Free the Animal

Arthur De Vany at the Gym

Update 8/17/2008: Since Art changed his blog around, the links below to his photos are no longer available. However, I've written a lot of stuff about Art, and you can skim through all my "EvFit" postings here. Also, here's a recent video clip of Art, taken a few months back at a seminar I attended in Vegas.

For those skeptical about Evolutionary Fitness (diet and exercise) and its long-term health benefits, here's a look at Art while at the gym getting some photos done for his book.

He turns 71 years old in August. I would say that almost anyone should be able to obtain those kind of results in just a few year's time, depending on where you are when you begin. It's 80% about the diet, and the workouts should be short (30-40 minutes max), intense, and no more frequent than 2-3 times per week at the gym.

By the way, I'll probably devote a post to this and a few other items, but I dumped the Lyle McDonald Rapid Fat Loss Diet early in the week and went back to eating EvFit/Paleo and I'm not looking back, ever. I bring this up because I think a lot of people look at someone like Art, who has been practicing EvFit for 25 years or so, and they conclude it's going to be hard work, requiring too much discipline, etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm just one person and I guess that perhaps some would not enjoy an EvFit lifestyle, but all I could think of while on that low-carb, low-fat, mega protein diet in order to speed my progress in getting to 10% BF was getting back to the EvFit way of eating that I have come to love. This is a way of life, or "Life Way," as Art calls it, not a diet or "exercise program." All that Art has really accomplished by eating and exercising as he does is to let his 2-3 million year evolved genes express themselves as they were meant to do -- even into one's 70s, 80s, and most likely well beyond.

How Big a Fool Are You?

Let me show you. This would apply to any of millions worldwide who think Al Gore is a great guy and good for the environment.

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

[...]

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In the wake of becoming the most well-known global warming alarmist, Gore won an Oscar, a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, Gore saw his personal wealth increase by an estimated $100 million thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria.

Suckers & Fools.

(that link was via my brother in email)

Good Fats Bad Fats

If you're a regular, you probably have a good idea. If not, chances are you've got it all wrong.

He's at it again

Think about it. Why on earth should children get tooth decay (see addendum)? Stephan thinks he knows.

Weston price was a dentist and scientist in the early part of the 20th century. Practicing dentistry in Cleveland, he was amazed at the poor state of his patients' teeth and the suffering it inflicted. At the time, dental health was even worse than it is today, with some children in their teens already being fitted for dentures. Being a religious man, he could not bring himself to believe that 'physical degeneration' was what God intended for mankind. He traveled throughout the world looking for cultures that did not have crooked teeth or dental decay, and that also exhibited general health and well-being. And he found them. A lot of them.

A Bit of a Roundup in Fitness

The diet experiment went OK last week, though if anyone has been checking my FitDay data, I haven't updated since Thursday (but I will). Add to that, we had a going-away party Friday night, another one at friends' on Saturday night, and then there was the Father's day festivities at mom's yesterday. Mom does low carb, and after the previous two nights of overindulgence I was off the alcohol, so it was about one for three.

And now both Bea and I -- with her off school for the summer -- are back on Lyle's program. I really hate it. It's just too low in fat. But I'll stick with it until we head down to SoCal on the 2nd of July. Then I plan to resume a bit lower fat version of Paleo / EvFit. Principally, I'll forego nuts and cheese until I get the last couple dozen pounds of fat off. Maintenance will be a cinch. Hey, I already love eating this way and even when pounds were coming off excruciatingly slow, I never gained anything more than the typical fluctuations of a pound or two, which is probably digestive and water retention.

By the way, I had the idea of going to a low fat regime temporarily by reading these two entries from Dr. Michael Eades, author of Protein Power (with a new book off to the publisher). If you're doing low carb and have had issues with losing weight (fat), then those two blog entries and the comments are essential reading. I have steadily lost fat the whole year + I've been doing this, but at times it has slowed to as little as a pound to two per month. Cutting out alcohol (at least during the weekdays), as well as nuts and cheese really did the trick and a couple of weeks ago I dropped four pounds in three days (prior to beginning Lyle's program).

In other news, Stephan has interesting updates on the Masai. The first deals with the binary nature of the stats on atherosclerosis, and the second, how their low cholesterol on a very high-saturated fat diet went way up when the saturated fat was cut out. Also, this comment of Stephan's on the first of the cited links is a must.

Next up, my friend Justin Owings has a couple of interesting ones. The Stochasticity of Life bears serious reflection, with a quote from someone I link to a lot. As someone who places a lot of weight on the notion that ideas shape the future and serve to explain the past, this is a good reminder that ideas and principles, while crucially important, aren't everything. There is still a randomness. Here's why: there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people living this very minute even more evil than Hitler in terms of the ideas they hold. Consider that. And, you will never eliminate them. You must understand that a great deal of what happens is not caused by bad and/or evil ideas -- they have always persisted and always will -- but by random and stochastic events and cycles that simply happen and that nobody can ever predict, much less have any idea of just what combination will set off a chain reaction of evil that results in the murder of tens of millions.

Justin again, this time on the topic of Hormesis. Here's his entry, which you'll note references me. In an email exchange we determined that the idea I'd actually passed on to him was one of using the clod dip if one is availalbe at your gym. That was on Stephan's Hormesis post, and my comment about getting into 40 degree water after the workout, sauna, steam room and hot tub.

Art is making progress on his redesign, and it looks good. "Super Mike" has turned 55 years old and is looking better and leaner than ever. Now, I can imagine that the untrained eye doesn't think he looks as good as he does, but that's an illusion created by the camera, owing to his twisting sideways at the waist and getting a 2D instead of 3D image of it. Trust me.

On the mental health front, Karen has fired HP and Microsoft. And hired Apple. My first email out of the day this morning was a note of congratulations.