38F, partly cloudy, breezy, dry. Easy run. 20 minutes strength work.
Pleasant run. The air felt rather nippy after the higher temperatures we've been having. I'm beginning a bit of taper now, though this week will not be much different. I am going to try to make this my first anxiety-free taper (or nearly so), in terms of not freaking out about the lack of difficult workouts and long miles. Instead I'm going to focus on getting more sleep and keeping my nutrition in line.
We had some very bad news over the weekend, which I am just now feeling up to discussing openly. My mother-in-law has ovarian cancer. Her husband is still in a care facility from the health catastrophe of November 08, of which I blogged back when it was happening. I know this is going to have a big impact on our family. Mr. Sno is extremely close to his mother and I'm sure we will be going down to Phoenix more than once in the coming months.
(Warning, long rant ahead. I'm more than a little upset. Feel free to skip.)
This painful event in our lives brings the importance of personal health choices into greater focus than ever. The medical profession and the ever-growing behemoth of the pharmaceutical industry are not going to save us. The food pyramid is an invention of the agriculture lobby (hint, it was created by the US Dept. of Agriculture) and will not guide you to a long, healthy life. Each person must take responsibility for their own health.
And by the way, living a long life is not the goal. The goal is to not end up on oxygen, or in constant pain, or immobilized by ill health. The goal is not to end up broken, and breaking the hearts of everyone who loves you.
What if you learned today that most of what passes as "healthy diet" advice is based on politics rather than science, and is dead wrong? There are several books which I wish very much I could give, by going back in a time machine, to my in-laws, my own parents, my younger self, and everyone I know. They are: Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, Primal Body Primal Mind by Nora Gedgaudas, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, and Cereal Killer by Alan Watson. If you think that bread is literally the "staff of life," or that saturated fats cause heart disease, or that all calories are treated equally in the body, do yourself a favor. Read one of these books, preferable Taubes' but that is the most technical one (dry reading for some).
I am a runner. I am supposed to love a high carb, low-fat diet. I don't. I think that kind of diet is unscientific, unhealthy, and illogical from an evolutionary viewpoint. Guess who believes (or believed, in the case of my deceased mother) in high-carb, low-fat diets? My mother-in-law (rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowels, ovarian cancer), my father-in-law (necrosis of the colon, triple bypass surgery, numerous coronary events, obesity, and now completely immobile in a care facility taking a dixi cup full of pills 3 times a day), and my own mother (heart disease, bladder cancer, severe clinical depression).
I know I sound preachy and I don't like that. I will very likely not mention this again for a long, long time. But someone - actually a lot of someones - have to start saying this out loud. We need to eat what our bodies evolved to thrive on. Even runners. Grass-fed meats, eggs, nuts, lots of vegetables, good fats - and lots of them, very low carbs, omega 3 fats. Not: sugar, sodas, soy, grains, factory-farmed-corn-fed meats. There are no ancient cave paintings of wheat fields, folks.
I have ample reason to think that humans are designed to be runners. I also have ample reason to think that we are not supposed to pack sugar into our bodies in order to run. Apart from the health issues that started this rant, there is the matter of healthy fuel sources for runners. You can burn off lots of sugar, but you cannot burn off the damaging insulin. And you cannot undo the damage of a high carbohydrate diet to your leptin - the most important hormone in your body. (For references, please see the Gedgaudas book, above.) "Whole grains?" Every carbohydrate that reaches your blood stream looks and acts like sugar; the pancreas doesn't care where it came from. Living a carbohydrate (sugar) dominated diet is like heating your home with kindling. You must constantly put more on the fire. Runners have to carb load, then eat gels during the run, then refuel after the run. And all day long the temperamental blood sugar levels demand more, putting your mood and energy at the mercy of the nearest bagel.
It doesn't have to be this way. You do have a choice. If you ever considered kicking off your shoes to run barefoot like our ancestors did, could you not consider fueling your body the way they did as well? They lived well, and contrary to popular belief, they lived long.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Be well. :)
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