Why I Started Biking to Work

Another hotel bathroom, but this one had good air circulation which meant that mirror didn’t fog up. When I pulled back the shower curtain I got a shock—that naked dripping guy looking back at me was getting old, bald, and really, really fat. Something had to be done. But…

Old – nothing I can do about that.

Bald – Comb-over? Toupe? Nothing I can do about that (and keep my dignity, anyway).

Fat – I can do something about that…if I have to…I guess.

What to do? I hate to exercise, and I don’t have time for it anyway. When I looked out the bus window a few days later, I saw a guy riding a bike and thought, “I have one of those.” I mulled it over for a few weeks, then the end of the month arrived: it was time to buy a new bus pass and the price was going up to $50. My old mountain bike was collecting dust. It was time to act.

I went to the thrift store and picked up a used backpack, put my bus pass with one day left on it in my pocket (just in case), headed off to work…and survived.

Things have changed over the years: the backpack was replaced by a sweet garment bag, the beat-up mountain bike is now a dedicated commuting machine, the office moved to a new building four miles further away, bus passes are now $72, and I am fifty pounds lighter.

I’ve learned to question assumptions about what it means to get to work: I used think my commute was just a requirement of life, now it is a valuable part of my day. I’ve also learned that I can even do something about old and bald.

• Old–I look and feel younger (studies show that those who get regular exercise have a body age lower than those who don’t).
• Bald–your hairline doesn’t matter when you are wearing a bike helmet.

One more thing: hotel mirrors don’t scare me anymore.

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Is it Possible to Bulk Up On a Vegan Diet?

by JJ Muenz

If you’ve ever thought about how to build muscle on a plant-based diet, you’ve come to the right place.

Some people picture vegans as willowy and lean, but vegans come in all shapes and sizes. Whether your goals are to lean out, run faster, or put on muscle, it can be done on a vegan diet.

Why Switch to a Vegan Diet?

People come to vegan diets for numerous reasons. I tried a vegan diet for four years, but had no idea how to do it the right way.

I failed miserably, eating inflammatory foods and enough carbs to cause a 20-pound weight gain. If I had researched or talked to healthy vegans who knew how to cook, my experience with veganism would’ve been quite different.

Don’t turn into the chips and salsa, corn tortilla, and black bean burrito vegan eater that I was, and take the advice from star athlete Pat Reeves.

Vegan power lifter Pat Reeves, who has followed a plant-based diet for more than forty-four years, originally started her vegan diet to fight cancer, but continues because of her high levels of energy. Four years ago, at age 66, she became the oldest competing weightlifter in Europe. And just last year, she broke her own deadlift record.

Pat Reeves’ Daily Vegan Meals

Here’s a quick look at Pat’s daily meals, via veganbodybuilding.org:

Breakfast: Sprouted groats, plus fruit, homemade soy/almond yoghurt, sometimes dehydrated into ‘biscuits’ and topped with fresh fruit and seeds

Midmorning: Nut/seed milk, fruit

Lunch: – At least 8 types of sprouted greens, plus tofu (I make this and yoghurt and this is basically my only cooked food), or sprouted pulses, plus a dressing,

Mid-afternoon: Vegetable pate with crudities, a sprouted grain and fruit,

Evening meal: Similar to lunch, perhaps a raw warmed-through soup, but I will use different vegetables, grains etc.

Other vegan athletes say to eat these foods in abundance when trying to bulk: black lentils, beans, nuts, protein shakes with at least 40 grams of vegan protein, coconut oil, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, brown rice, broccoli, high fat almond milk, asparagus, tomatoes and olive oil.

So if you are looking to bulk up and lean out, incorporate these foods into your diet. As you probably know, every body is different, so it will take some trials to see what food works best for your unique body.

You could do well on sprouted foods, or a bag of trail mix filled with nuts, sunflower seeds and goji berries or maybe high fat almond milk is the ticket to your prime-bulking venture.

Either way, diet is a part of the equation, but fitness must be incorporated to make your vegan bulking a success.

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Office cake culture is 'danger to health'

Having cake at work to celebrate colleagues' birthdays, engagements or just surviving the week is a danger to health, a senior dentist argues.

By James Gallagher

Health editor, BBC News website

Image: Thinkstock

Prof Nigel Hunt, from the Faculty of Dental Surgery, at the Royal College of Surgeons, says "cake culture" is fuelling obesity and dental problems.

At the organisation's annual dinner for dentists, he will say workplace temptation stops people losing weight.

And staff should be rewarded with fruit, nuts or cheese instead.

Sugar rush

In the speech, he will say: "Managers want to reward staff for their efforts, colleagues want to celebrate special occasions, and workers want to bring back a gift from their holidays.

"But for many people the workplace is now the primary site of their sugar intake and is contributing to the current obesity epidemic and poor oral health."

He will say nearly 65,000 adults every year need hospital treatment for tooth decay.

Prof Hunt will say: "Cake culture also poses difficulties for those who are trying their hardest to lose weight or become healthier - how many of us have begun such diets only to cave in to the temptation of the doughnuts, cookies or the triple chocolate biscuits?"

Fruit platter

While he does not believe office cake should be banned, he will say it should be purchased in smaller quantities and consumed only with lunch.

Dentists recommend cutting down on sugary or starchy foods between meals as they give bacteria fuel to produce acids that decay teeth.

At the dinner, which is being rounded off with mint panna cotta, British strawberries and chocolate soil, Prof Hunt will say: "Ideally office workers should consider other alternatives altogether like fruit platters, nuts, or cheese.

"Responsible employers should take a lead and avoid such snacks in meetings."

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Exercise Slows Brain Aging By 10 Years

Being more active can be an effective way to combat memory and cognitive problems

by Alice Park

We know that exercise is good for the body and the brain. But actually being physically active, at least on a regular basis, isn’t always easy.

For days when you just don’t want to break a sweat, there’s new motivation in the form of scientific evidence: physical activity can slow brain aging by as much as 10 years, reports a new study published in the journal Neurology.

It’s among the first studies to actually put a number on how beneficial exercise can be for the brain. The researchers asked a group of 1,228 men and women of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds living in Manhattan about their regular exercise habits. They also answered questions that tested their cognitive abilities, including their memory, organization, reasoning and thinking speed. Five years later, they performed the same tests on about half of the study group.

People who reported doing more physical activity showed higher scores on cognitive tests—consistent with previous studies linking more exercise to better brain health. But when the researchers adjusted for the effect that factors like high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease can have on brain function, the link disappeared. Conditions like these could impair blood flow to the brain and therefore compromise cognitive functions, says Dr. Clinton Wright, associate professor of neurology and public health sciences at University of Miami and senior author of the study. “That suggests that people with low physical activity levels also had a greater burden of those risk factors,” he says.

He and his colleagues then focused just on people in the study who didn’t have these blood flow risk factors, and compared their cognitive scores at the beginning and end of the study. They found similar trends showing that people who exercise more had higher cognitive scores, while those who were less physically active tended to have lower scores. This time, even after accounting for the contribution of possible confounding factors, they found that this trend remained strong in two areas in particular: thinking speed and memory of specific past events.

They also found that people who exercised less showed sharper declines in their cognitive scores than people who were more active. The drops were equivalent to the declines found during normal aging over about 10 years, they concluded.

The data doesn’t prove that exercise can actually reverse or prevent a slowdown in higher level thinking skills. But it does suggest that physical activity may help people with blood flow issues to the brain, such as stroke patients, maintain their cognitive status. Wright is already studying such a group of patients who will wear activity monitors and be randomly assigned to a physical exercise program or not to see whether there is any difference in their test scores over time.

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