Tagged: nutrition
Roar
Roar: How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Female Physiology for Optimum Performance, Great Health, and a Strong, Lean Body for Life by Stacy T. Sims, PhD, 3/5
It is so refreshing to read a book written specifically for female athletes that pragmatically and constructively addresses the comparative strengths and weaknesses of our sex. I am often the only woman on our martial arts fight team and it is tempting to think of myself simply as a smaller, weaker man, cursed with monthly inconsistency in performance. Sims makes it clear that things are not that simple and offers helpful ideas for navigating the ups and downs of the menstrual cycle, menopause, and pregnancy, in addition to the basics of general strength and conditioning, nutrition, hydration and recovery for women. I found the section on different types of birth control and their effects on athletic performance to be particularly interesting. I was also fascinated to find out that I should be eating protein as a recovery snack instead of carbs.
While I definitely plan to refer to this book in future, I do wish it contained specific footnotes for many of its claims instead of general endnotes. Sims’ recommendations for PMS supplements were particularly unsupported by any obvious science or reasoning, which did not inspire confidence. I also wish the advice was more easily scalable; while Sims gives many examples of specific guidelines for specific clients, there is obviously considerable guesswork that would be involved in applying her principles to one’s own situation. This is a definite obstacle to the practical application of her ideas, especially for a perfectionist like myself. Of course, no book can be a substitute for one-on-one coaching, so perhaps I am asking too much. But while I’m at it, I would love to ask for a book like this to be written specifically for female MMA athletes!
Why I read it: a recommendation from my sister.
Sugar and Salt–Foods or Poison?
Sugar and Salt–Foods or Poison? by Axel Emil Gibson, 3/5
As a sugar addict in a state of near-constant relapse, I have first-hand experience with the bizarre, drug-like power of sugar and the rarely-acknowledged withdrawal symptoms that accompany any serious attempt to resist it. Over-dramatic as this may sound, it’s positively restrained compared to Dr. Axel Emil Gibson’s opinion on the topic:
The dominating ingredient in most of our dishes, sugar perverts our taste, blinds our instincts, bewilders our gastric consciousness, and leaves us guidelessly and aimlessly adrift in the rapids and breakers of morbid and despotic cravings, not infrequently decoying the individual into body-and-mind-destroying excesses (13).
Though a proponent of naturally-occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables, Dr. Gibson fervently denounces “free sweets” (extracted or concentrated sugar) and has no qualm about addressing the metaphysical and moral implications of one’s nutritional choices. Written in 1913, this eyebrow-raising rhetoric, accompanied by old-fashioned science, makes it tempting to dismiss the book as outdated and of historic rather than practical value. After all, if current, more-enlightened times see numerous fad diets fueling a multi-billion dollar weight loss industry, what crazier, more ignorant, unscientific advice might this doctor from over 100 years ago recommend? The answer is extremely embarrassing. Gibson’s dietary recommendations are simple, commonsense, and inarguable: he preaches moderation and “[nature’s] own faultless cuisine, where the sun does the cooking and the earth the seasoning” (26). And yet, it is just in recent years that science and popular culture have started to catch up with this hundred-year-old wisdom, after spending decades hardheadedly demonizing fat. To me, this supports the “sugar conspiracy,” which is a rabbit hole well-worth traveling down since the “evidence” against it actually seems to argue for it instead. Just read a summary of Science magazine’s article claiming to prove there is no “sugar conspiracy,” or this Verge article on the topic. Both focus on salvaging the scientific community’s credibility and denying the conspiracy, while at the same time verifying and attempting to excuse the sugar industry’s underhanded dealings.
Why I read it: The title caught my eye in an antique store and for $5, I couldn’t resist discovering 100-year-old opinions on a still-controversial topic.
OmniRambles 