Updates on barefoot running, giving blood, and exercise

Barefoot running:  I have been trying to adapt to “barefoot running” since August 2009.  In the cold weather of Illinois, I wear “water socks” along with one or two pairs of real cotton socks.  My calves and feet have been slow to adapt; in the first couple of months my calves had significant tightness after running and my feet felt weak after running; my feet tightened up quite a bit after sleeping overnight requiring me to gingerly take my first steps each morning; in fact my feet still feel somewhat tight when I get up in the morning.  My running speed in my 2 mile jogs is almost back to what it was before “barefoot running”; my speed during my last half mile is pretty slow because my calves and feet get exhausted.  I hope to toughen up the bottoms of my feet when warm weather returns so that I will be able to do a 5K race on pavement completely barefoot.

Giving Blood:  The primary reason that I gave blood 4 times in 2009 was the theory that reducing iron in the blood is a healthy practice for men.  I also believe that small stresses like giving blood will make me tougher and stronger as mentioned in my page at http://markleigh.wordpress.com/be-tough-in-a-comfy-world/.  I found that giving a pint of blood seemed to significantly affect my ability to run for 2-3 weeks; in fact I felt like walking when I ran the day after giving blood.  However, I didn’t notice any reduction of vitality or well-being in daily life.

My exercise:  I still do brief intense exercise every day and sometimes 2 or 3 times in a day.  I usually do my longest sessions in the morning after I shave.  In recent months, I have drifted towards doing just 1 set of most exercises and resting for a minute or so after the exercise with eyes closed.  Although I may have given up a little bit of strength and speed by cutting back on the number of sets, I think the “exercise high” is increased and the likelihood of delayed-onset-muscle-soreness is reduced.  Resting after intense exercise seems to give the body a chance to release growth hormone without being distracted by other activities.

Creative exercise along with creative rest

I submitted my second video to Mark’s Daily Apple which you can see below.  In the video I express my theory of how the body can maximize its adaption to intense exercise by rest with eyes closed, either between exercises or after exercise is completed.

Barefoot running

For the last month, I have been slowly breaking in my feet and legs to barefoot running. 

• I have done suicides 3 different times on grass;
• Four different times, I have run on a 1/8 mile soft grass track in my back yard . (Today I increased  to 20 minutes while running at pace of about a 8.5 minutes per mile).
• I have run sprints on grass once.
• and I ran 1.5 miles on chipped stone blacktop once.

The soles of my feet were somewhat tingly and a little tender after running for the first couple of weeks.  I let them heal for 3 days before running again. 

Last Friday I ran on a rough blacktop that caused some abrasion, a mildly painful cut on my right big toe, and some mild bruises on the bottoms of my feet.  I hope to try barefoot running on a smoother pavement soon.

Tonight I ran in my back yard wearing tight men’s nylon socks to protect the cut on my big toe.

I knew it would take some time to adapt to barefoot running, but I was still surprised by a few things:

• Footing is a problem when doing sprints on dew-loaded grass.
• Running on uneven ground like that in my back yard stretches the foot in many ways that felt uncomfortable at first but now feels good.
• Running on grass uses muscles significantly differently than when running on pavement.  After running on grass for 3 weeks, my calves still developed significant tightness when I ran on blacktop (although I could still walk without any noticeable signs).
• Running barefoot is starting to become more appealing than running with shoes because there is no weight on the feet and it feels good to stretch the feet.
• There is an increased chance of injury related to cuts, punctures, and splinters so I have to exercise self-control to minimize  the chances of injury.

The benefits that I expect from barefoot running are:

• my feet will be tougher,
• my body will learn to use muscles differently and consequently release more growth hormone (than if doing exercises to which I have already adapted)
• running will be more enjoyable

Primal Blueprint Fitness video

I am entering the following video into a contest at Mark’s Daily Apple. Details of the contest are at http://www.marksdailyapple.com/contest-august-4/#more-6221    

Donating blood for selfish reasons

I hadn’t donated blood for years up until last month.  I donated for these reasons:

• giving blood is one way to decrease iron in the blood
• giving blood is a small stress for which the body might rebound to become healthier
• giving blood may help others who need the blood

One possible explanation for why women generally live longer than men is that they lose blood monthly until menopause and because having babies also helps to keep excessive minerals in check.

Here’s a quote from the website at  http://www.physicians-background.com/blood.html:  “The two studies involved over 6,500 men and were conducted by the University of Kansas and the University of Kuopio in Finland. Researchers believe by giving blood, men — and post-menopausal women — rid their bodies of excessive iron, which is thought to contribute to heart disease.”

I came up with the idea to donate blood from reading about an anti-aging product that chelates minerals from the body.

Blueberries and milk — NOT

I stopped putting blueberries in my morning smoothie drink after reading that ingesting milk along with blueberries reduces the antioxidants.   Since (apparently) protein binds up some of the phenolics, it may be better to eat blueberries without protein foods.  Protein apparently also binds some of the antioxidants in tea; it may be best to eat all antioxidant-laden foods without any protein foods.

So lately my fairly standard morning routine has been:

• Do 10-20 minutes of anaerobic exercise first thing in the morning.
• Eat 12-25 grams of whey isolate immediately after exercise to feed my muscles and to act as a secretogogue for GH.
• Eat 1/2 to 1 cup of fruit about 2-3 hours after exercising. (I like blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and/or prunes.)
• I eat a smoothie on most days either at lunch or dinner.  I sweeten my smoothies with half of a banana and don’t bother putting in the fruits laden with antioxidants.

An article discussing research on milk with blueberries:  http://www.naturalnews.com/025516.html

An article about milk and antioxidants in tea:  http://www.naturalnews.com/025670.html

Avoiding Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

On Sunday, September 21, I paddled a canoe solo for 4 hours.  I was going with the current on the Mazon River and covered about 6.5 miles.  Even though anaerobic bursts were few and brief, and even though I paddled rather leisurely, I was still exhausted after the trip and my muscles were starting to tighten up and give me signs that I might be in for some DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness).  Fortunately the soreness in my “lats” never came and here are some possible reasons why:

1. I performed steady light activity all afternoon and evening.  Some people have suggested that movement and increased blood flow helps the muscles recover without the pain.  If I would have sat in my recliner chair in the afternoon and evening, I think I would have had some significant muscle-tightness; instead I was fairly flexible and pain-free in the evening.
2. I took a cold shower in the evening.  I think a blast of cold exposure does something positive to the muscles.   Some athletes dip themselves in cold baths after extremely hard workouts to prevent DOMS; maybe my cold shower helped to nip it in the bud.  (Previously when I have had a case of DOMS, I found that although a cold shower temporarily helps, it does not eliminate DOMS; maybe the cold exposure is necessary before DOMS starts.)
3. I stretched before going to bed.  Maybe the stretching helped to nip it in the bud.  (I have previously found that stretching temporarily helps a DOMS case that is under way, but it does not eliminate DOMS.)

Twice a week fasting; my experience with carbs

For the last couple of weeks, I have been fasting twice a week whereas I used to fast just once a week.  So far, so good.  I wanted to see how I would feel fasting twice a week and to see if I would lose some more weight.  I have felt pretty good fasting; my weight was 156 pounds this morning which is about 4 pounds less than what I weighed at the end of August.

I noticed that I have had some big calorie days since starting to fast twice a week and that my total calories vary greatly from day to day.  I had 4800 calories on September 13 which was the day after a fasting day and a day in which my last meal was a carb-load meal; I started eating ice cream and I couldn’t stop, so I realized once again that once I start having sweet carbs, my craving for carbohydrates becomes uncontrollable.  I don’t mind eating a little ice cream, but I may avoid it completely because I have a history of eating lots of sweets once I have a few bites of sweets.

I like the fact that total calories vary significantly day by day.  The body learns to adapt to not having food and it learns to adapt to assimilate nutrients when it has food.  When I have lots of carbs (and calories) on the 2 days in which I have a carb-load meal, my thyroid has a chance to reset itself so that my metabolism doesn’t slow down and go into ”starvation mode”

Here’s a link to a “pdf” document from my FitDay program that shows my total calories for the last 2 weeks:  fitday-food-calories

My laughter experiment to reduce the need for sleep

Two week’s worth of results indicate that laughing right before going to bed reduces the need for sleep.  I last wrote about this on Sept. 4.

For the last 2 weeks, I have averaged 7 hours of sleep per night, sometimes sleeping less than 7 hours and sometimes a little more than 7 hours.  I think this is due to watching funny YouTube videos before going to bed which create a surge of growth hormone.  I often laugh out loud to funny scenes and bloopers; and I can feel how laughter leaves my body in a different state.  Watching a funny video seems easier (and more effective) than trying to recall funny scenes from memory, but I still occasionally recall funny scenes during the day.

Prior to starting my efforts to naturally release growth hormone, I used to sleep at least 8 hours per night.  Then during the 19 months of my growth hormone attempts, my need for sleep reduced a little but sometimes reverted to a need for 8 hours.  I am pleased with (seemingly) reducing my need for sleep to 7 hours per night; I hope it continues.

For your information, I do not use an alarm clock since I don’t have to be at work until 9 am.

Here are some links to YouTube videos which made me laugh:

Christmas Vacation – the squirrel scene.  3 min., 24 sec.

The Three Amigos – “look up here” scene. 1 min. 4 sec.

The Office  — office pranks with Jim vs. Dwight.  9 min 48 sec.

Some changes to the blog

Since my exercise program hasn’t changed in the last couple months (and I don’t expect it to change), I won’t be posting what exercises I am doing on a daily basis.  In the near future, I will post a page that will have a bunch of sample workouts.  I also expect to add some more info to the page on “Mark’s growth hormone plan” to explain why I have chosen to do the things I do.

Periodically I will give a status report on my progress.  And occasionally I will write other posts, but I expect my posting to be much less frequent.