Power Law Fitness™

In the first century B.C., the Roman author Publilius Syrus wrote that “debt is the slavery of the free.” And he knew what he was talking about, too.

Syrus came to Rome against his will after having been enslaved in the Roman province of Syria. And while most of the slaves of Ancient Rome were people conquered and captured by the Roman army, a fair number of them were people who had fallen into a large amount of debt and were unable to repay it. Given the absence of any bankruptcy protection legislation, these unfortunate souls would then be sold into slavery as a way to get out of arrears with their creditors.

This debt = slavery dynamic did not begin with the Roman Empire, nor did it disappear after its fall.

Debt-based slavery has unfortunately occurred in almost every civilization – both ancient and modern. Prior to the Roman Empire, it was widely practiced in Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Persian Empire, Ancient India, and Ancient Greece, to name just a few. And in the ensuing centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire, we’ve had feudal serfdoms, slave-based resource trade systems, and legal indentured servitude arrangements as well. And although the specifics of each situation might have varied, “debt bondage” has been a constant practice ever since human beings began living in ordered societies subject to social stratification.

So what does this have to do with fitness, you might ask?

In a word, everything. To begin with, debt – and any subsequent debt bondage situations – are relatively new phenomena in human history. In fact, many anthropologists speculate that both debt and slavery were rare among early paleolithic societies. This was primarily because early humans were hunter-gatherers whose migration patterns prevented resource hoarding and social stratification.

In other words, our early ancestors were too busy exploring their immediate environments and taking care of the needs of themselves and their tribes to begin worrying about what “roles” each individual should play or be assigned in life.

But the advent of agriculture unfortunately changed all of that.

Advancements in agriculture led to stationary human populations that were dependent upon resources which required specialized labor to produce. And as surplus crops became commodities which could be traded for an economic gain, those in control of these scarce resources soon began to meet the increasing demands for labor through the subjugation of others into slavery.

After all, somebody had to do all the dirty work so the privileged few could have more time to hunt and explore…

The key is, debt is neither natural nor healthy.

It is the result of a resource dependency arrangement with another human being or group of human beings that – in extreme situations – can lead to slavery.

Remember, optimal health is accomplished by taking complete ownership over one’s own physical, mental, and resource fitness.

And reducing or eliminating the “debt bondage” that others might have over you is critical to attaining this.

In stark construct to today’s vacuous reality television shows, Candid Camera provided viewers with a fascinating glimpse into the human psyche by using hidden cameras to film ordinary people being confronted with unusual situations.

Check out this segment illustrating just how strongly we feel the need to conform to the behavior of the “group” – even when it makes no sense whatsoever:

It’s 1 p.m. on a Thursday and Dianne Bates, 40, juggles three screens. She listens to a few songs on her iPod, then taps out a quick e-mail on her iPhone and turns her attention to the high-definition television.

Just another day at the gym.

There are so many things wrong with this all-too-common scenario highlighted by this NYT piece that I’m not quite sure where to start. But I’ll try to slice it down to the essence.

It’s no secret that that fitness industry overemphasizes chronic daily cardio as the most effective means to optimal health. But there are two things wrong with this recommendation:

1. Lengthy aerobic and endurance training is not particularly healthy – especially in the long run (pun intended)
2. Lengthy aerobic and endurance training is downright boring

Bottom line, if a human engages in long periods of repetitive solo physical activity, he or she will predictably find some way to fill the vacuum. And unfortunately, the quick fix these days to is to bombard one’s senses with various forms of digital media.

The key is, if lengthy and monotonous physical activity were natural to the human state, it wouldn’t be so boring.

For what it’s worth, I emphatically agree with the following quote from Eli Goodman’s article, How Search is Making us Smarter:

The Internet — and search specifically — has opened up learning opportunities that even the least intellectually curious of us is taking advantage of every day.

The Internet is an amazing resource, and there is literally no limit to how much you can discover and learn. And if you’re especially adept at using advanced search techniques, you can easily sift through the ocean of data and extract key nuggets of information that would not have been accessible just a few short years ago.

But is it possible that our gains in this area have come at the expense of other forms of our intelligence?

Much of our intelligence is contingent upon our ability to transfer information from our working memory to our long-term memory. This process – namely, the ability to convert facts and experiences into richer and more complex memories – was essential to our survival as a species. Those who couldn’t make this “cognitive leap” were often more prone to repeating fatal mistakes that led to a sudden discontinuation of their genetic lines.

Bottom line, these individuals failed to completely recognize and “take to heart” the critical patterns and signals lurking among the sensory data being generated by their immediate external environment.

In his book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr presents a somewhat disconcerting notion that this unbridled access to Internet search opportunities might actually be undermining our intelligence at its most basic physical level:

When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Even as the Internet grants us easy access to vast amounts of information, it is turning us into shallower thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain.

The key is, the human brain is not a static entity. It is constantly rewiring and reshaping itself in response to environmental stimuli. And even though it’s highly adaptive to our changing technological landscape, it’s also highly vulnerable to it as well.

For a more in depth look at this topic, be sure to check out, Virtual Worlds & False Identities: Social Media or Social Pathology?, my podcast interview with Dr. Susan Greenfield.

And stay sharp out there…

Here’s a classic clip from Jack LaLanne on how to avoid burnout:

What I really like about this message is its simplicity:

1. Get some short but vigorous daily exercise
2. Eat only natural state fruits, vegetables, and lean source animal-based proteins
3. Reduce your life stress by doing 1 and 2

Bottom line, if you eat garbage and then try to make up for it by doing chronic aerobic/endurance exercising, all you’re really doing is over stressing your body.

The key is, keep it simple.  80% of your fitness comes from what you consume.  And nature engineered us for short burst physical outputs followed by critical periods of rest and “down time.”

Remember: when you go against nature, it’ll push back pretty hard!

It is utterly disgusting just how low the medical-pharma establishment will stoop to promote statin use (and sales)…

Here is a Eurakalert article that highlights a recent study at the Imperial College London suggesting that fast food outlets can help reduce the dangers of heart disease by providing statin drugs to their customers.

And the prescription-only restriction on statins isn’t even a barrier anymore:

One statin, simvastatin, is already available in low doses (10mg) over the counter at pharmacies without a prescription.

Read the whole thing.

Five neuroscientists go on a rafting adventure to see how the brain reacts when in a natural environment. Be sure to check out the whole article at the NYT that provides more details and insight on this.

Remember – when you’re not being constantly bombarded by digital noise, you actually begin to think and behave like a real human.

Back in December of last year, I predicted that grain-based carbohydrates would continue to be a substantial element of the USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans with a continued de-emphasis on consuming animal-based products such as meats, eggs, and saturated fats. As this begins to play out as forecasted, many in the media are finally getting the message that the USDA/HSS “food pyramid” and forthcoming dietary guidelines do not necessarily offer the best advice on how to optimize your nutrition and health.

Be sure to check out Steven Malanga’s piece, “Egg on Their Faces” over at the City Journal. He does an excellent job detailing how more and more scientific evidence is flat out proving that that some of the current – and expected – federal recommendations and guidelines are simply wrong. Here’s one quick example:

According to Scientific American, growing research into carbohydrate-based diets has demonstrated that the medical establishment may have harmed Americans by steering them toward carbs. Research by Meir Stampfer, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard, concludes that diets rich in carbohydrates that are quickly digestible—that is, with a high glycemic index, like potatoes, white rice, and white bread—give people an insulin boost that increases the risk of diabetes and makes them far more likely to contract cardiovascular disease than those who eat moderate amounts of meat and fewer carbs.

And given this information, what’s the response of group that’s putting together these 2010 guidelines?

The preliminary recommendations of a panel advising the FDA on the new guidelines urge people to shift to “plant-based” diets and to consume “only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry and eggs.”

As I’ve written before, the USDA/HSS Guidelines and resulting food pyramid are the products of scientists, nutrition experts, staff members, and consultants with specific political and research agendas – including a strong advocacy of “whole grain” carbohydrates.

For the record, I agree with Manalga’s conclusion as well:

The best advice that government can give citizens is to develop their own diet and exercise regimes, adapted to their own physical circumstances after consultation with their doctors.

As many of you readers already know, I am a big supporter of Mark Sisson and his Primal Blueprint philosophy and lifestyle. But I didn’t just jump on the “evolutionary fitness” bandwagon overnight.

Truth be told, I am extremely skeptical of just about any publicized fitness, diet, or exercise program. Bottom line, I think most of it is unsubstantiated fad that is cleverly disguised by effective marketing. And most of the proponents and practitioners of these programs are, in my opinion, “hucksters” looking to capitalize on the masses that want a quick fix to health and fitness.

It was with this mindset that I first approached Mark’s articles and publications – including The Primal Blueprint, his most popular book to date. And having extensively reviewed them, I can confidently give Mark’s publications a thumbs up and recommend them to anyone who comes to this site for fitness-related information.

With this in mind, I am very excited to pass along the announcement that Mark has just released Primal Blueprint Fitness, a 92-page ebook that you can download for FREE at this link:

Check it out when you get a chance. And stop doing all that “chronic cardio” while you’re at it, too!

Be sure to check out Dean Abbott’s blog post “Is there too much data” over at Data Mining and Predicative Analytics.

It’s a very concise post that zeros in on something I’ve been championing for years:

But even with mounds of data, the insight still occurs often on the micro level, with individual cases or customers.

Bottom line, don’t fall prey to the fallacy that only way to make an effective decision is to amass more and more data. Very often, the “game changer” manifests itself very subtly as a chance piece of informally collected information – or even a statistical outlier.

Remember, the original saying is “The good God is in the detail.”