How Google Reader Saved My Life

Google Reader is shutting down.

Hey Google, We Still Love Reader

I'm in shock.

This blog is about barefoot running and healthy, paleo-style diets.  These two topics have utterly changed my and my family's life in the past five years.

Post moved to Substack

"Just Eat Fish"

Agreed.

I supplemented for several years.  It was better than not supplementing.

When I decided to stop eating seed oils, and started supplementing with cod liver oil, I craved the cod liver oil like mad.  Couldn't get to sleep without a dose.  For about four months.

Now I eat fish regularly, avoid seed oils (omega-6 oils) like the plague, and have no desire whatsoever to eat the cod liver oil in my fridge. 

I tried eating a bunch of typical seed oils for lunch a couple of weeks ago.  It messed my brain up seriously for a day or so, and I still don't feel that I've gotten completely back to normal.  The new normal, that is.  I won't make that mistake again.

The only thing I crave now, occasionally, is salmon roe.  Love that.

And listen to folks comment on how different my behavior is.  For the better.

(That article is why I started supplementing with fish oil in the first place.  I now believe that most, if not all, of our modern health problems involve malnutrition in one way or another.)

The Runner

When I moved to CT, I met a friend I'll call "The Runner", and got roped into running with him; I had to adopt a running plan.

The Runner had proposed climbing Mt. Washington in NH in the winter when we met. I'd done this in high school, and, although I was obviously in much worse shape at that point than I had been in high school, signed up for it.

As The Runner and I discussed how to get me in shape, we agreed that the best and most efficient way was to start trail running. At that point I thought I had "bad" knees, and hated running on the road. But I like hiking, and running trails was something I'd always been interested in. So trail running seemed like a great idea.

I knew from my experience running in NYC that building up distance was not going to work for me. Lack of patience, lack of discipline, awareness of another method? I don't know. But I knew that working up to a distance wouldn't happen, as I would lose interest in the project. So I decided to do the reverse. Pick a distance, run it, and keep running it until I got my time down to something reasonable. This approach had worked well in hiking and roller-blading. Although painful, it offers a certain satisfaction.

I picked a 5.1 mile loop in a local park. (I didn't find out what the exact distance was for 8 years, btw.) The first "run" took 2.5 hours. I was pretty out of shape. I finally got it down to 49+ minutes. I had no problem going up Mt. Washington with The Runner.

So now I'm thinking about running longer distances. I've been trying to build up a bit, but am sort of running into the same issue. I think I really need to just pick a long loop, like 15 to 20 miles, and run it, and see how it goes. Once I get that under my belt, I'd like to pick it up to an even longer run...

How have other folks who've done ultra-distances approached this?


This was originally posted here, on June 28, 2010.  Follow the link to see the conversation.

Podcasts

I drive 35 miles each way to work every day.  That leaves me a lot of time...

Most recently I've gotten into listening to podcasts.  I'm going to start linking to, and reviewing, some of the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis, as there are some pretty great podcasts out there.

"Diverticulitis": My Story

In my twenties I got really sick; lying in bed for 5 days, bleeding from the lower part of my digestive tract: not pretty. I didn't see a doctor at the time because I had no health insurance, so I have no idea what the diagnosis might have been.

Delirious days later and ten pounds lighter and I was recovered, except for one problem: I had diarrhea for the subsequent 14 years. That's right, 14 years. When I got back into active sports it was a real problem, I had to bring a roll of toilet paper along everywhere, just in case.

Post moved to Substack.

Why Yell "Stop"?

A year ago, I clicked on a link in an ad in Google Reader.  The link took me to this video.

At the end of the video, Christopher McDougall puts on a pair of Vibram FiveFinger Sprints.  I'd bought a pair of these two years before, but had largely given up wearing them.  The fact that someone who wore these had written a book about running piqued my interest, so I ordered the book Born to Run, read it in one sitting, and had my mind blown.  The next night I read this book again.  I can't remember the last time I'd read a book two times in a row.  The premise that McDougall presents in that book is, simply put, incredible.  The next day, I got my Sprints back out of the closet, and started hiking and running in them again.  And I started reading, trying to find out if McDougall's hypothesis, while incredible, might actually be true.

McDougall's premise, writ large, is that we've been misled by Progress.  We've trusted in Scientific Authority, and they've taken us down the wrong path, a path that is not only making us less happy, but is actually injuring us and our children.  McDougall's premise in Born to Run is limited to the world of running shoes, but over the last year I've learned that the same premise applies in other important areas of our lives.  Areas in which I'd assumed the scientific and commercial establishments could be trusted, only to find out over the last year that they could not.  On a number of fronts we've been led down the wrong path, in the wrong direction, and it's having an enormous negative impact on our health.  My goal is to present information that will allow you to Yell Stop, and head in a better direction.

I started this blog to share some of the enormous amount of research and reading I've done over the last year.  A good quantity of it has been shared already on Barefoot Ted's (one of the characters from Born to Run ) Minimalist Running email group, and can be found here.  Unfortunately the search interface is horrible; which is odd, as it's a Google Group, but there you go.

I'll be reposting and updating some of that material, and adding new stuff as I go along.  Welcome.