Stress

[mandance]

Yeah, I hear you. People think im crazy. But then over time, some have become interested. My metabolism is working better than it ever has, from the diet alone. I can eat a pint of ice cream a day and still not gain any weight. Also proving that carrot salads can fix digestive issues also. I dont really push it on anyone, but my girlfriend is pretty on board with avoiding PUFAs so when we go out to eat, its nice to be on the same page and we can avoid them together haha...how romantic eh?"

 

[HDD]

Very romantic! My husband eats oysters with me and likes homemade french fries but he still loves his PUFA. It is a bone of contention in my home.

 

[mandance]

hehe, yeah its hard when you are on 2 different wavelengths. I have a good friend who dates a vegan, which basically means to make it work, he had to become vegan also lol. Poor guy. My girlfriend avoids pufas but still gets hung up on a lot of Peats ideas. I remember in the beginning, I had a really hard time wrapping my mind around what Peat was saying, until I carefully went through a lot of his articles and then it clicked. but yeah, at first glance...you hear things that go against everything you have ever heard and you think it automatically could not be true...I dont know how I ever gave Peat a chance...but I think my curiosity led the way thankfully...and im glad I did.

Its funny with PUFAs, I used to like them also...but I cant stand them anymore. I feel like I can taste the chemicals in foods now if they have them. I used to love chinese food and all that stuff, but now I cant even stand the sight of it, and I can get cranky if there are no better food choices lol.

 

[Swandattur]

About the aerobic exercise, Peat talks about breathless exercise. It's a little confusing to me, because it seems like in aerobic exercise you are supposed to keep it to where you are not breathless. You are supposed to be able to talk while doing it. The heart rate is not supposed to get too fast. So, I wonder if that type of aerobic exercise is not bad. You can ride a bike without getting out of breath if you are in reasonable shape.

 

[mandance]

Yeah, I think you are right. I think thats why I never liked running....it just never felt right or natural to me to run for exercise of fun but I always enjoyed more mild things like weight lifting etc. That didnt make you feel like you couldnt breathe lol.

 

[Swandattur]

When my youngest sister had to take the required PE 101 class in college that students called PE run oh run, she would always get sick and faint. The coach thought she must be sick if not on drugs. He was actually concerned. She later took weight lifting to avoid that kind of exercise and she did well at that. My next to the youngest sister loved to run and no one beat her times for several years in the college she went to. They went to the same college, so it may be that the coach remembered the sister who could run.

About twelve years ago I took an aerobics class thinking I'd enjoy it like I used to enjoy aerobics and get healthier, but it just made me really tired and sort of sick feeling. I have gotten to where I enjoy bike riding again, but there was a long time where it was a drudgery. So, I guess it partly depends on the state of your health what kind of activity might be healthy.

 

[jaa]

Great discussion. The comments have been very helpful.

There is a big difference between stress and distress. There seems to be some confusion here between the two.

I had to look this up and it seems to line up with a lot of what people are saying in this thread.

http://www.brocku.ca/health-services/he ... s-distress

Since this thread has mostly discussed stress related to exercise, my personal experience is that exercise has become much more enjoyable since I started making my goal to exercise without becoming breathless. If I can't breath in and out through my nose, I know I'm working too hard. I no longer do hillsprints or go jogging as part of a necessary routine, rather I do them when I feel like practicing those movements and strengthening those muscles and it no longer feels like a chore. The same goes for kickboxing. I pay attention to my breathing and try not to work to hard which results in more of my focus being directed to the skill rather than energy output. As a result, classes feel more playful and enjoyable and I am learning skills much more quickly than when I was just doing reps as fast as possible. I also feel much better the next day as my muscles don't get as sore. Granted, I end up sacrificing a bit of cardio using this approach, but unless I am planning on getting in the ring to fight, the loss of cardio won't hurt me.

 

[mandance]

You could always chew some thyroid or straight t3 before workouts. The girl that introduced me to raypeat does this with great success. She lives in the inner city and has no car so she has to ride a bike everywhere and lugs a lot of stuff up and down hills. To make up for the possible thyroid suppresion of the biking, she nibbles a bit of t3 before hand and it works really well. Usually 2--4mcg as needed.

 

[Swandattur]

They have to be careful of race horses, and not over exercise them, so that they are in the best condition come race time. So, makes sense for people, too.

 

[Gabriel]

[mod]This post contains alternatives to Ray Peat's views. For a full explanation click here.[/mod]
I think it is best to not take anything before/after exercise apart from food. There's gotta be a reason for these hormonal changes and messing these natural changes up with supplements may lead to opposite results. See our discussion in the studies section of the board regarding antioxidants.

The epidemiological studies I know show that frequent exercise is associated with reduced cancer incidence (at least for colon cancer and breast cancer). This effect was even seen at very high exercise frequency compared to people that did not exercise.

Intervention trials in cancer patients showed that exercise improved quality of life compared to control patients that did not exercise.

Epidemiological studies also showed that people who exercise live longer than people that don't exercise. Even extreme endurance athletes were found to live longer than the average person and also longer than extreme resistant-training athletes. So, endurance=bad but weight-training=good I don't agree with. I think both are good.

In most intervention trials patients were asked to ride on cycle ergometers for longer periods, several times a week. I imagine this is a pretty boring thing to do. Still these people did significantly better than the people that did not exercise (also in terms of survival). Hence, I'm not buying into the idea "exercise is harmful when it is not fun - and exercise is good for you when it is fun". Fun exercise is certainly better than non-fun exercse, but the latter was still not harming people.

So, from a scientific standpoint, the critical attitude towards exercise is not well founded. Remember, what counts are not changes in biomarkers such as cortisol/prolactin etc., what counts are the hard outcomes such as total survival, cardiovascular disease, cancer. It's not fair to badmouth exercise just because cortisol or another stress hormone rises a couple hours after (it goes down again, probably even to lower baseline levels afterwards), while ignoring all the numerous evidence that exercising people live longer, have less cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Living a life after the maxime "how high will my stress hormones rise after x/y, hence I will avoid this" will probably make you less-resistant and more stress-prone in the long term.

 

[HDD]

The seven-time-winner of the Tour de France recently retired from his professional cycling career, but not because of health problems: In 1996, he was diagnosed with stage three testicular cancer, which spread to his abdomen, lungs, and brain. Doctors only gave him a 40% chance of survival, but he went on to make a huge cycling comeback in 1998 and continued his career as a professional athlete until last month (February 2011).

Dorothy Hamill, American Figure Skater — Breast Cancer Survivor
A World and Olympic Champion, Hamill announced that she was battling breast cancer in 1998. (Her mother was also treated for the disease.) Hamill was treated at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer center, and has been cancer-free since 2008.


Mike Lowell, Former Major League Baseball Third Baseman — Testicular Cancer Survivor
In 1999, just one year after breaking into the Major Leagues, Lowell was diagnosed with testicular cancer, causing him to miss spring training and nearly two months of the regular season while he was with the Florida Marlins. He later went on to win three World Series titles and has been named to the All-Star team four times.


Jim Fixx, American Runner — Heart Attack
Credited with making jogging popular in the U.S., Fixx’s The Complete Book of Running sold more than a million copies. His sudden death in 1984 due to a heart attack (which, ironically, occurred while running) was later found to be caused by high cholesterol.


The son of an Olympic swimmer, Gary Hall, Jr. followed his father’s footsteps to win 10 Olympic medals (five gold) for freestyle swimming. But in the midst of his successful athletic career, he was diagnosed with type one (childhood) diabetes after the 1996 summer games in Atlanta, which caused a short break in his training. But it ultimately didn’t stop him from competing in two more Olympics.


The Czech-American tennis player is well known for her successful career (check out her Wikipedia page for a compendium of awards won). But in 2010, she announced that she was being treated for breast cancer with surgery and radiation.


Dancer’s career as a baseball player was made most famous by Madonna’s depiction of her in A League of Their Own, but she played baseball to great fanfare in the 1940s. She left her career due to back injuries, but in 2002, she died after receiving surgery for breast cancer at the UCLA hospital.


Known as one of the best hockey players of all time, Lemieux played 17 seasons in the NHL beginning in 1984, but not without breaks for serious health complications. In 1993, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, causing him to retire in 1997 due to aggressive radiation treatment. In 2000, he returned, but had to announce his second and final retirement in 2006 after struggling with atrial fibrillation, a heart condition that causes irregular heartbeats. When he was diagnosed with cancer in 1993, he created the Mario Lemieux Foundation, which funds medical research projects.


Greg Louganis was named most outstanding amateur athlete in the U.S. in 1984, before winning gold medals for diving in both the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. He tested positive for HIV in 1988, and the story of his battle with HIV is in his book, Breaking the Surface, which was made into a Showtime movie in 1996. He has also become an active HIV awareness advocate.


Now 66, Judy Rankin has been golfing since she was 14, and picked up 26 LPGA Tour event wins throughout her long career. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in May of 2006 and completed treatment by August of the same year — and returned to work as a golf commentator right away.



Lou Gehrig, Major League Baseball First Baseman — Lou Gehrig’s Disease
Known in his time as “The Iron Horse,” Gehrig set several Major League records in his time. But his name was immortalized, tragically, due to his death by the neurological disease that has since been named for him.



Peggy Fleming, former American Figure Skater — Breast Cancer Survivor
The Californian figure skater won five U.S. titles, three World titles, and the gold medal in the 1968 Winter Olympics, and has been working as a figure skater commentator on TV for several years. In 1998, she was diagnosed early with breast cancer, and received successful surgery. She’s since become an advocate for early testing.


Muhammad Ali, Former American Boxer — Parkinson’s Disease
The three-time World Heavyweight Champion is known by many as “The Greatest” boxer of all time. Today, he suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, a degenerative disease of the nervous system. Many attribute the disease to his sport, as those who are exposed to severe head trauma are more likely to develop the disease, even if you do float like a butterfly, and sting like a bee.


Arthur Ashe, Professional Tennis Player — Heart Attack; AIDS
Ashe is known as one of the best tennis players ever, winning three Grand Slam titles throughout his career. Unfortunately, he suffered a heart attack in 1979, which not only brought attention to the hereditary causes of heart disease but, sadly, led to his contraction of HIV from a blood transfusion during heart surgery in 1983. Ultimately, Ashe died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1993, but did much before his death to promote AIDS awareness and improved health care.

 

[HDD]

"Modern exercise techniques often put the body in the fight or flight survival mode intentionally. If the stress burden is consistently high outside of the gym, I don’t think it’s wise from a health standpoint to raise it further with frequent, vigorous exercise. Over time, repeated stresses can affect us at the cellular level creating adaptive changes such as a slowed heart rate and suppressed resting body temperature."

"I don’t believe it’s as black and white as I explain though. The type of exercise chosen, the frequency, and duration, whether it’s voluntary or not, the person’s state of readiness, the altitude/environment, and the trainee’s sex and age are also factors in the reaction to exercise."


"For athletes, frequently training hard is part of the process of enhancing sport skills. A sport’s demands dictates the type of training used. As mentioned earlier, there are health compromises that athletes make for the sake of performance. Athletes need to be aware
of this as does the public. Health and high performance often have an inverse relationship."

http://www.visionandacceptance.com/inte ... nd-health/

 

[Swandattur]

From what I've read football players can end up with enough head injuries to really mess them up. Of course, that's a different aspect than exercise stress, but still the over the top requirements of the sport cause serious health consequences.

 

[mandance]

The heart rate thing always confuses me. I know higher temps and pulse are optimal, but it seems that its always the people with lower heart rates that live the longest from most data I have seen. There must be some other factors though. Perhaps people that died from elevated heart rate, had a higher heart rate from something outside of a functioning thyroid? I posted this same question in the debate section but never really got a clear answer on this.

 

[j.]

People can do magic with statistics.

 

[tomisonbottom]

The heart rate thing always confuses me. I know higher temps and pulse are optimal, but it seems that its always the people with lower heart rates that live the longest from most data I have seen. There must be some other factors though. Perhaps people that died from elevated heart rate, had a higher heart rate from something outside of a functioning thyroid? I posted this same question in the debate section but never really got a clear answer on this.

Have you tried asking Peat directly on that? That would seem to be something he'd give an answer on.

 

[Mittir]

Have you tried asking Peat directly on that? That would seem to be something he'd give an answer on.

RP already have answered this question in detail in one of his audio interview and i believe he also addressed that
in some of his articles.

 

[HDD]

From another athlete-

http://www.co2factor.blogspot.com/

"Exercise can be very stressful and can often cause long term health complications. Endurance exercise increases estrogen/free fatty acids and has been shown to have a negative impact on the heart. The breathlessness associated with exercise causes a loss of co2 which increases lactate and leads to glucose being processed inefficiently. Athletes often have low pulses and sub optimal thyroid function.

This is all very troubling information if you are an avid athlete. I personally train and surf 7 days a week so overcoming these negative effects of exercise in the context of a ray peat inspired diet has been a major goal for me. The protocol I outline in this post personally works for my situation so mileage may vary but I assume these tips should help most athletes. I've done lots of experimentation so I feel its pretty solid. Summary is at the end for those who don't want to read the whole thing."

 

[HDD]

"When reading science articles, or listening to lectures, and even while privately thinking about experiences, it can be useful to watch for the improper use of assumptions. Our understanding has been shaped by the assumptions of our culture, and these assumptions present an attitude toward the nature of the world, in some cases even about the ontology that our philosophers have said is beyond our reach. “Evolution is shaped by random mutations,” “nuclear decay is random,” “the universe is expanding,” “entropy only increases,” “DNA controls inheritance,” “membrane pumps keep cells alive,” and all of the negative assumptions that have for so long denied the systematic generation of order.

Every communicative interaction is an opportunity for the discovery of new meanings and potentials.
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/howdoyouknow.shtml

 

[kettlebell]

You could always chew some thyroid or straight t3 before workouts. The girl that introduced me to raypeat does this with great success. She lives in the inner city and has no car so she has to ride a bike everywhere and lugs a lot of stuff up and down hills. To make up for the possible thyroid suppresion of the biking, she nibbles a bit of t3 before hand and it works really well. Usually 2--4mcg as needed.

IMO unnecessary, as your thyroid function will bounce right back to normal shortly after exercise with some good food (Sugary with protein). Moderate exercise/Non breathless (For that person) also lowers FFAs circulating in the blood and as a result raises CO2 production. All of these things promote good thyroid function.

If you are very overweight the Ray Peat "toolbox" has plenty of ways to make sure circulating FFAs and endotoxin are limited after exercise so I won't go into them. On a personal note I find Aspirin very beneficial for limiting endotoxin during exercise which is a risk if you overdo it.

Exercise is important and ensuring it does not cause distress is key. It becomes positive instead of negative.