London bus conductors had much lower death rates than bus drives

The power of very simple data analysis. We first learned that exercise is good for health from the observation that in 1940s London bus conductors had much lower death rates than bus drivers. 


http://larrysummers.com/2016/04/04/price-statistics/

Squats, Push-ups and other exercises video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z9m8nfZoRw

Exertion exercise is the best exercise

1. There are 4 types of muscle fibers
Type 1
2A
2B
2X

2. Your body is trying to be as 'efficient' as possible. It tries to conserve energy as much as possible.

3. For this reason, your body loves 'Type 1' muscle. Type 1 muscle is very inexpensive metabolically to have on your body or to use.

It costs almost nothing for your body to use Type 1 muscle. Your body wants to use this muscle fiber for everything. Because it is so inexpensive metabolically.

4. Type 1 is used by your body if you have to do something for a long time - for 30 mins or 1 hour or more.

Jogging - if you are jogging for 30 mins or an hour or all day long. If you are an ultra-marathoner. Your body is using Type 1 muscle.

All daily activities - talking, moving, moving your arms. For all, your body uses Type 1 muscle fiber.

In fact, anything you do upto 70% of maximum exertion, you are using Type 1 muscle fiber. Your body is going to consume hardly any calories. Your body is going to say 'hey look, how inexpensively I got his chore accomplished.'

Unfortunately, it is not helpful, if you are trying to be:
- stronger
- perform better
- burn more calories
- trying to be more metabolically active

So, you really want to increase the amount of Type 2A muscle on your body. How are you going to do it?

5. Let's say you are doing something that requires more than 70% of maximum effort.

Let's say you have to push your car uphill. Then, you may have to dip into 80% of your maximum exertion. Your body says okay, I have to dip into Type 2A muscle fiber. I don't like to do that because it is more expensive, it burns glycogen - which is the stored energy in the muscle. I could not do this all day long. I could do this may be for 15 minutes.

Body doesn't like to do that. But if it has to, it will gradually dip into type 2A muscle fiber.

6. Now, let's say you have to push your car on a little higher incline.

You are pushing and pushing your car. If you are failing at Type 2A level, then your body will dip into Type 2B muscle fiber, where you body needs to put in 90% exertion.

Your body does not like to do this. It is very expensive. It is stripping through glycogen. May be you could do this for 5 minutes.

7. Now let's say someone has put emergency brakes on your car. Now, you need to put 100% exertion.

Your body hates this. But it will dip down into Type 2X muscle fiber. It is extremely expensive metabolically. May be you could burn all of your body's glycogen in a minute and a half.

Your body does not like to do this. Your body does it only in extreme emergencies.

8. When your exertion reaches 100%.

It is going to send a message to your body. That your body needs to be stronger for greater challenges in future. It's evolutionary message.

There is a huge hormonal flush throughout your body. Your glycogen is entirely burnt up and depleted. Your insulin sensitivity gets much much better. Over a period of time, you are building muscle.

Over the next few days, your body put up more type 2 muscle fiber. If you put on a pound of type 2 muscle, it literally burns 300 calories. It is constantly burning calories, even while you are at rest or sleeping.

When you are doing this, it is extremely expensive for the body to have muscle mass on your body
- burning up all the glycogen in your body,
- flushing out all the glucose in your body
- resetting your insulin sensitivity

9. Low strenuous exercise like say jogging is hardly helpful, even if you do it for any hour. It burns few calories, type 1 muscle fiber. If you eat a muffin, it's all back to square one.

So, only strenuous exercise with exertion can make you stronger.

10. Push Ups

Horizontal push and pull.

You have do push-ups till you can absolutely do no more. Only then will you be reaching to the 2X muscle fiber.

So, short an strenuous exercise is the way to build muscle fiber. In my experience, people who do it look much better.

11. Running

While this is not exactly for burning type 2 fiber, it is helpful if you do it even for 4 minutes at a very high speed, rather than doing it for 15 mins or 1 hour at a slow pace.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlYXb1xs86U

Insulin and insulin resistance is the root cause of many illnesses

1. Insulin and insulin resistance is the root cause of many illnesses.
- Diabetes, heart problems, stroke, may be even cancer

2. Insulin increases when we take carbohydrates
- Carbohydrates are nothing but sugar. They get converted into mono-saccharides before being absorbed in the small intestine.
- Every carbohydrate that is a digestible is a sugar - glucose, fructose etc.,

- Usually, in the entire blood stream there is about 5 grams of  glucose 

- However, when we take too much carbohydrates, there is phenomenal rush of insulin You have a problem.
- The cause for insulin resistance is empty calories - which is mostly carbohydrates and vegetable oils. And Americans mostly eat only these two.
- Insulin is the elephant in the room. Insulin resistance is the cause of all kinds of illnesses.

3. Thyroid
- Shows if one has metabolic syndrome
- TSH is the parameter to look for
- When your thyroid is not working, your brain sends a signal to thyroid to release huge amounts of TSH
- Ideally, TSH should be 1, plus or minus 0.5
- However, we see thyroid being an epidemic problem in the US. About 1 in 10 women have hashimotos thyroid disease.
- In human bodies millions of chemical reactions are taking place
- When thyroid goes out of balance, then there is a problem with all those millions of chemical reactions
- People on low-carb diet will have low free-T3 level but this parameter is not so important.

4. Exercise
- It is surprising how little stimulus you need to grow type 2 muscle fibers, get stronger and grow muscle mitochondria
- You can do this by doing body weight exercises in your living room.
- So many people spend inordinate time in preparing for exercise - taking a gym membership, driving to the gym, putting stuff in locker, and so on.
- Instead, people should just exercise in their living room for 10 minutes or so.
- What's more important is 'consistency'
- If you do body weight exercises you can hit muscle failure and grow type 2 muscle fiber, which is mitochondria. This will improve metabolism. This is proven to have tons of benefits.
- I like basic push and pull moves.
- You can exercise your entire body with 5 moves.
- Horizontal pushing move
- Horizontal pulling move
- Vertical pushing move (you need a bar or something to hang for this)
- Vertical pulling move
- Squat


5. Blood tests - important / basic ones
- Even before talking about blood tests,
- Waist-to-height ratio is huge and important parameter. Just check the waist circumference around the belly button to your height. It is a great indicator of insulin sensitivity. And it's free. It is one thing anyone should be tracking.
Tests that are useful
- Fasting glucose
- Thyroid - TSH
- Cholesterol - Triglycerides to HDL ratio
- Livers test - SGT, GGT, etc.,

6. Food
- Target is usually high fat, moderate protein, and low carbohydrate
- The first thing that you need is nutrient density.
- If your body is not getting what it needs, then you are going to eat until you get it.
- Turns out, you are what you eat. It's that important.
- In the US, we have completely destroyed diet, and the whole world seems to be following US.

7. Illnesses
- The way to avoid all kinds of illnesses
- It all comes back to insulin
- And it comes to what your diet, what you are eating
- You don't want to eat empty calories
- You want to eat nutrient rich diet

8. Fasting
- I think it is brilliant
- I am fan of intermittent fasting.
- There should be a time period when you are not eating anything.
- I think a minimum 12-hour fasting should be made mandatory for everyone
- Although I prefer 16-hour to 20-hour fasting personally
- Low carb people are automatically gravitating towards that
- I am not recommending more than 24-hour fasts, although I love Dr Fung. I am little worried about lean mass losses.
- And you can absolutely get away with eating carbohydrates when you are intermittently fasting. Because you are depleting liver glycogen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOoKd1QUD1c