Matt Metzgar

2007 Wrap-up

Back at the end of 2006, I posted my goals for 2007.  My main goal was to trim my waist.  Even though my weight was staying the same, around 168 lbs, I felt that my body compositon was shifting a bit the wrong way.  So at the beginning of this year (2007), I measured my waist (at the navel) and found it was just under 36 inches.  Ouch!  That was a wakeup call.  And so I set my goal to reduce it to 31 inches, what my waist was in high school if I remember correctly.

I measured my waist this morning and it was 32 and a half inches.  So I'm well on the way to my goal measurement, though I obviously didn't reach the goal this year. 

I experimented with a lot of different things to reduce my waist.  From January to May, I tried the increased exercise route - more walking, more interval training - and my waist didn't budge.  In June, I made a dietary change: I cut out all refined sugar.  With this change, my waist went from around 36 to 34 inches.  I was only having a bit of sugar at night, but I guess it was enough to cause problems, because eliminating it definitely helped me.

By mid-October, I was really starting to sweat because my waist seemed stuck at 34 inches.  At that time, I looked at the new paleo diet study and found that the participants restricted nuts.  I was eating a good bit of cashews at the time, so then I restricted them to an ounce per day.  That seemed to do the trick, as my waist has been slowly declining since.  I don't think the calories from the nuts were the problem per se, but the omega-3/omega-6 ratio of cashews is not that good, and that may have been creating metabolic issues.

I will continue on with this goal and hopefully reach it in the first few months of 2008.  My waist has been slowly declining the past couple months, so I may just need more time to reach my goal.  If not, I will do some more fine-tuning on the diet side.

That is probably the biggest lesson I learned in 2007, how powerful diet is.  Previously, I thought exercise was king and diet was queen, but now I think the reverse.  My own experience showed me that dietary changes were more powerful than exercise.  This is not to say that exercise isn't important or necessary, just that dietary problems can cancel out any potential gains from exercise.

The other issue is determining what size my "natural" waist is.  Even at low body fat levels, people have different natural waist sizes based on their bone structure/frame.  When Schwarzenegger competed in bodybuilding, his waist was 34 inches, but that's because he has a larger, mesomorph frame.  Just visually, I'm guessing that my natural waist is 31 inches, but I guess I really won't find out until I get to that level. 

Kiss Me Baby One More Time

I caught the news the other day that Britney Spear's little sister, Jamie Lynn, is pregnant.  A lot of people are up in arms about her becoming pregnant at such a young age of 16.  But for me, this incident highlights a much bigger health issue.

Breast cancer rates in industrialized societies are on the rise.  And even though I see lots of promotions about finding a cure, I don't think the basic information about prevention is out there.  The physiological function of the breasts is breastfeeding.  So right there you would think there should be a connection between a women's reproductive behavior and breast cancer.

From the little research I've done, there are many factors that contribute to breast cancer.  Genetic, environmental, and diet factors all play a role.  But the most obvious risk factors related to reproduction should be highlighted.  To reduce risks in this way, the research says a woman should:

• Start having children earlier than later
• Breastfeed as long as possible
• Have mutiple children

For example, this new study shows how the rising age of first birth for a woman contributes to breast cancer risk.  And here's a good article that mentions how breast cancer was originally thought to be primarily a disease of nuns, due to their childlessness.

For ancient hunter-gatherers without birth control, women had children at a much younger age than they do now.  According to this study, forager women were around 19 years old when they first gave birth.  So a 16-year-old getting pregnant is not unnatural from an evolutionary standpoint (though I am certainly not recommending it).

Like everyone else, I would like to see breast cancer eliminated.  But I think more people and organizations need to look at the issue through an evolutionary lens to accomplish the goal. 

The Meaningful Path

Occassionally, I meet older couples who don't have children, and it always strikes me as a strange situation.  It's one thing if a couple has trouble conceiving or isn't settled yet.  But it's an entirely different situation when a couple "chooses" not to have children.

I put "chooses" in quotes because evolution really didn't set up children as a choice.  Evolution made sex fun, and then voila, children appear nine months later.  In other words, it is not supposed to be an intellectual choice; there is no mental framework for weighing the costs and benefits of children.  It is just a natural outcome of a relationship.

I used to think having children was strange, now I think not having children is strange.  Having a child around feels very, very natural.  And whatever preconceived ideas I had about children have discarded; parenting is mostly a visceral, emotional process.  And I love it.   

Fun with Colors

I just found out I can change the font color in the body of a post.  It seems like a good way to jazz things up - I'm not sure why I haven't seen it more often with other blogs.

Fooled by HIT II

In this post, I talked about my shifting feelings towards HIT (High-Intensity Training).  For many years, I bought into the idea that one set to failure, performed infrequently was sufficient for muscle growth.  It turns out this type of protocol is sufficient for increasing strength and maintaining muscle mass, but not really effective for building new muscle mass.

In hindsight, I wonder why I was so close-minded about this for so long.  I think the issue was I became emotionally attached to a certain point of view, and with this can come problems.  You start to become less objective and less open to new data and information.

In my current state of mind, I could care less as to what protocol builds muscle.  Whether it's 3 sets of 8, 5 sets of 5, 10 sets of 10, I don't care as long as it produces results.  Researchers are still figuring out the theoretical aspects of what causes muscle growth.  Until then, it's better to follow the empirical evidence and just do what works.   

Testosterone and Diet III

I've come across a number of articles about older men having low testosterone levels.  Usually, doctors prescribe some kind of external testosterone supplementation, such as injections, gels, or patches.  My inital thought is, why don't doctors first look at improving a person's internal production of testosterone (via diet)?

Dietary fat and cholesterol is crucial for testosterone production.  On one forum, I saw where a person had doubled their testosterone levels (verified by blood work) just by adding eggs to their diet.  This is only an unproven anecdote, but it doesn't seem too farfetched to me.  Dietary measures should be the first line of treatment in raising testosteroe levels, not pharmaceuticals.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

Testosterone and Diet II

Here is an older study(pdf) that looks at how diet affects testosterone.  Total fat, saturated fat, and monsaturated fat are all strongly correlated with greater testosterone levels.  Polyunsaturated fat and cholesterol are both positively correlated with higher testosterone as well.  Carbohydrate is negatively correlated with testosterone, and protein is strongly negatively correlated with testosterone.

The carbohydrate connection is easy enough to explain: too many carbs lead to high insulin levels which then reduce testosterone.  But it's intriguing that, again, a higher protein intake is linked with lower testosterone levels.  Bodybuilding diets usually push protein intake, but the charts in this paper clearly show that beyond a certain point there is a negative impact.  Instead, it appears that dietary fat is anabolic, and that fat is a crucial stimulus for muscle growth.

More on Vitamin D

It looks like the issue of Vitamin D is gaining momentum.  I just came across this website, The Vitamin D Cure, which spotlights a book of the same name.  The book will be coming out next month, and has already reviewed praise from Loren Cordain, author of The Paleo Diet. 

At least here in Buffalo, people seem to be buying more Vitamin D supplements.  When I initially went to the drug store to buy Vitamin D, two of the three brands were completely sold out.  When I went to the local Vitamin Shoppe last week to buy some Vitamin D, they were out of many of the brands as well.  The saleslady remarked that it had been flying off the shelves, and that many local doctors have been prescribing it.  It's sad to say, but if Vitamin D was patentable and pharmaceutical companies could make money off it, we all probably would have heard about its benefits long ago.

Muscle and Disease

Here is a nice review(pdf) of the relationship between muscle and disease.  It shows how in many ways muscle is crucial to immune function.  It also shows how added muscle can help treat insulin resistance and diabetes.  Finally, it talks about the recommended protein intake for muscle maintenance/growth.