestle to Cut 40% of Sugar in Chocolate

Dark Brown Milk Chocolate

Dark Brown Milk Chocolate

If any women read my geekery or trash there would be a gasp of shear horror that chocolate is being tampered with. Nestle has made what they are calling a breakthrough which could dramatically reduce the amount of sugar in their products. As I said before I call this a chemical shitstorm. 

In a nutshell they have fiddled with the molecular structure of sugar, to make Sugar 2.0. The simple explanation is they make it dissolve quicker, which I assume make it hit you harder faster and makes you think there’s more sugar than there is. Think a chunk of rock salt, crunch it up with your teeth and salt city. Nestle claim it does not affect the taste at all. 

The problem is, that when when you fiddle with things like this, you don’t know how far reaching the consequences are. What seems ok short term, isn’t long term. Look at various drugs, they are doled out like tictacs, then a few years later they are withdrawn and banned because it goes horribly wrong. 

0-65% Sugar Per Bar

When you consider that Chocolate is about 45-65% sugar on average, it varies depending on brands and white, milk or dark, some of which is dairy sugar, but raw and pure chocolate can have virtually no sugar at all but most people would find it very bitter. Various companies have come up with tricks like using sea salt or chilli peppers in an attempt to reduce sugar and balance the bitterness, and some of them are good. 

What is not clear is, they say 40% sweeter, but don’t clarify if this is 40% less calories or physical mass. Which means we won’t know if they will need to add some other filler to regain the size or yet again reduce the size of the bar. We also don’t know if it will reduce the calorie content, I would guess it would. 

Dairy Milk 36g Bar   Berliner Doughnut (Waitrose)
  Current Style Sugar 2.0      Current Style Sugar 2.0 
Energy 191kcal 159kcal   Energy  461 421kcal
Fat 11g     Fat 21.1  
Protein 2.7g     Protein 8.4  
Carbs 20.5g     Carbs 59.3  
Sugar 20g 12g   Sugar 25.6 15.36

Looking at the potential above, which assumes it achieves 40% calorie reduction, 32 calories doesn’t seem alot, but its actually about 17% reduction overall in the Dairy Milk. I assume this Sugar molecule can be used in all manner of other goodies, so I applied it to the unhealthiest thing I’ve eaten in a long time.

The Halo Effect 

On the grande scheme of calories the difference isn’t all that impressive, but sugar impact, its impressive. Gets more impressive when applied to sugary drinks. 

I hadn’t heard it call the Halo Effect, but had heard the theory. The theory is that when someone is perceived as having been made healthy, people double up the amount. Fruit is the usual suspect, tell someone an Orange is healthy, I eat 10 of them and gram for gram of sugar they may as well have eaten a 4 pack of mars bars. 

Even Professor Julian Cooper form Nestle highlighted this problem when he said “This is good science. A lot of people have been look at sugar trying to reduce the amount.” he added that there is a risk that it would give Nestle Products the use the “adapted” sugar the hal0-effect which may lead people to believe they can eat more of it.

HE also went on about protecting the profit margins and nestles patents letting other companies in the idea blah, who cares. Make a fuss that since 2007 you (Nestle) have been reducing sugar (and product size) then in the next breath blurt out, its about the money. 

 

Chocolate Bar image courtesy of Kaboom.

Tesco Reacts to Sugar Tax

Sugar Cubes by Maria Kaloudi

Sugar Cubes

A while ago I posted about the Sugar Tax and my belief its missing the spot. Its like aiming for the double bull eye and hitting the single. In a nutshell, the whole objective officially is to cut the amount of sugar and reduce the impact on childhood obesity. This only appears to apply to fizzy drinks and the likes not to milk based products, and milk based is subjective. Unofficially I think its all about raising more government funds but what do I know. 

Tesco is currently making a song and dance completing the initiative it started on 5 years ago in 2011. This initiative were to cut sugar in its extensive range of soft drinks to below 5g of sugar per 100ml. They announced last week that now their complete range of over 250 drinks have been reformulated to be, below the tax threshold. It should really be commended as it were the first to commit and has one of the biggest range, but that doesn’t make me like the sugar tax end of. 

I haven’t tried many of Tescos offerings, but I have tried Aldi’s Vive range, their Pepsi Max (Cola XC) equivalent is quite nice but seems to lose fizz quickly, their British Blackcurrant is amazing, I wouldn’t have known I were drinking a low sugar version. I have tried many of Morissons products including Iron Bru, Shandy, Cherryade and they are all quite nice and with ice are passable as normal full sugar versions. 

I will make an effort to sample some of Tescos’ goodies and report back.

Chemical S#!tstorm

The more I think about this, the more it bothers me about what is going to replace the sugar. Last time we made a huge change, Low Fat vs High Sugar its come back to kick us in the groin… HARD!. Using Aspartame already has a number of health claims, as do various other “sweeteners”. So what are they using to try and maintain the taste and what far into future reaching side effects will they create ? 

My money says none of them have simply lowered the sugar content without adding a heap of chemicals to keep it just as sweet.

I call this a “Chemical Shitstorm”. 

Study’s in Quality

There were a study, I don’t remember exactly what or when I read it. In this study they reduced the quality of a product very slowly over a number of months. So say it started 100%, after 6 months it were down to 50%. It were determined almost without exception none of the test subjects really noticed. The interesting thing were after the study concluded and the people were told about it, a large amount preferred the new lower quality item over the original high quality item. 

There were talk at the time about this is how the body adjusts to various diets and why some people can eat stuff which makes some sick but not others. Milk were bandied around too, since its estimated that nearly every person on the planet is lactose intolerant given a high enough dose. However the more you drink, the more tolerance you grow. Salt were another named, when various peoples salt levels were slowly increased and anothers decreased, over time people didn’t notice.

Surely this would have been a better strategy rather than the current method?

Suspect Numbers from WHO

The numbers from the World Health Organisation seem suspect to me. They say sugar reduction of 20% would reduce childhood obesity by a fifth. A fifth also happens to be 20%, so a 20% reduction produces a 20% reduction, so why not say 50% reduction would produce 50%.

The fact they chose to mix the words, 20% in one point and a fifth elsewhere irks me. The fact the numbers are the same is also questionable, I haven’t looked too deeply into this as its not a major point of my blog, but it does strike questions for me. 

 

Sugar Cube photo by Maria Kaloudi.

Penile Shrinkage In The Gym

I did debate whether I really wanted go here, but I have since had the discussion with a few other guys and they had noticed but thought nothing of it. They thought perhaps it were cold, the supplements, too tired or some other random thought.

Non-Essential and/or Luxury Tissue Shrinkage is the medical term or Penile Shrinkage. Personally I think the science guys needs to get out more, non-essential ? Luxury I guess depends how far from the floor it hangs.

When you are working out, especially heavy resistance (weights, strongman, etc), circuits and load bearing exercises or activities your muscles swell with blood. This “Pump” as its called, results in muscles holding up to 10 to 20 times more blood than when your sat on the sofa chilling with the latest Lucifer.

You have probably guessed where this is going, in my best grease “where does the pollen go” voice, “Where does the blood go from” ? Well almost any part of your body which isn’t being actively used, starting with luxury tissue, then non-essential tissues, all donate blood, this blood is sent where its needed most by your body.

Less Lunch Box More Snack Box

There are various mechanisms at work here, not only the muscles needing more nutrients and oxygen, but also you’re cortisol levels raising, adrenalin is blocking dopamine, testosterone spikes, growth hormone releases and more. I’ll include a few links at the end for further reading, but its kinda interesting how we are “primed”.

This reduced blood volume can be extreme as making you look almost prepubescent downstairs. If your one of those guys who likes to wear spandex, lycra, cycle shorts and the likes, its time to cut the flirting unless your not really working out to your maximum potential, in which case, GET OUT THE WAY FOOL!.

Otherwise your reputation may not be based on the size of your muscles, athletic prowess but more having a snack box where there should be a lunch box.

The role of adrenalin blocking dopamine, is the same sort of effect you get when using popular fat burners like Stackers and T5s. The precursor of sorts to adrenalin, causes a fight or flight response which in turn murders appetite, primes the body for action and prepares you for intense activity. The more natural effect means that blood can’t pump back until the adrenalin effect is overcome and dopamine becomes dominant. This means it doesn’t matter if a smoking hottie decides directly in front of you, is The Place to do her squats and bent over rows there shall be no wind in the sail… I’m talking about you EF Blondie 😉

Further Reading

This article explains why your muscles need more blood during exercise, worth a read to understand the process.

This article covers mostly stress and depression along with penile shrinkage is interesting since many of those factors associated with heavy gym work apply. Such as cortisol, nitric oxide and testosterone production, I suspect training triggers some of those same processes and has the same effect.

Ultimate Guide to Storing Fresh Produce

Black Banana left in Fridge

Black Banana left in Fridge via WikiPedia.

I have to admit, I’m not great at eating fresh vegetables, more so than I am at fruit. Getting the vegetables in isn’t usually too bad as I keep an array of frozen veg in the chiller, and various microwavable vegetables in the fridge.

Knowing what to store, where, isn’t always easy. We’ve all made the mistake of putting a banana in to the fridge and seen what happens (look left). Often the banana in fine on the inside but the skin doesn’t look great.

Some produce loves the fridge, Others love the sunlight, others just fine on the counter top. The odd one needs a little prep like a brocolli with a spray of water or avacado with a little oil.

I came across this chart a week or so ago by MyFitnessPal and honestly, I think its amazing.

My love of printing Cheat Sheets is already established, I think this one is being added to the fridge door to remind me.

The article also covers some other tips, such as paper bagging fruit with certain apples so speed up the ripening process, so check out the article as well as the infographic.

All-in-One Guide to Storing Fresh Produce by MyFitnessPal

All-in-One Guide to Storing Fresh Produce by MyFitnessPal

Infographic by MyFitnessPal.

Shoulder Surgery

Some of you who read my health/fitness blog before I moved to blogging here, will know I have quite extensive injuries/damage to both of my shoulders. The consultant doctor who interpreted the last scan (an MRI) used fun words like “Tumorous”, “Cystic”, “Moth Eaten”, “Jagged” and “Arthritic”, lots of fun words like that. The only upside were my rotator cuff has “improved” and is “better”, I couldn’t get him to quantify more than that. Its some times hard to get solid answers, even harder to get the various clinics, consultants, doctors, registrars etc to sing from the same hymn sheet. As a result everything is a little sketchy, and this may not be 100% accurate.

AC Joint Grades I to VI

AC Joint Grade Images courtesy of DurrantOrtho.

The rather informative Durrant Ortho site has a page on AC Joint Injuries which is awesome and where I borrowed the above image. Mine is somewhere between Grade 2 and Grade 3, its hard to visualise from the descriptions and various explanations but it fits. I’m told once the surgeon physically look inside my shoulder they will tell me exactly what damage were and what were fixed/repaired once I’ve come around from surgery.

After a boat load of therapies and various drugs, the last being Triamcinolone injections along with a nerve block (I think), which are injections directly into the shoulder joint and injured areas, which hurts like hell. After that, they finally transferred me from the shoulder specialist to the shoulder trauma clinic. The trauma clinic tell me I have about 4 weeks to make my mind up if I want a rather painful surgery on both shoulders or try more injections.  Since its both of my shoulders which are messed up, they would perform surgery unilaterally about 18 months apart.

Pain and Recovery

Currently the surgery waiting list for a case like mine, is 2-4 months, which lands the surgery Dec-Feb.

The timeline and pain doesn’t sound good at all. When I asked about the pain score, on a scale of 1 to 10, instead they only described it as “horrendous” rather than a score, so I’m guessing that’s about 11 out 10.

They went on to explain they going to cut some of my shoulder blade (scapula) off and my collarbone. I didn’t quite catch what about the collarbone. The also very good ShoulderDoc website, which I borrowed the below image from, gives loads of details about the surgery and what happens. It looks BRUTAL!

ACJ Excision ShoulderDoc

ACJ Excision from ShoulderDoc

They are also going to clean up my shoulder, which I understand would be removing tumours, cysts, ground bone chips, calcium deposits, general clean up and tidy of the shoulder joint.

The “official” word on the various websites inc the Local NHS and Others for recovery and rehabilitation is up to a week in a sling before starting physio, 1-2 weeks before returning to sedentary job, up to 4-6 weeks for a physical work and back to 75% in 3 months. Then up to a 12-18 months for fully healed, slowing improving the whole time.

Unofficial Recovery

The shoulder trauma consultant (I think she were a registrar, but not sure) used various patients to give me examples of healing times and recovery. She were saying its more likely to be near enough double what the official story says. It could be 6+ months before I could return to the gym, and 18+ months before 100%, at which point I’d need to start building again.

Looking at the comments and questions online for example Sports Injury Info makes it look like it could be even worse than that. However the problem is that ACJ Repair, is like saying Car Engine Repair, it could be any of 100 things, all with different healing times. Some have a Rotator Repair (which is a bigger along with Shoulder Girdle), some only the scapula filed, others just a ligament cut, some need extensive stabiliser work, loads of different things. There are also various techniques as well open or keyhole surgery which affect it all too.

Its wildly varied, and inconsistent.

The only consistent thing, seems to be when you cut parts of the bone away, its intensely painful, and a long slow healing process, lucky me. The things I’m dreading the most are (1) the surgery falling during icy/frozen times and me slipping, (2) person hygiene with my right arm essential out of order for months and (3) being out the gym for months.

Images Copyright of DurrantOrtho and ShoulderDoc.

1 … 3 4 5 6 7