Newsflash: Vitaminwater just sugar water, not actually good for you

Coca Cola is being sued for making false health claims about Vitaminwater.  John Robbins exposes the idiocy of Coca Cola's claims in court -- Coke isn't arguing that Vitaminwater is, in fact, good for you, but that no one could possibly believe that it is a healthy product.  Really?  I actually like Michael Pollan's rule of thumb: Avoid foods you see advertised on television.

 

A few other reactions:

Yet somehow Vitaminwater is one of those products that is acceptable to drink if you are an upper-middle class conventionally health-conscious person.  Snickers bars, not so much.  That's because Vitaminwater has been branded as smart, intelligent, water-based, and full of vitamins.  Brilliant branding, but guess what?  It's still just sugar water.

                      

I Am Legend

Ever see I Am Legend?  Will Smith has New York City all to himself.  Oh yeah, except for a few zombies.  That was like our 5-mile run at 7am this morning.

A group of us did the Summer Fun Run up Park Avenue, which had been blocked off from the Financial District up to 72nd St.  Totally surreal running in the street with no cars around.  And when we approached Grand Central, it felt right out of the movie.  Deserted streets, a silent city, no cars, and running up the ramp that approaches the imposing and impressive terminal, sitting there in the middle of the road, forcing the road to contort itself around it, and forcing you to look at it.

And the zombies?  They were chasing us.  Zombie joggers.  Heaving, huffing and puffing, drooling, misshapen, angry, and hungry for human flesh bagels.

Good preparation for our 8-mile run with Christopher McDougall on Wednesday -- feel free to join even if running in normal sneakers.

Team Garmin goes gluten-free for the Tour de France

People are waking up to gluten.  Team Garmin went totally gluten-free for this year's tour.  Because they're celiacs?  No, because gluten causes inflammation.  (Even beer face.)  Here's what Team Garmin had to say about it: [my bolding]

Our special “anti-inflammatory” diet

For years bike racers have lived on pasta as their primary source of carbohydrates. Jonathan Vaughters has often said that he’ll never eat pasta again as long as he lives! At least the over-cooked pasta that is served in most of the race hotels around the world, the exception being the hotels at the Giro.
 
At this year’s Tour de France, we decided to make a change for our riders. Instead of having pasta and bread every night for dinner we asked our chef, Willy, to prepare rice. And we are giving the riders rice cakes and corn cakes instead of bread. Why? I believe that the high amounts of wheat products that are normally consumed by bike racers at the Tour have an inflammatory effect in the body. I believe that most people have either an overt allergy to wheat products (as Julian Dean demonstrates) or at least a sub-symptomatic inflammatory response to wheat products.
 
At the Tour de France, one of the biggest goals is to maintain as low a state of inflammation as possible. The amount of inflammation that the riders bodies accumulate during the day is so high that any little bit of help we can give them, and this includes dietary modifications, is essential.
 
So, our guys are eating very little wheat products (bread, pasta) and also very little red meat (which also has a pro-inflammatory effect on the body). Most of the meals consist of oats (Willy’s porridge in the mornings!), and in the evenings the guys are eating a lot of chicken, turkey and fish.
 
Yes, they’ve had a couple meals of pasta and red meat. We do need to give them a bit of variety, but the rule has been rice, oats, chicken, fish and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables! Even the foods that we give them on the bike are rice based.
 
There’s a bit of insight into what the guys are eating here at the Tour.
 
Well, there you have it folks -- from the mouths of professional athletes.  Wheat is no good.  Well, what about whole wheat?  Yeah, that too.   (I can't take the good without the bad, and this guy thinks red meat has an inflammatory effect too -- I don't know.  Update: See comment by Levi on red meat being mildly anti-inflammatory.)
 
Here's a more important take-away: superstar athletes are still learning what's good for them and bad for them.  They haven't figured it out yet.  Even when it comes to the basics.  WHO WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT THAT PASTA WOULD BE CHALLENGED AS A GOOD FUEL?  Doesn't everybody knows that pasta is the ideal food before a long endurance challenge?
 
The conventional wisdom continues to crumble.  A continuing series.
 
(Thanks to my grandmother, a late blooming celiac, for sending me this link.)

Run with Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run

Read the best-selling book Born to Run?  Want to go for a run with Christopher McDougall?  And then shoot the breeze with him?  Yes, of course you do.  So mark down Wednesday, August 11th and arrange to get out of work a little early.  This is going to be so much fun.   Details below and at Barefoot NYC.

And spread the word.

 

Join Christopher McDougall, author of “Born to Run,” and John Durant, founder of Barefoot Runners NYC, in an epic barefoot run from Harlem to Brooklyn. Run barefoot, near-barefoot, or fully shod but barefoot curious. Rediscover the fun of running barefoot, and tap into the natural quickness and strength buried in your soles. We’ll party in the park before and after, and every step of the way.  The full run is 8 miles, but feel free to join for any part of the run — see course map for meeting points.  Chris will be giving a book talk at Word Bookstore, just near the finish, at 7:30pm.  The cost is $25 (and includes the book), but there is no obligation for runners to attend.

Click for ROUTE MAP

Start: Marcus Garvey Park (NW corner at 124th and Mt. Morris Park)
Time: Run begins at 4pm. Runners will begin gathering at 3pm.
Route: Join us anywhere along the way.  We’ll be entering Central Park at Malcom X and 110th.  We’ll be running on East Drive all the way down through Central Park.  We’ll be exiting Central Park at 60th St. and 5th Avenue.  Then crossing the Queensboro Bridge to Brooklyn
Finish: American Playground, near Word Bookstore at 126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn (Franklin and Milton)
RSVP: To sign up for the run, please RSVP at Barefoot Runners NYC
Media Inquiries: Please contact Christopher McDougall or John Durant

Eukonkanto: The Ancient Sport of Wife Carrying

A Finnish friend of mine (also paleo) recently told me about a new workout he's been doing.  He shoulders his wife using a fireman's carry, and then does squats.  No joke.  Works his strength and balance, and her abs too.  

Apparently, there is a whole sport around "wife carrying" in Scandinavia.  Seems to have begun as a joke in Finland, mimicking some past time when men ran off with women.  Here's a Village Voice article that describes wife carrying as what cave people used to do, but the much more recent Vikings were probably much better at it.  (Practice makes perfect.)  Regardless, what began as a joke now has national and international competitions.  Still small, but growing.  My buddy and his wife want to compete.

There are different types of carries: the fireman's carry, piggyback, or Estonian-style: "the wife hangs upside-down with her legs around the husband's shoulders, holding onto his waist."  See the picture.  Pretty awesome.

Check out the rules at Wikipedia.  Here are two I like:

  • The track has two dry obstacles and a water obstacle, about one meter deep.

Kind of like a mini Tough Mudder, but for couples.

  • The wife to be carried may be your own, the neighbor's, or you may have found her further afield; she must, however, be over 17 years of age.

Now really.  There should be a prize for couples that are, in fact, married.  And just like you have age/gender groups in road races, you could have anniversary tiers.  You compete against other couples that have been married for 5-10 years, 10-20 years, 20-30 years, and so on.

Because don't forget the most important thing that wife carrying strengthens: your marriage.

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