Maggie's Farm

That's the title of this post, but I do not mean to restrict this little discussion to the workplace. The issue is that, wherever men and women congregate regularly, "chemical" attractions occur commonly.

These of course range from very mild to intense. It is difficult for people to focus on what they intend to do when there is a powerful attraction to a nice person of the opposite sex who is in regular proximity and contact.  I have had people say to me "Is there anything you can do to help me get rid of this crush on so and so? It's messing up my workout/job/tennis game, etc."

A colleague and I were talking about this recently, and he (jokingly) suggested that people in that situation should just jump into bed together and eliminate the romantic/sexual tension and eliminate the mystery. "Get it over with. It's just biology."  And of course their are rules about these things in the workplace.

In my view, such things are not necessarily a sign that a person is in a lousy relationship. Could be, but humans are designed to experience these things.

If a close friend confesses to you that some guy or gal at work or somewhere else is driving them nuts with desire, what would you say to them? Would you say"Grow up!"?

They’re a two-billion-dollar industry. But are assessments like the Myers-Briggs more self-help than science?

Very few exercises are pure forms of those four categories, but there are differences in emphasis which is why we recommend balanced programs of resistance, calisthenics, and cardio training to maintain or improve fitness.

Strength is the ability to move things which resist moving. Power is the ability to move things (including yourself) with speed and force. For example, bench press and rows are mostly strength exercises.  Powerlifts are power exercises: deadlifts, squats, military press, etc. in which bursts of speedy intensity are required. 

Where would we categorize pull-ups? I'd say Strength.

 What’s the difference between strength training and power training?

We have discussed cardio training at length. The main muscle it trains is the heart muscle. While any difficult exercise stresses the heart, only pure cardio training (HIIT via HIIT calisthenics/ aerobics class or sprinting intervals) gives the heart a specifically strength-building stress. 

So what about endurance?  If you are somebody who "gets too tired" from non-resistance activities, you have an endurance issue. It is not rare for very strong people to have poor endurance or for high-endurance people to be relatively-weak. We want both strength and endurance. Anything that is high-rep builds endurance but not strength or power: long-slow "cardio", high-rep (10-20) resistance work, calisthenics.

One caveat: Do not ever do high-rep (over 10) deadlift sets. The human body is made for low-rep heavy floor lifting (8 or fewer). If you can do over 8 deads, you need to increase the weight and reduce the reps.

Women put themselves through more then than they do now

Today, the only hard thing women do to look good is to work out. 

We're getting towards Brussel Sprout season. Delicious baby cabbages with a strange appearance in the garden.

A tip or two to make them better: People who grow them in their gardens leave them standing all winter and harvest as wanted. They taste better after frosts or coated with snow. If store-bought, throw them in the freezer for a couple of hours or days.  

Four favorite Brussel Sprout recipes:

Warm truffle brussel sprout salad 

Easy for Thanksgiving, Brussel Sprouts with bacon. Blanche the sprouts then finish them in bacon fat with chopped bacon in a frying pan.

Maple roasted Brussel sprouts 

A secret warm salad family recipe: Steam them (still firm, not mushy), cut in half, toss with pomegranite seeds, pecans, goat cheese, and a maple syrup vinaigrette.  Then try to tell me you do not like Brussel Sprouts.

Got any favorites?  Post in comments. 

Barbour waxed-cotton jackets are made for cool weather and cool drizzle, not for temperatures below 25 degrees (F). They are tough though, and can take a beating.  Their appeal is to tradition and style nowadays, while Gore-tex is more practical and cheaper, and take no breaking-in time.

Here is  On Barbour Jackets: Bedale vs. Beaufort vs. Border

Here is  How to re-wax your Barbour jacket - Barbour's step-by-step guide (with good music) 

And remember how to clean waxed cotton?  With a hose! 

F*ck Feelings

 The only self-help book you’ll ever need, from a psychiatrist and his comedy writer daughter, who will help you put aside your unrealistic wishes, stop trying to change things you can’t change, and do the best with what you can control—the first steps to managing all of life’s impossible problems.

The famous psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott came up with the term Transitional Object. His idea had to do with things that symbolically connect with Mom during the process of independence and separation.

Since then the term has expanded to encompass a larger territory. We all understand that humans live in conflict between safety and comfort, and adventure and newness. Winnicott, in his psychoanalytic way, connected it all to connection with Mother but it goes beyond that.

Things and ideas that connect us with our past (which includes our orienting culture in general) are meaningful to those who have strong attachments.

Jordan Peterson often speaks of the importance of the instinctive "orienting reflex" in animals and humans. We all observe how much people vary in their fearfulness and adventurousness.  You could view adventurousness as a way of creating excitement by becoming somewhat disoriented, away from safe, familiar, and orienting things, places, and people.

Then for most people, the somewhat disorienting adventure is finished with a return to the things and symbols which signify, or actually are, safe, comfortable, and familiar. Adults do what little kids do.

"Bad seed."  I recently saw the term "unmotivated malignancy" somewhere, and it made me naturally think of cancer. Cancers are unmotivated malignancies.

As a Christian and as a Psychiatrist, I accept that there is a dose of evil in every human being. The 7 Deadly Sins are not a joke and there is a universal need for mercy. However, I have paid attention to people long enough to learn that there are certain people who are strongly destructively-motivated because they were "born that way."  In casual conversation, "toxic" people who can be well-disguised. You could term it a "talent" like a musical talent which demands expression. Scorpions have a talent.

I am not talking about sociopaths necessarily, or other diagnoses like "Borderline."  Just people who were made with a heavy dose of venom in the soul. It requires no medical diagnosis because it's on a normal spectrum, a normal distribution. Perhaps a spiritual diagnosis. Some people also seem blessed with gifts of unbounded grace, gratitude, love, warmth, and forgiveness in their souls, and thank God for that end of the spectrum. 

Interesting to me is not how powerfully malevolent people make others suffer but how skilled such people can be at rationalizing their malevolence and destructiveness.  "My mother was...."  "My Dad was an...." "I got a raw deal..."  "People didn't like me". "I was too good/enviable/bad/rebellious..." "I was abused or bullied by...." And so on. As CS Lewis dramatically illustrated, the devil is subtle and more clever and manipulative than most of us can imagine. It is up to all of us to stand up and defeat those things in ourselves, and to steer clear of them in others.

Contra lots of today's psychology, I have come to believe that some people are born with unusual doses of destructiveness and malevolence, of scheming and manipulativeness, and who take gratification in it. Not criminal murdering sociopaths. It is "unmotivated," if you accept that many or most rationalizations are baloney and simple efforts to maintain some "self-esteem."  In other words, often the "cause" comes after the pattern of behavior. 

Without wanting to get too evangelical on our readers, the devil comes disguised as a friend, a victim, or in the dress of an angel. I am a skeptic about exorcism but I do believe that salvation through Christ can save, reshape, souls. This is not a common view amongst my profession. I am not a "psycho-utopian" (Trademark, Maggie's Farm) in the sense that we would all be wonderful saints if only for this-or-that misfortune, mishap, etc. That is a crazy fantasy.

Evil thoughts are normal for humans. Just thoughts are the limit because we can't help our thoughts. We are all fallen, but to varying degrees. Just my opinion.

Preventing Muscle Loss as We Age

Same old recommendations: Resistance exercise (weights), adequate protein, and don't quit.

Kavanaugh investigators need to see Christine Blasey Ford's therapy records.

She is free to release her therapist's notes to anybody she wants. I can tell you that, as far as psychotherapy goes, I keep few and minimal notes for a multitude of reasons, mostly illegible, and none at all on electronic medical records. Very often, no notes at all. I just follow the process and the progress.  Typical therapy note of mine:

"Career issues. Mood ok. Needs a hobby. Same meds. Good session." 

I am not sure that it matters much, but intense exercise does reduce appetite.

Sedentary lives increase appetite. What is "sedentary"? Less than 7 hrs/week of exertion. Not activity - exertion. 

Why might it not matter?  Because, as I have asserted in the past, in our world of abundance and temptation appetite has little correlation with nutritional needs in adults. In the world of nutritional scarcity in which our distant ancestors lives, it certainly did. Today, we have recreational feeding. It is fun.

There are many reasons why daily exercise is useless for weight loss.  Among them is the fact that a daily hour of "cardio" or calisthenics does not require additional nutrition from one's normal habit.  People who lift heavy two or three days/week probably can use 60-90 gms of protein daily for muscle repair.

People in serious training for physical competition are another category. A 2-3 -hour daily workout has different nutritional needs. Two hours daily of physical training sounds wonderful to me at this point in life. One hour in the gym and one hour of sports practice. Only college kids and the retired have that luxury.

With nutrition, best thing to do is to set goals for your desired fitness and functionality levels and to pursue those in a disciplined way. Same as everything else in life.

Are humans hard-wired for laziness and sloth?

I would have guessed that there would be a Gaussian distribution, but now I wonder about Pareto instead. The math of it is challenging for me, though. It's been a long time since I have used Functions.

Anyway, adult people do vary enormously in their energy levels, ambition, and physical determination. We all know that because it is obvious in the modern world wherein many people have choices of activity levels.

One thing that I am comfortable asserting is that a one hour workout daily (especially something like the Maggie's Routine) will increase your energy and drive to exert yourself.  It works. Try it, if you disapprove of your slothfulness or lack of strength and physical endurance.

So many myths it’s hard to know where to start.  Useful list of nutritional baloney.

A few simple rules to detect the stench of dubious but published psychological studies

The "Taleb's Grandma" Rule is useful.  Example:

Psychologist: You see, Taleb’s grandma, there’s a clear link between washing your hands and justifying album-ranking choices.

Taleb’s Grandma:"> What the fuck are you talking about?

Correlation does not indicate causation, but it's something to consider anyway. There are many reasons to pursue physical fitness.

Fitness people often refer to "metcon" workouts. These fall into our Calisthenics category, provided the Calisthenics hours are high intensity with only several seconds of rest time.

Why term it "metabolic conditioning"?  It sounds cool and technical, and it does stress and thus ramp up all metabolic systems and puts every muscle in the body to work including the heart.

Most typical calisthenics classes  (Cross-train cardio classes, Athletic Conditioning classes, HIIT, HICT aka High-intensity circuit training, AMRAP, TABITA, Crossfit, etc) have goals of building energy and cardio endurance instead of pure strength, with agility, speed, muscle-toning, and general athleticism as side benefits.

If a newbie wanted to "get back in shape" with a simple program, I would recommend 4- 6 of such classes/week before doing anything else if they could handle it. For 99% of people, classes will push you harder than anything you do on your own. For the first few months you will struggle and perform terribly. Endurance builds gradually. If you begin a bit chubby, the classes will be a strong motivator for nutritional rationality because extra fat makes all calisthenics more difficult than they already are.

Although we are believers in weight training twice-weekly for a number of reasons, we see many people in excellent shape whose only fitness work is a near- daily high-intensity calisthenics/metcon class.

For newbies who can not handle a 50-60 minute calisthenics class, spend a couple of months doing ordinary "cardio" to get moving. Then add in the calisthenics, and finally the powerlifts because at that point your body will be prepared to face them. 

Dilbert creator Scott Adams on his daily podcasts frequently refers to peoples' "skill stacks."  He seems to feel that the height of one's skill stack can be more valuable in achieving life goals than the quality of the skills.  That is, a low stack of A-level skills is often less effective than a tall stack of B-level skills. Obviously, there are unique exceptions at the ends of the bell curves.

Scott Adams admires Trump for having a tall stack of B-level skills.  Scott Adams on Trump etc. yesterday.  Quite clever and amusing about underling behavior. He is right. Everybody thinks his/her boss is an idiot. So did I before I quit having bosses. Now, when my boss is an idiot, it is me.

When I am asked to evaluate a person, I evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. It's basic. 

On that podcast, he advertises his weed-smoking. It doesn't seem to hurt his brain much but he is not the average person.

Yes, to a degree, but it's an uphill battle. Sarcopenia is an effect of ageing. Combined with a non-vigorous life, muscle and bone loss is natural decline.

Over 50 or 60, many trainers would make a goal of simply maintaining what you have, but more aggressive trainers like to find out how far "mature" individuals can take their strength efforts. 

As with all aspects of fitness, "use it or lose it" applies. I would be in the category of those who advise people not to give up on strength-building in later adulthood. Advancement is much slower than when 30, and you will not build much visible muscle, but you can be stronger anyway. 

The trick is heavy weights and low reps (ie 8 or less). We're talking men and women.  High reps are better than doing nothing, but they are not strength-building.

One piece of advice: Over 50 or 60, two days/week of powerlifting is enough. 

Some links:

8 Strength Training Moves Women Over 50 Should Do

 Getting older doesn't mean giving up muscle strength. Not only can adults fight the battle of strength and muscle loss that comes with age, but the Golden Years can be a time to get stronger, say experts at the University of Michigan Health System

 Simple test asked 50 to 80-year-olds to sit on the floor and stand up with as little support as possible

 Building Stronger Bones

Can You Regain Muscle Mass After Age 60?

Weight training is the only type of exercise that can substantially slow, and even reverse, the declines in muscle mass, bone density, and strength that were once considered inevitable consequences of aging.

...  because proper strength training doesn't apply stress directly to joints, it is ideal for people with arthritis; indeed, rheumatologists often recommend it. Although it cannot reverse arthritic changes, lifting weights helps alleviate symptoms by strengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments that surround joints.

Matthew:  "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

There is no word for "dostadning" in English. It is "Swedish Death-Cleaning."  I can not do the umlauts. 

The word refers to a human tendency, in their 50s and 60s, to begin to unload possessions and to streamline life. Furniture, clothing, tools, sports equipment, books, cookware and serving stuff, pictures and artwork, various collections, spare houses, time shares, and so on. Things in closets, things in the attic, things in the basement.

At some point, people realize they will not live long enough to use or wear out the stuff they have. Awareness of morbidity and mortality.

Most people fall somewhere in the middle of a spectrum between spartan minimalists to hoarders, collectors, and accumulators, but most people do end up with an excess of stuff, imagining that "I might need it someday" or "It might come back into fashion" or "my kids might want it." Nope. The psychology and psychiatry of it all is interesting, but we can leave that aside.

Inherited stuff is the biggest challenge for many. Things that connect us to our pasts, in general. Memory aids. Narcissistic and neurotic outlets.  Keep what has true meaning while knowing that its meaning will be gone when you die. Death cleaning.

I was raised on this Wordsworth sonnet (among many others- I was thankfully raised on the classics of literature, music, and art by my cultivated parents):

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The Keto diet is a hot topic these days, but it's really nothing new. It's mainly a weight-loss diet with very low-carb (just those in non-root veggies) and high fat.

The idea is to train your body (it does work) to burn fat for energy instead of carbs. When that happens, you excrete ketones mostly in urine. The high fat diet (greens with plenty of olive oil, juicy meat or fish with plenty of butter, etc) stave off hunger and combat carb addiction. That's the idea.

Adjustment to a keto diet can mean enduring the "Keto Flu" for a week or two as the body readjusts to fat burning. 

Everything about getting in to good shape is difficult.