Running out of things to say

This blog has been quiet.  I am finding that I am running out of things to say.  Rarely am I coming across a news story or piece of information that I think deserves to be shared here.

My work is busy again which is draining my time and energy, so that when I get home I am not enthusiastically trawling the interweb for titbits of information.  I am resting or relaxing in other ways.

But I am also changing in my outlook - less convinced of the alternative approaches and more open to the mainstream.  The internet is full of misinformation, crazy theories, cults and covens - not just in the worlds of politics and religion, but health and fitness.  I've watched amazingly nasty arguments arise among people intensely committed to certain diets or training protocols.  First world problems indeed!  Cherry picked studies, abstract fuelled bloggers conspiracy theorists.

As such I don't want to add to the misinformation.

I am still training, still walking in the mountains, but no longer searching for the holy grail in my training or diet.  Patience, persistence, moderation, realistic expectations.  They are not too glamorous, do not sell many ebooks, but in those qualities resides the truth.

I am still training

I am still here and will post when I find things of interest....but there is not too much that is grabbing me at the moment.  Most of it has been said and much of what I have said and posted in the past I might now want to distance myself from.  Lots of approaches work and the internet experts are not always genuine.  There is a real world out there.

5 to 9 thinking

This is not the normal fodder for this blog, but I like this guy and his attitude.  Read more from him here.

Muscle Ups

For a big guy he does some impressive muscle ups:



natty?

Abstract thinking

This is why I don't do many of the style of posts that I used to get up here - finding an "interesting" abstract, posting it and carrying on.  I have realised that without reading the paper you can be very misled.....  There is more than the abstract.

Bryan Chung's Evidence Based Fitness blog from where I got that piece is a good resource by the way.

What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

I've read Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows.  It is superb and a little frightening in its implications.

The importance of strength training as you get older....

via Save yourself.  This is vital stuff, well expressed.

I could quibble over some of it in terms of form or whatever, but the message here is superb.

Thinking hard and its effect on appetite

This looks like an interesting study:

Thinking hard makes you hungry.....so you eat more.  Yet thinking hard doesn't burn calories.  So if you are going to think hard then eat, well you better do something to burn the calories that you are going to add.

Exercise and negative energy balance in males who perform mental work.

Abstract

WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ABOUT THIS SUBJECT:

Achievement of a stressful mental task leads to increased energy intake over a short period of time. Given that mental work does not increase energy expenditure, a positive energy balance is observed.

WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS:

The single fact of waiting and relaxing after mental work does not reduce energy intake. Thirty minutes of physical activity performed at moderate/high intensity between mental work and a meal is enough to create a energy deficit compare to a situation where the meal directly follows mental work.

BACKGROUND:

Although energy expenditure during mental work is not higher than energy expenditure at rest, a stressful mental task is related to an increase in energy intake. It is suggested that mental work produces physiological changes, thereby influencing food intake.

OBJECTIVE:

Because physical activity can influence hunger, the aim of the study was to determine if the introduction of an active pause could counteract the negative effects of mental work on energy intake and energy balance.

METHOD:

Twelve male students, of normal weight, between 15 and 20 years old were evaluated. All subjects participated in three different sessions realized in a randomized order: (i) without pause = relaxation/mental work/meal; (ii) relaxation pause = mental work/relaxation/meal; and (iii) exercise pause = mental work/exercise/meal. Energy expenditure was measured with indirect calorimetry, energy intake was measured with a cold buffet-type meal of 40 items, and appetite-related sensations were measured with visual analogue scales. The effect of introducing an active pause in energy intake and energy balance was studied.

RESULTS:

The introduction of an active pause did not influence energy intake; although, higher appetite-related sensations were observed (16-26 mm on a 150-mm scale; P < 0.05). After accounting for the energy expenditure related to physical activity, a lower energy balance was measured for the exercise pause visit compared with the visit without a pause (-1137 kJ; P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION:

This study indicates that being active between mental work and a meal could represent a strategy to create a negative energy balance following mental work via an increased energy expenditure and a maintenance of energy intake. Globally, these results could help individuals attain and/or maintain a healthy body weight in a context where mental work is omnipresent.