Were the English in the 1860's healthier than us?

     I came across an interesting article this week in the International Journal of Environmental and Public Health (I will link to it at the bottom of the page). The article focused on life in England in the mid to late 19th century.  The lifestyle that this group led provided them a level of health and longevity that remains unsurpassed in todays modern cities.  They also (according to the article) enjoyed a virtual lack of degenerative disease that has not been seen since.
       So how did they live, and what can we learn?  First off, let me say the fact that these people lived long did not mean they lived easy.  The majority of the population back then worked physically demanding jobs for long hours.  The hard work was a large part of what contributed to their longevity.  To fuel 60 hour work weeks at labor intensive jobs, these folks took in 150 to 200% of the calories that we would normally eat today. The benefit that came from eating all these calories was not a result of the calories themselves, but of the organic foods they ate.  These people lived off the land.  They raised their own fruits and vegetables, and ate them fresh from the garden.  Their meats were fresh kills from local farms or successful hunting.  These people did not waste.  They ate far more of the animals they had, including: organs, soups made from bones, whole fish including the heads and roe, and fatty parts that we tend to throw away these days.  Essentially the biggest thing that this group did right was to eat a very large amount of highly nutritious foods.  Their hard work provided the incentive to eat, and their nutrient dense foods kept them alive a long time.  According to the study, a person that lived past the age of  five in that setting could expect to live a longer and healthier life than we do today, over a hundred years later.
     So what can we do today to recreate the good aspects of the lives they led so that we may reap some of the benefits?  The following are two steps toward living like they did :

By Samuele on English Wikipedia Samuele nella Wikipedia Italiana [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

  
Work Hard: 
     If you are like most of us and don't spend your days lumberjacking or bricklaying, the next best thing is to hit the gym.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think an hour at the gym is going to simulate 8 hours shoveling dirt, but it will get your metabolism up and stimulate an appetite.  If you are looking to burn  maximum calories in minimum time, olympic lifts with heavy weights are a great way to go.  The more you do the better, whether it be at the gym, at work, or in the yard.  The average workers back then burned between 3000 and 4500 calories a day.  We probably are not going to get anywhere near that on a daily basis, but the closer the better.  

Eat More... of Good Things: 
     A result of the hard work you do will be the desire to get some grub.  When I say eat more I mean eat more of certain things.  In America today we get more than enough carbs and protein, there is no need to up the intake of that stuff.  What we do need more of is phytonutrients, and that comes from plants.  Eat organic plants and eat lots of them.  The leafier and the darker the better.  Try to get in as many colors as you can daily as well.  Blending and drinking the juice and pulp is a good way to get in a ton of plant matter conveniently.  When considering meat products, try using as much of the animal as you are comfortable with.  An easy way to start is with beef bone broths and chicken soups (check out the simple chicken soup post).
     When you can, buy organic and local fruits and veggies. When organic is not available buy conventional and local.  You always want to get food that was grown as close to home as possible.  Free range organic meat products are not only better for the animal, but they are better for you.  Animals that live in the sun and graze on grasses and grains that they would naturally eat will provide more and better nutrient quality when consumed. 

                  By Malakwal City (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

      Pretty simple, work hard and eat good stuff.  And yeah, we may never be able to take in the high amounts of vitamins and minerals that they did back then.  As a result we may never come to know the low levels of degenerative disease that they saw.  They lived hard lives, they deserved a break.  In the meantime we'll have some fun while we're strong and if we do get some crappy disease when we're old, at least we'll have 3D movies to distract us.  Carpe Diem.  


Click here to check out the article.

Lemon Rosemary Chicken with Baby Spinach and Pear Salad

What You Need:
4 thin sliced chicken breast cutlets
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 small handful fresh spinach per person
1 pear
pinch salt and fresh ground pepper
3 tbsp olive oil

What To Do:
Preheat oven to 400
Place the chicken in a glass casserole dish.
Mix together 1 tbsp lemon juice and 3 tbsp olive oil.
Pour mixture over chicken and sprinkle salt and pepper on top.
Place two sprigs rosemary on top of chicken along with a few thin slices of lemon.
Bake chicken for forty five minutes.
While chicken is baking wash the spinach and cut the pear.
I also steamed some cauliflower in the microwave for a couple minutes.

Rigged Up Suspension Trainer: Works Fine, Costs Less

     Its always good to have some options around the house to switch things up a bit and challenge yourself in new ways.  I have wanted to get a TRX suspension trainer for a while, and though it appears to be a quality product, I wanted to improvise a little and see what it was like before I spent any money (TRX is not cheap).  What I came up with is slightly more sophisticated than a rope and a piece of pvc pipe.  I tried it out today for the first time and it works great.  The workouts you use with this type of device are great because you can easily scale them to any ability level.  Also the equipment is really easy to tote, so this kind of thing is great if you are on vacation or business travel.

Here is what the set up looked like.

Pretty simple.

     I wanted quality handles so I spent 22 dollars on some "go fit" ones from amazon.  I have had good experience with this brand in the past.  They came as a set with a 40 lb exercise band, so that was a bonus.  Below is a closeup of the handles.

     The straps I used were just an old set I have to tie things down in the truck, they are cheap.  All together you are looking at about 30 bucks or so.  I'll put a couple product links below, you can see there is some price difference between the two.  The TRX website has some good videos for workouts and setups.  This stuff is harder than it looks.  The workout I went through today was fun and it definitely hurt.

 


 

Quick Thoughts on the Afterburn Effect

     The afterburn effect simply means that your body will continue to burn fuel after your workout is over in order to return itself to a resting state and adapt to the stresses that are being put on it.  As you exercise, your body depletes energy stores and incurs small amounts of damage to the muscles and connective tissue. After the exercise is over your body must repair the damage that was done, replenish energy stores that were depleted, and adapt so that it can handle similar stress in the future.  All of these processes require the body to use more energy after a workout is over before it can return to a lower metabolic baseline.  The longer the transition to baseline, the more calories that will be burned as a result of a single workout.

     Afterburn is also known as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), and though it does dissipate relatively quickly over a couple of hours, the effect can be shown to linger in some small amounts for up to a couple days.  As the intensity and duration of a workout increases, so does the amount of stored energy that is depleted and the amount of tissue damage that is done.  So naturally the afterburn effect will last longer after high intensity workouts and workouts that last longer.

     When designing workouts, there is a balance to be had between intensity and duration.  The longer a  bout of exercise lasts, the less intense it is likely to be.  For example, think about the intensity difference between a sprint and a long distance run.  As duration goes up, intensity must at some point go down.

     A popular way to maximize the amount of intense exercise that can be done in a small amount of time is to separate bursts of intense exercise with small periods of rest.   This is known as "High Intensity Interval Training" or HIIT, and is an excellent way to take full advantage of the "afterburn effect".  One easy way to mix HIIT into a program is to finish a workout with a Tabata Interval, which is simply 8 rounds of 20 sec maximum intensity exercise followed by 10 sec of rest. 

     

   


 

Today's Workout 8/15

Do the following with as little rest as possible:

100 pushups <  2 minutes, any variation
100 inverted rows
25 one leg squat to chair, each side
25 dips
50 standing curl 25 lb dumbbells
50 standing overhead tricep extensions 25 lb dumbbells
20 lateral raises 25lb dumbbells
20 handstand pushups

Picture I took at the Color Run, a charity 5k my wife and I ran in the spring.

Simple Chicken Soup

Today was a little rainy and I had some extra time so I made a chicken soup that will last us a couple days.  Cooking the whole chicken provides nutrients you wouldn't get from the meat alone, and the leftovers only get better with time.  This recipe does take a couple of hours, but only about twenty minutes of real work.  It's worth it. Easy to do, hard to mess up.

What you need:
1 whole fryer chicken, preferably organic and free range, more for the nutrients than the hippie factor.
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
2 leeks, sliced
5 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
Pinch of dry cilantro
Pinch of dry turmeric
Pinch of dry thyme
Pinch of paprika
Pinch of cayenne powder
Teaspoon minced garlic
2 bay leaves
Fresh ground pepper
Sea salt
32 oz low sodium organic chicken broth

What to do:
Place the chicken in a large pot, pour in the broth and add water till the chicken is covered.
Bring to a boil and then drop the heat and simmer for an hour.  
While the chicken is cooking, chop the vegetables.
Remove chicken and use a fork to separate the meat from the bones.
Replace the meat back into the broth along with the vegetables, herbs, and spices.
Let simmer for an hour or two.

Oven Roasted Chicken with Carmelized Shallots and Blackberry Salad

This recipe comes from  David Lebovitz.  I was looking for something quick and easy that I could do in the little time I had to work with today.  This turned out great and was really simple.  I'll make it again for sure.  I made a side of carrots and squash to roast, and put together a quick salad while everything was in the oven. Can't get much more low maintenance.

You need:
8 pieces of chicken, I used four drumsticks and four thighs, bone in
3 tablespoons of olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce, I used lower sodium
salt and fresh ground pepper
It called for 4 large shallots, peeled and minced, I used 3 and I think for me that was plenty
1 handful flat leaf parsley

For the salad:
One small handful of baby field green salad mix per person in a medium bowl
large handful of fresh blackberries rinsed and dried gently
top with pecans and dried cranberries
no dressing

For the side:
1 cup of baby carrots whole
2 small squash cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper

What to do:
In a glass casserole dish, mix the olive oil, red wine vinegar, soy sauce, salt and pepper, and shallots.
place the chicken in a single layer in the dish, and use your hands to mix the chicken with the marinade until the chicken is coated.

In a separate dish, coat the carrots and squash with olive oil and salt and pepper.

Put both dishes in a a 425 degree oven.
Turn the chicken once after about twenty five minutes, when it is beginning to brown.  Let the chicken cook for another twenty five minutes or so until the skin and shallots are nice and brown.  Let the carrots and squash cook the whole time the chicken is in.  When they are ready, remove from oven and garnish chicken with parsley.  Serve with the blackberry salad. 

Chipotle Chicken with Strawberry Salad and Sweet Potato

 Marinade 1 lb chicken breasts in glass casserole dish with Lowry's Baja Chipotle 30 min marinade
( I'll let you guess how long)

While chicken is marinating:
Preheat oven to 400

Peel and cut sweet potato into rounds of similar size (you may have to cut some into halves).
Place potato into a different glass dish large enough for each piece to touch the bottom, salt and pepper lightly, add 1 tbsp olive oil and mix with hands until potatoes are coated evenly.

Make salad
     2 cups arugula and baby spinach salad mix
     Handful of strawberrys sliced small
     Add small bits of honey goat cheese to taste
     Top with small handful of crushed pralines
     No dressing
     Set in fridge


When chicken is ready, place it and the potato in the oven on the middle rack.
Bake 1 hr and serve with salad.