Frank Bruni on Jack LaLanne: A Dour Take

Both Iowa Guru & I thought that this was a dour take on Jack LaLanne's legacy. For me, living in the body brings great delight (for the most part). Exercise is second only to sex for physical delight (although a great meal or fine wine has many sensual delights). In any event, to think that exercise is something that we must do out of a sense of guilt or vanity is a truly sad and unnecessary take on the experience. While sometimes I moan and groan about going to yoga or going to lift, when I've done it, I inevitably feel better about everything. And I love games: basketball was a form of meditation and recreation for me for decades, and now I meet some of that need for the delight of competition by playing volleyball. I do agree that too many forms of exercise appear to be a matter of drudgery. How many runners have I seen that look genuinely pained? And treadmills--well, they do remind me a bit of hamsters. I now prefer a bit of stationary bike with faux countryside to give the ride some interest. Also, thanks to the likes of Art De Vany and Mark Sisson, I keep workouts relatively short & intense. For play on the other hand, I can take as much time as I want (although my body now limits me). Also, Frank Forencich of Exuberant Animal and Erwan Le Corre of MovNat show us how we can use and enjoy our bodies in the most primal and delightful ways. I wish I was young and agile enough to learn parkour or gymnastics like Damien Walters, but the yoga has been a true delight--and think what one might do there. So, Mr. Bruni, get out of your chair and smell the sweat. I like to read and watch more than the next person, but sometimes you got to go shake it, and you'll love it.

Art De Vany: The New Evolution Diet

Reading Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness in the spring of 2007, I came across the name of Art De Vany, the author of Hollywood Economics. Taleb mentioned it in his book because it addressed the issue of the difficulty of predicting winning movies. De Vany, an academic economist, talks about power laws, stochastic events, complexity, etc. in that academic work. Taleb noted in passing that De Vany also applied these principles to fitness. I checked it out on the web and discovered De Vany's web site, which I've read off and on since that time. Now, he has out his book. It was worth the wait.

De Vany argues that we will benefit greatly from aspects of the environment that human beings evolved in during the paleolithic age. Put most simply, a diet of meat, nuts, vegetables, and not much else. No grain or dairy, not to mention sugar. And as for exercise: brief bursts of intense exercise with lots of rest in between. Now mind you, De Vany isn't a cave man--he writes a blog and is a retired academic! Indeed, his back story provides an interesting lead up to his recommendations. He was a minor league baseball player before becoming an academic economist. His son and then his wife developed type 1 diabetes (so-called juvenile diabetes), which led him to learn all that he could about the physiology of insulin and how it affects the body. He applied his know-how as an economist to consider the body, and he drew on evolutionary studies to get a sense of how the body evolved. This places him in the lead of the growing area of Paleolithic fitness,diet, and health thinking (with others such as Mark Sisson, Rob Wolff, Erwan Le Corre, etc.)

This is an excellent and thought-provoking book. The guy knows whereof he speaks (as an academic he can read the professional literature, but since it's not his professional field, he doesn't have to kow-tow to anyone.)

BTW, Nassim Taleb, who has since adopted a De Vany-like fitness regimen, authored an Afterward for the book.

To your health!