Are you familiar with T. Colin Campbell? He is a well known proponent in vegan circles for a plant based diet. Even the Vegan-in-Chief, Bill Clinton, gives some credit to Campbell for his diet changes. Raised on a dairy
farm, Campbell adopted a vegan diet after years of studying the effects
of animal nutrition as a researcher at Cornell's department of
nutrition. He wrote a book called "The China Study" which
explained his career work with other collaborators in layman's terms. His basic message was that the diseases of affluence like obesity, diabetes and heart disease do not exist in places like China that eat a mostly plant based diet.
Not everyone appreciated his message. Among those, Denise Minger is a well known blogger in paleo circles for writing
scathing reviews of scientific articles, specifically those in
opposition to animal products. She has directed her attention more than
once at Campbell's "The China Study". After reading her reviews, one could get the idea that Campbell misrepresented his data. Minger has been praised by the paleo crowd for debunking a giant of the vegan world, and drawn criticism from the vegan world for her lack of scientific training and experience.
I want to settle the debate for myself, so I'm going to do my own China study. I will go to China, work with the people and eat what they eat. What will a diet of mostly rice, vegetables and fruit do to me? You may ask me, "Kelly, why go to China to eat such a diet? Can't you just eat it at home?" Actually, I have been eating this way for several months. It has been a slow transition which started last August when Anthony Colpo challenged my low carb mindset. I'm quite pleased with the results. Soon, I should blog about the details, but for now, I'll just share that I'm losing body fat and serum cholesterol.
Ok, so the real reason that I'm going to China is because my employer is shipping me off. I'm assisting our Chinese coworkers with a new product launch in our Wuhan, China factory. When you think of Chinese labor, think of me. But I will be eating a mostly plant based diet. I'm sure I'll get adventurous and try a few mystery meats. I'm really looking forward to finding good fruit. I've never eaten durian, so that is one of my action items.
Here are some scenes from my last China trip. See if you can count how many obese folks are in the pictures:
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
"Plants!"
Jonathan Mann of Youtube's Song A Day with Ivory King supply this artistic debunk of vegan myths. It's a catchy hook: "Plants! ... Plants! ... Plants!"
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Green Smoothie in Vitamix
Add the following ingredients to a Vitamix blender and pulverize until homogenous:
about 20 oz. ice water
2 ripe bananas (compost peels)
2 Medjool dates (remove/compost pits)
1 mango (compost peels)
2 heaping handfuls raw baby spinach
about 20 oz. ice water
2 ripe bananas (compost peels)
2 Medjool dates (remove/compost pits)
1 mango (compost peels)
2 heaping handfuls raw baby spinach
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Back in the Saddle
Today was a bit momentous for me. I went for a run, a long run. The mileage was even in the double digits. Ooooh!
I took a long 4 month break from running around January because I couldn't shake what my doctor later described as an ab wall tear (previously believed to be a groin pull). It was an injury that was incurred from the previous year. Despite a few long breaks from running, the pain kept coming back. Well, I think/hope I've got it figured out. I stopped doing core work outs, like sit ups, push ups, pull ups, etc. That whole cross fit scene is not for me.
My abs felt ok for a few months, so I came back to running a few weeks ago. I started running 3 mile runs in the morning. There were no issues, other than the apparent lack of fitness from being a sloth for so long. Today, I thought I would take advantage of the cooler weather in the mid 70s and go for a longer run. Six miles seemed reasonable. After about a mile and a half of running, I was feeling pretty good and took a right turn on Pippin road instead of a left (my usual 3 mile loop).
I figured that I would run to Broad street and turn around. It should be a 6 mile run. But when I got to Broad street I was still really feeling it. So I kept running onto Jackson to run around the Cane Creek Sports Complex and Park/Pond. I figured that would be 10 miles. Well, I was off a bit. Below is the map of my run and it was about 12 miles according to Google Maps.
The only problem that I had on the run was that I ran out of water in the last few miles. I became dehydrated as shown by my dark yellow pee later. Other than that I was quite pleased. There were no pains where there shouldn't be. When I bend down I can feel the soreness in my quads, but hey, that's a good feeling.
Besides giving up core work outs I have also given up on barefoot running, at least as a full time occupation. I don't think that barefoot running was the cause of my ab tear back in January of 2011, but I do believe it was a contributing factor. The injury occurred while barefoot running after doing a bunch of core. I think the core workouts made my ab muscles extremely fatigued and the barefoot sprints were the last straw. If I had shoes on during those sprints, it's possible that the injury would not have occurred.
Why? I was running barefoot on a cold, rubber track. It was in the low 40s that day and the rubber was hard and pointy. It felt like small gravel. In response, I was really exaggerating my gate in an effort to minimize the downward force on the rubber. In a muscular sort of way I was lifting my feet before they landed. I can't explain it any better than that, but it felt like I was really engaging my core as a result. I think I could have relaxed more if I had cushions under my soles. So there it is. It's my hypothesis. I could be wrong. But now I'm playing it safe. I wear shoes, while running. And they are stinky shoes.
I had a glow after the run. I thought yeah, I'm back in the saddle again. I'm back! I was reminded of how I used to get pumped before XC races while listening to Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle". So let's close this with...
I took a long 4 month break from running around January because I couldn't shake what my doctor later described as an ab wall tear (previously believed to be a groin pull). It was an injury that was incurred from the previous year. Despite a few long breaks from running, the pain kept coming back. Well, I think/hope I've got it figured out. I stopped doing core work outs, like sit ups, push ups, pull ups, etc. That whole cross fit scene is not for me.
My abs felt ok for a few months, so I came back to running a few weeks ago. I started running 3 mile runs in the morning. There were no issues, other than the apparent lack of fitness from being a sloth for so long. Today, I thought I would take advantage of the cooler weather in the mid 70s and go for a longer run. Six miles seemed reasonable. After about a mile and a half of running, I was feeling pretty good and took a right turn on Pippin road instead of a left (my usual 3 mile loop).
I figured that I would run to Broad street and turn around. It should be a 6 mile run. But when I got to Broad street I was still really feeling it. So I kept running onto Jackson to run around the Cane Creek Sports Complex and Park/Pond. I figured that would be 10 miles. Well, I was off a bit. Below is the map of my run and it was about 12 miles according to Google Maps.
The only problem that I had on the run was that I ran out of water in the last few miles. I became dehydrated as shown by my dark yellow pee later. Other than that I was quite pleased. There were no pains where there shouldn't be. When I bend down I can feel the soreness in my quads, but hey, that's a good feeling.
Besides giving up core work outs I have also given up on barefoot running, at least as a full time occupation. I don't think that barefoot running was the cause of my ab tear back in January of 2011, but I do believe it was a contributing factor. The injury occurred while barefoot running after doing a bunch of core. I think the core workouts made my ab muscles extremely fatigued and the barefoot sprints were the last straw. If I had shoes on during those sprints, it's possible that the injury would not have occurred.
Why? I was running barefoot on a cold, rubber track. It was in the low 40s that day and the rubber was hard and pointy. It felt like small gravel. In response, I was really exaggerating my gate in an effort to minimize the downward force on the rubber. In a muscular sort of way I was lifting my feet before they landed. I can't explain it any better than that, but it felt like I was really engaging my core as a result. I think I could have relaxed more if I had cushions under my soles. So there it is. It's my hypothesis. I could be wrong. But now I'm playing it safe. I wear shoes, while running. And they are stinky shoes.
I had a glow after the run. I thought yeah, I'm back in the saddle again. I'm back! I was reminded of how I used to get pumped before XC races while listening to Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle". So let's close this with...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)