On the Awesomeness of Chickitude
From the lovely and talented Cassandra Forsythe, Wondrous Womanhood.
Stay tuned, by the way, for an interview I did with Cassandra about her book The New Rules of Lifting for Women as well as the new buns she’s got in the oven — at least one of them is a book, not a child!
The Female Body Breakthrough
As an oldest sister myself, I always wanted someone to look up to — someone who’d tell me the real deal about men, women, periods, getting into shape, being my own best friend, and how to dress myself. She’d be compassionate and encouraging, but honest. She wouldn’t let me get away with BS, but she’d always be in my corner. Strength trainer Rachel Cosgrove is that woman to her clients.
Squatting footwear
I’m often asked about the best footwear for squatting. Many people find that their ankles are too inflexible initially to get proper depth without their heels coming up off the floor. In some cases, a hard-soled shoe with a heel is a good idea. A manufacturer has just brought out a new line of shoes that offers one possibility.
Spezzatino Vol 7: Basil now available!
Another amazing creation from Team Spezzatino! Way to go guys!
Here’s what’s in Vol 7.
Also check out our redesigned website and blog.
Where your junk food is grown
Given our recent discussion of GM food, here’s another spanner in the works: Let’s say we use GM to produce abundant, disease-resistant crops. OK, that sounds like a good start. But where might that GM material go? Healthier spinach? Shiny purple eggplants? Or stuff that we don’t actually need?
Author Margaret Webb explores one of the real reasons for good food shortages: Overproduction of crap.
Junk food turns rats into addicts
From ScienceNews:
Junk food elicits addictive behavior in rats similar to the behaviors of rats addicted to heroin, a new study finds. Pleasure centers in the brains of rats addicted to high-fat, high-calorie diets became less responsive as the binging wore on, making the rats consume more and more food. This may help explain the changes in the brain that lead people to overeat.
“This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neurobiological underpinnings,” says study coauthor Paul Johnson of the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla.
The wit and wisdom of Dan John
Shall I compare Dan John to a summer’s day?
My love for him is warmer and less full of bugs or the sound of jet-skis.
Shameless, he pukes and waddles, expectorating lung-butter.
Yet more 30-rep squats await with cold iron eagerness.
Check out Chris Shugart’s new interview with Dan on the subject of conditioning.
My Life and Karate blog series
From reader Jeremy:
My karate dojo, Sun Dragon (www.sundragon.org), is a women-focused non-profit school that does a lot of community self-defense and violence prevention work. Being a non-profit, we live on the wild side of the budget, and we have a yearly fundraiser to make up the gaps and keep pur scholarship fund, well, funded. My fundraising strategy is to blog – it’s what I do best. So I’m writing a hopefully-humorous post a day about martial arts and violence prevention and my life. Even if your readers aren’t in Austin or don’t care to donate, they may enjoy the posts!
Check ’em out starting here!
Why baloney can bum you out
From BBC News:
Eating a diet high in processed food increases the risk of depression, research suggests. What is more, people who ate plenty of vegetables, fruit and fish actually have a lower risk of depression. Researchers split the participants into two types of diet – those who ate a diet largely based on whole foods, which includes lots of fruit, vegetables and fish, and those who ate a mainly processed food diet, such as sweetened desserts, fried food, processed meat, refined grains and high-fat dairy products.
After accounting for factors such as gender, age, education, physical activity, smoking habits and chronic diseases, they found a significant difference in future depression risk with the different diets. Those who ate the most whole foods had a 26% lower risk of future depression than those who at the least whole foods. By contrast people with a diet high in processed food had a 58% higher risk of depression than those who ate very few processed foods.
