Zero to Superhero

40 Sleep Hacks: The Geek's Guide to Optimizing Sleep

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:17:56 -0800

40 Sleep Hacks: The Geek's Guide to Optimizing Sleep

The Ugly, Painful Side of Cycling

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 11:35:00 -0700

Don't get me wrong. I love cycling to a near irrational extent. I've been known to ride my mountain bike to an neighbouring city and back, my legs logging in 80 km or more a day for up to five days a week until I'm seriously overtrained. Whee!

So why am I dumping on cycling, when gasoline prices have never been higher and city smog ever so caustic?

I can only explain it as ironic. All my wheel-spinning and soaking up sunshine has manifested a dark side to hardcore riding, and I've learned some hard truths. They are:

Warning: Salty Language

In an afternoon of summertime riding, you will likely discharge upwards of 12 grams of sodium in your perspiration, resulting in vicious muscle cramps and extreme fatigue.

Here's a visual check for you to try: Go look at your dirty laundry (but avoid inhaling through the nostrils ;-) If your workout threads have white salt stain streaks on them, congratulations - you're a salty sweater. Be sure to nosh on some salty snacks before an afternoon of hammering on the pedals.

Heart Breaker

Insufficient fluid intake will force your heart to work harder in delivering precious oxygen to toiling muscles. The reason for this is because the water for perspiration (to cool down the skin and prevent you from baking like an apple turnover) will have to come from somewhere, so it's drawn from the bloodstream, thereby lowering your blood volume and raising your heart rate.

So I guess this is my way of saying Be careful when riding on hot days, and make sure you've got plenty of fluids on hand.

FYI, insufficient is defined as anything less than eight fluid ounces per hour.

Take a Stand

Your bike seat could be causing you more damage than you can imagine. The first and most feared problem is numbness in the nether regions, which ultimately can cause the Erectile Dysfunction/Infertility Duo of Self-Demoralization.

Then there is the knee pain and maximum soreness of the gluteus maximus combo of uncomfortableness. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, see a doctor and either try moving your seat up, or invest in a anatomic relief bicycle saddle.

Bad News For Cycling Psychos

You will not get "cut" or "buff" by bicycling alone.

While all that leg pumping and cardiovascular exercise will do you a world (and the world's environment) good, it's not the ultimate answer to getting in shape. The reason for this is because you're body is so very smart, and it can acclimatize itself to specific exercises when done over and over.

For example, the first week of hard cycling will shed flab fast, but with every subsequent week, you'll derive less and less benefits. It's because your body is getting wise to the workload and will make physiological adjustments accordingly.

The fix? Mix it up with resistance training one day, cycling the next, while running intermittently as well.

Happy Cycling!

P.S. This post was written in part and edited on my iPhone. If it looks like I was high on glue when I posted this, that's my excuse - and I'm sticking with it ;)

P.S.S. I'm at work on the new revised Zero to Superhero book. If you'd like to be the first to know when it's released, please get on the e-mailing list. BTW, early subscribers get free schwag!

Permalink

A Terrifyingly Good Reason to Chew Your Food Slowly

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:32:00 -0700

If you have the habit of inhaling food up your left nostril instead of chewing and savouring every morsel, Chuck Palahniuk offers a solution in his novel Rant: An Oral History of Buster Casey.

In the story, Irene Casey, mother and church potluck celebrity recalls how she trained her two boys Chet and Buddy to eat slowly.

You see, they used to be classic "inhalers", wolfing down her laboriously-prepared cakes and casseroles without tasting, or even thinking about the meal. That was until she started "accidentally" leaving cherry pits in the peach cobbler or sharp shards of walnut shell in her famous apple brown cake.

For fear of breaking their jaws or shredding the inside of their mouths to bloody ribbons, the two boys quickly learned to consciously chew slower. From the book:

"When you ate her tuna casserole, you didn't flip through a National Geographic. Your eyes and ears stayed inside your mouth. Your whole world kept inside your mouth, feeling and careful for the little balled-up tinfoils Irene Casey would hide in the tuna parts.

A side effect of eating slow was, you naturally, genuinely tasted, and the food tasted better."

I'm not advocating inserting foreign objects or inedible items into food (come on now). I'm trying to underscore the importance of chewing food cautiously and slowly.

It's better for digestion; it helps you feel fuller, faster, and because there are no taste buds in your nasal cavities.

Visit me on Google Buzz

Permalink

The Simple, Easy 26.2 Marathon Training Program

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:29:00 -0700

Bookmark this on Delicious

Running a marathon starts with a single step - assuming these steps are made with a good pair of running shoes and a medical practitioner’s blessing. Here is a marathon training plan I designed for myself, that perhaps you could find use for as well. For this reason I've written the Simple, Easy 26.2 Marathon Training Program in the second-person narrative.

Keep in mind I am not a certified running coach and don't play one on television either. I have formal training in fitness theory and personal training, but haven't yet run a 26.2 marathon (although I did run the distance once in non competition).

I'm a lifehacker who creates simple-to-follow systems because it's what I do. Nuff said.

First thing first: determine your foot type so you can choose the right running shoe for you. This video will show you how:

WEEK ONE:

Run for 5 Minutes, 5 Days a Week. Take 2 Days Rest

To start training for a marathon, you start with baby steps.

On the first week of training, you only need to commit five measly minutes to running. The distance will be very short (unless you are out of shape).

If you run over five minutes, awesome (you may already be a decent runner), but you're only expected to run for five minutes Monday to Friday, to get this plan started proper. Take the Saturday and Sunday off.

Mega Ultra Important Rule #1: If you exceed the minutes one day, the excess minutes cannot be carried over to the next day.

WEEK TWO:

Run 10 Minutes for 5 Days. Take 2 Days Rest

Week two, bump up your running to 10 minute sessions a day.

Like five minutes the week before, 10 minutes a day is short enough that anyone can do it, no matter what physical shape you're in. Again, run Monday to Friday and take the weekends off. You can swap a day of the week for Saturday, if it suits you better, but leave Sunday as your off day. Having one carved-in-stone day of rest will be comforting to you psychologically as well as physically when you start logging the mega-miles.

Consider yourself in good shape if you can cover a mile in 10 minutes.

Mega Ultra Important Rule #2: Run at a comfortable pace. Walk if you must. If you're new to running, don't run as fast or as far as you think you can. Consistency is far more important at this stage of the game.

WEEK THREE:

Run 15 Minutes for 5 Days. Rest 2 Days

On week three, your training notches up to 15 minutes per day, for 5 days a week. It's still not the kind of vigorous exercise people should be getting every day, but we're gradually and gently conditioning tendons and muscles. If your muscles feel hella sore, or you feel unwell, stay home and stretch. Just be sure to adhere to the following rule...

Mega Ultra Important Rule #3: Run/trot/walk at least three times a week. Remember Newton's first law of motion? An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. This applies to ourselves and the dedication we have to our training. More often you train, more likely you are to continue.

WEEK FOUR TO WEEK TWELVE:

Run for 20 Minutes, 5 Days a Week. Take 2 Days Rest

Twenty minutes training is the generally accepted minimum amount of sustained exercise one needs to do to accrue any real health benefits. Five days of training in a week is the generally accepted maximum (any more might lead to over-training).

Train within these parameters for the next eight weeks (taking an extra day off when you need to and using common sense at all times) and you’ll be ready for phase two, which will be posted two months from now.

Be safe and have fun!

Permalink

Beware White Bread

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:50:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

Interesting story, this.

My friend Gordon was telling me about the time he visited a flour mill.

He watched as they prepared the flour for white bread, and what he saw blew his mind (and turned him off white bread forever). They poured bleach into the flour, the same kind of bleach Moon Knight would use to wash his spandex leotards!

At first, I doubted his story. I mean, there's no way they would actually use chemical bleach to whiten the flour, would they?

After doing some research, it turns out it's true. Chlorine, chloride, oxide of nitrogen, nitrosyl and benzoyl peroxide mixed with a medley of chemical salts are mainstay ingredients in your loaf of Wonder Bread.

So that's what they mean when they call it "enriched" flour.

Permalink

Limitations Breed Success

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:20:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

Whatever reason you desperately cling to with a white knuckled death grip to blame and explain why you haven't achieved your dreams, the gig is up. Lack of money, or time, or resources aren't problems - they are a means to a creative solution.

The very limitations and deficits that hold you back can be the very things that can provide the fertile ground for innovation and success.

It’s a state of mind, and you can acquire it. It’s a skill you can hone. Just ask these real-life heroes…

Konrad Lorenz, Nobel Prize winner and founding father of modern ethology (the study of animal behaviour) reportedly wrote his psychological masterpiece Behind The Mirror not as a free man behind a desk with reams of fresh paper at his disposal, but as a POW in a prison camp. In the frozen tundras of Russia. On the backs of potato cloths.

Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger.com and the Web 2.0 monster hit Twitter, has the super ability of innovation through reduction. By boiling down the traditional blog to a mere one line, 140 character text field, he had created a "microblogging" service that utilising instant messaging via cell phone or pc. Now it's integrated into the very fabric of modern communications.

The highest point on planet earth is the top of Mount Everest, an elevation of 29028 feet. The air up there is dangerously thin and cold, and we're talking 150 degrees below zero kind of cold when you include wind chill. When climbing Mount Everest, plan on constant fatigue and bad frostbite, with a side order of hypothermia. The swirling winds, at near-hurricane strength, have trapped climbers and made them permanent fixtures of the mountain. In fact, since 1953, at least 165 brave climbers to die in that icy hell. Which makes it all the more amazing how 33 year old Erik Weihenmayer made it to the top. Erik is totally blind.

Can you see how there are no excuses, only possibilities? You can utterly disintegrate whatever’s holding you back from making your ultimate dreams happen. The trick is to not focus on restrictions, but to focus on leveraging apparent weaknesses into strengths. All you need to bring to the table is a mind for problem solving and the steely determination to see it through to the end.

The results will be supernatural.

Permalink

Three Steps To Obtaining (More) Wisdom

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:52:00 -0800

"Wisdom is intensely practical, not theoretical... wisdom is the art of being successful, of forming the correct plan to gain the desired results" -- J.D. Douglas

With this definition, and bringing to bear what I've learned in my eventful life (and I have by no means cornered the market), here are three steps to obtaining more wisdom... and more success in your life:

Humility

Being humble means being teachable, and in order to acquire knowledge we need to be receptive to learning opportunities. That means listening intently when someone speaks to you, and following up with questions that will extract the information they have and the information you want.

In Stephen Covey's best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the fifth habit is to "Seek First to Understand, then be Understood". When someone feels understood and interesting, the flow of information becomes that much greater.

Information vs Relevance

In this day and age of the Internet and instant global communications, we often already have enough information to solve a problem. Often we have too much information at our discretion. Asserts Dallin H. Oaks, former justice of the Utah Supreme Court:

"Because of modern technology, the contents of huge libraries and other data resources are at the fingertips of many of us. Some choose to spend countless hours in unfocused surfing the Internet, watching trivial television, or scanning other avalanches of information. But to what purpose? Those who engage in such activities are like the two partners in my story, hurrying to and fro, hauling more and more but failing to grasp the essential truth that we cannot make a profit from our efforts until we understand the true value of what is already within our grasp."

We need to set aside time for personal introspection and pondering - to assimilate all the information we've already received and validate it as knowledge, and apply that knowledge into action for success.

Priorities and Focus

With so much information and distraction in our lives, establishing priorities, setting goals and applying the unrelenting mental focus of Professor X is necessary, if we want to cut through the clutter and make the best use of our time.

As the saying goes, "Three things never come back—the spent arrow, the spoken word, and the lost opportunity."

Permalink

Our Bodies are Harddrives

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:54:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

Our bodies never forget a thing.

Anything we ever do to our body, put into our body, take away from our body, is recorded in our body.

Our lips may speak lies, but the posture of our frame will manifest the truth.

A striking example would be handology, an industry-standard method of analyzing the creases in the hand for distinctive genetic traits, health trends and even influences of the mind. My friend Gerald E. Picard was the one who pioneered the science of handology, and in his book Gerald explains how the cerebral cortex creates these rivers of lines in our palms.

He claims anything that has ever strongly influenced your life will appear as a crag and can be read on your dominant hand.

Just as one's cumulated thoughts shape character and influence actions, the truth of our lives are revealed in our faces. Says Spencer W. Kimball in The Miracle of Forgiveness:

"Not only does a person become what he thinks, but often he comes to look like it. If he worships the God of War, hard lines tend to develop on his countenance. If he worships the God of Lust, dissipation will mark his features. If he worships the God of Peace and Truth, serenity will crown his visage."

Permalink

Burn Body Fat Wicked Fast with the Keto-Fu Plan: The Basics

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:57:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

Some backstory first.

The Keto-Fu plan was first published online under the title Keto Diet Plan circa eight years ago on the Bodyuilding.com discussion forum. Soon after, a woman from Chicago emailed me. She wrote that a sales person at the local GNC outlet lost 18 lbs in a month on a diet he found on the internet. She asked for the link and it was the Keto Diet Plan!

Anyway, to make a short story even shorter, she was excited and she encouraged me to expand it into a book. The Keto Diet Plan eventually evolved into a chapter of the book Zero to Superhero.

Zero to Superhero took over four years to research, test and write, and although I'd rather jam a spork into my left eyeball than re-read a few lousy passages that somehow made it to the printed page, the book remains underground and useful.

Oh yeah, and you know the rigamarole. Zero to Superhero, in whole and in part, is for entertainment purposes only. I am NOT a doctor or a registered nutritionist. I am just a guy who likes to get the inside scoop on topics that interest me, and share the information with others who could benefit.

Alright. With introductions out of the way, I'm now faced with the daunting task of explaining in adequate detail how to lose a tremendous amount of fat in a blog post.

I think I'm up to it.

It's time to burn body fat wicked fast with the Keto-Fu Plan!

First, Stop Eating Carbohydrates

The primary objective is for your body to achieve a seemingly magical metabolic state known as ketosis, and to do this you must forsake all carbohydrates. Pastries, breads, most soups (etc, etc) are all forbidden.

You may think abstaining from carbs will be a piece of cake, but cake is full of carbohydrates too, so you'll have to think of something else!

No carbohydrates means no condiments like ketchup salsa or even mustard. It means no juice, colas or milk, only water. A double no to the popular "diet" Crystal Light powdered drink mixes. Crystal Light contains dangerous neurotoxins aspartame and acesulfame potassium in it (the "Red 40" and "Yellow 5" listed on the ingredients can't be all that good for you either). Stay away.

You CAN eat eggs and cheese at breakfast, but not toast. Black coffee is okay (for you that is, I'm a Latter-Day Saint and drinking coffee is against the LDS Health Code, so I won't personally endorse it).

Fruit is a big negatory. Fruit is extremely healthy and beneficial, but for the ketosis phase of the Keto-Fu plan to work optimally, you half to cut it out. T ake vitamins instead. My book Zero to Superhero provides a comprehensive list of low carb foods.

Not to fear: Eating fruit and still maintaining ketosis IS possible, if you know the tricks. For now, stick as ridgedly as you can to your new no carb policy until you have a few "cycles" under your belt.

If you are a vegetarian, great. I personally won't buy meat (with exception to sardines, salmon and tuna). Vegetarians and vegans merely need to use whatever no / super low carb meat substitutes they normally use.

Keep calorie consumption of good fats (forget trans fats and bacon gristle, it'll kill ya) higher than your calorie consumption of protein. By "good fats" I'm suggesting Omega 3, in liquid not capsule form. Flaxseed oil and hemp seed oil are perfect. Add it to your dark green vegetables (which are Keto-Fu safe in moderate amounts) or in a no carb protein drink. Try and keep good fats at at least 60% of your total caloric intake.

And another thing, keep your overall caloric consumption to a minimum. This shouldn't be a problem since fat and protein meals provide satiety, and you'll be avoiding carbs which typically make people hungry faster. On the Keto-Fu plan, your stomach will shrink, but without any uncomfortable hunger pangs.

How to Get Your Body Into a Fat Burning Frenzy!

The day you begin the Keto-Fu plan is critical. You want to transition into ketosis as quickly and easily as possible.

Being in a state of ketosis is the golden goblet of fat-burning. In ketosis, your body is incinerating midsection flab like a blast furnace. Yes, that's correct, problem areas like love handles and thighs are first to die!

In ketosis, your body is utilizing your own body fat stores as its primary fuel source. It's like paying off the principle of a mortgage before the interest!

It's why the Keto-Fu plan (and it's ketogenic ilk) rock so hard.

Now it's time to stop daydreaming of a leaner, healthier self and start moving. To achieve the ketosis fat-burning state, you'll need to do four things:

Abstain from eating carbohydrates, essentially replacing carbs with good fats (i.e. flaxseed oil)
Engage in intense cardiovascular exercise for a minimum 20 minutes to get into ketosis fast (rather than the alternative which is fasting 24 hours). Do cardio activity whenever possible (but don't overdo it).
Drink lots of water. Eight glasses isn't nearly enough because you'll need to flush out all the body fat you'll be losing so fast.
Take an unsweetened fibre supplement like Metamucil

Cardio in the morning burns the most fat of the entire day. Intense exercising in the morning, with zero glucose in the blood is fat burning Nirvana! Take full advantage of your mornings to burn the most fat possible.

If you want to work out at the gym, and by that I mean lift weights, you can still do so. However, having eaten no carbohydrates for x amount of days, you may be feeling slightly under the weather (it's normal) and as weak as a newborn kitten (also normal). I suggest bringing a protein drink consisting of whey protein isolate, table sugar, creatine, and my favorite amino acid of all time: glutamine. Zero to Superhero recommends specific amounts and other wicked combinations to help build muscle and burn fat faster.

Sip it in-between sets to give you some energy and power.

Will the sugar kick you out of ketosis? Absolutely, but your muscles will need the amino acids of the protein drink and the sugar will kick the hormone insulin into gear and drive the nutrients of the drank into the muscles and cells.

When you're finished your work out how to a small carbohydrate meal with an apple cider vinegar tablet and chromium to maximize your insulin uptake.

After this small carb meal return back to your no carb diet.

After five days of carbohydrate depravation, you may want to take a break and eat some "fun foods" for a change. Perhaps you started the Keto-Fu plan on Monday morning, it makes sense you would want to transition to more "normal" foods come Friday afternoon when you say, have the kids for the weekend.

If that sounds like a plan, then I have a mindblowing proposition for you! It's called the "The Freakender" and it will allow you to eat pastries, cakes and cereal like it's going out of style. It's similar to what marathon runner's "carb load" before a big race, but it's more aggressive (read the book and you'll see what I mean).

There are some "massive" benefits to "The Freakender" high carb phase:

The Freakender is highly anabolic, which means it builds muscle
The Freakender is fun because you can eat cereal pastries, past and other highly refined high carb foods without gaining an ounce of flab
Calories aren't an issue, neither are grams consumed (as long as you don't want to be too specific and hard-core about it)
After The Freakender, the strength gains you receive are incredible, allowing you to lift more weight and run farther than you thought possible
After The Freakender, your muscle bellies are pumped full of glycogen and look huge
Best of all, if you carb load correctly, you won't gain any body fat whatsoever. You WILL likely gain muscle and likely even get leaner!

If you'd like to more about the Freakender, Zero to Superhero has the deets.

P.S. While we're on the topic of radical, ketogenic-type diets, I'd be amiss if I didn't acknowledge two inspirational books of mine:

The Ketogenic Diet: A Complete Guide for the Dieter and Practitioner by Lyle McDonald
Underground Bodyopus: Militant Weight Loss & Recomposition, by the late and great Dan Duchaine.

Permalink

The Big Hidden Factor In Making The Most Of Your New Gym Membership

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:21:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

When choosing a gym, be sure to visit during peak hours, especially hours you'll be there working out. Pay attention to what the members are like.

Are they your kind of people?

Reality is you'll be far more comfortable at a gym where people like you frequent, in a neighbourhood where people like you live. Even if it's across the city.

I hear you ask why. Shouldn't having the latest equipment be the prime factor? Or a built-in juice bar?

Let me put it this way. If the cheapest, closest gym is a hole in the wall where emotionally fractured MMA wannabes train (and you're not down with that culture), you'll end up not going. That means hundreds of dollars in membership fees flushed down the sewer - and you not dropping that "Christmas 15."

People you like and people like you will create a comfortable environment you'll want to be at. Imagine actually looking forward in anticipation to getting to the gym every day!

So make your next gym a place to escape to, not a place you'd like to escape from.

Permalink

Fitness, Fast and Free: "The Hundreds" Workout

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:50:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

There's a line spoken in the 1977 epic Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope that I will never forget. The words seemed profound then, as a snotty-faced seven year old boy, and it continues to be profoundly truthful to this day.

Princess Lea, reponding to the severe looking Governor Tarkin who had boasted the Emperor's power, said:

"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Whoa. Doesn't this nugget of wisdom seem ever relevant today? We use personal productivity systems and mobile devices and rush hither and thither (it's an actual word, look it up) and yet the more we try to control our time, the more time slips through our fingers and we are left empty-handed.

That's what my personal exercise regime "The Hundreds" tries to address. Even if you're time-starved and cash strapped, you can still get in decent shape doing this dirt simple system. You can be exercised and back to ruling the galaxy with an iron fist within 15 minutes.

Here's What You Need:

Weights. Any kind. Even milk jugs will work

A way of keeping count. You'll be doing 100 reps of any given exercise, and you may find it hard to keep track of how many reps you've done if your sets are in small increments. Pennies, wall tacks, a scratch pad, whatever

Now Here Are The "Rules" of "The Hundreds" Workout:

You must do 100 reps of one, and only one exercise. If you are doing push-ups, do 100 push-ups. Don't mix up different exercises to get to 100 reps. You want to work the same muscles, and doing only 20 reps on a muscle group isn't going to be enough

You must do the 100 reps within 1 hour. The reps cannot be spread out over the day

Extra reps cannot be carried over into the next day

Keep good form throughout. Stop when your form gets sloppy

That's all you need to know. If you do 100 reps of any reasonably challenging exercise everday, I believe you will be much better off. You can do these reps anywhere, anytime. You don't need a gym membership or equipment, only the will to dedicate 15 minutes to improving your fitness.

P.S. If you're interested in more cool bodyhacks, have a peek at my book / e-book Zero to Superhero. It's a bit dated now, but most of the information within is still quite "underground".

P.S.S. Now I know there is another "The Hundreds", as popularized by the brilliant 'Buying In: What We Buy and Who We Are' by Rob Walker - but it has nothing to do with that.

Permalink

How to Become a Genius

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:47:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

Yes, you can indeed become a self-made genius without being inherently hyper-intelligent or "gifted". The secret, as Albert Einstein revealed, is in hard work and persistence. Said he: "It's not that I'm so smart; it's just that I stay with problems longer."

In fact, according to Professor Michael Howe of the British Psychological Society, nobody is born a genius. Genius is a badge you must earn.

Thomas Edison is a screaming example of hard work and perseverance. Famous inventor and holder of 1093 patents which included the light bulb and the phonograph, he was the one who coined the phrase "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration".

Thomas Edison would spend long hours in the lab, trying and retrying assertions until he finally got it right. He hardly ever went home, and never gave up. Speaking of his trials, Thomas said:

"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."

According to Floyd Maxwell, geniuses have three traits in common:

1. They take an organized, orderly approach to solving problems.

2. They maintain an attitude of wonder about the world around them, a habit of seeing things from a fresh, open perspective.

3. They are able to concentrate harder and longer than the average person on whatever interests them.

So it seems it's ye olde fashioned, roll up your sleeves earnest labour and gumption that allows us to match those who are naturally gifted. Hard work and persistence is the equalizer.

Permalink

The Guardian Angel

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:14:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

A friend of mine, Allen, wanted to drop off a New Year cake to an elderly man who lives alone, and so I went with him. I had met the elderly man before, briefly, and during that short meeting I could read from behind his stoic exterior he was deeply unhappy.

Fortunately, his face brightened when he answered the door and was presented with the cake. He waved us in from the wintery weather.

His home was tastefully furnished and immaculate, but it appeared unlived in. Unloved in. Cold as the inside of a tomb. He switched on the electric fireplace and the livingroom still felt like death.

Our chat was short but revealing. He reluctantly admitted to spending Christmas alone, with only his cat as company. His wife of 42 years had run off with another man a few seasons ago, breaking a heart which already suffered three strokes. His children, now adults with children of their own, had vacationed elsewhere for the holidays.

New Years Eve was likewise "spent quietly", he confessed.

Allen's questions regarding his health also revealed a need for transportation to an out-of-town hospital for crucial blood tests. The elderly man's weakened condition had confined him to his home. Driving a vehicle was out of the question. His strength was spent in merely existing. Not to exist for himself, but for the benefit of his cat and friend of 18 years. The cat was too old for change now. He couldn't leave it to fend for itself.

Allen assured him a ride to his doctor's appointment, free of charge, and offered a few words of encouragement. The elderly man waved us goodbye, and was visibly in better spirits.

We waved back, and as we walked towards the car on that crisp January afternoon, I realised Allen was a true superhero, a guardian angel in the flesh who committed himself to watch over someone in quiet, desperate need.

Next month Allen will visit again - if only to make sure he's okay and let him know he's not forgotten.

Permalink

The Secret Of The "Runner's High", And How To Get It Everytime

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0800

Bookmark this on Delicious

I always thought the Runner's High was the body's way of communicating approval. A reward for pushing it, taxing it in a controlled way.

But what causes that amazing, drug-free high when we run, walk or engage in certain physical activities? Or, to rephrase the question, what's the easiest, surest way of getting that natural high on demand?

"Endorphins." That's the stock answer you'll get from most personal trainers when you ask them what causes that tripped out Zen master vibe. And who’s to blame 'em? Science still hasn't figured out what exactly the runner's high is and what causes it. Other, more fringe answers range from "it's your body going into shock as you pound your knee joints into powder" to hormonal secretions from the hypothalamus.

Another guess might be a growth hormone response. A recent and most plausible explanation is likely bio-substances in the brain, called neurotransmitters. Dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine are all feel good neurochemicals that start flowing when the legs get going.

So what's the secret to getting the runner's high? The answer seems to be frequent and repetitious movement, for at least 30 minutes. It doesn't even have to be pounding the pavement in your Asics. You can get naturally "stoned" just by walking or even working if it meets those three requirements.

Enjoyed this article? Then you might enjoy my book Zero to Superhero.

Permalink