There She Blows

Time: 48:28
Distance: 6.5 miles

What a typical Oklahoma winter day! If you read my earlier post about today you would know this morning was windy but relatively pleasant. All of that changed by the time I left for work with Señor Gustavo (I quit my job working at the running store and have now started picking grapes, not really). The clouds had moved in and the temperature had dropped 5-10 degrees and it continued to be windy. All throughout the day it remained windy and when people came into the store they were all relieved to be inside for some Christmas shopping. It was a little after 4 pm when Scotty rolled through to pick me up and it was the first time I had stepped out on the northern side of the store in a few hours. Freezing! Had the wind not been at 30 mph the temps would have been bearable, but with the windchill factor the "real feel" was in the teens. I would even take temps in the teens just as long as the wind wasn't blowing.

We headed up to Sutton Woods seeking shelter from the wind by running amongst some trees. It kinda worked. We ran four times around the 1.5 mile loop before calling it a day. On the last loop Scotty wanted to work the straights and I was happy to oblige. The final 600-800 meters were run with the wind at our backs so the quicker pace was a nice way to end a cold run.

In un-running related news, I've been reading Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes. The back cover tells us "for decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, carbohydrates better, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet despite this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates, like white flour, easily digested starches, and sugars, and that the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the number. In this groundbreaking book, award-winning science writer Gary Taubes shows us that almost everything we believe about the nature of a healthy diet is wrong." Pretty legit. I'm only about a 1/3 of the way through the book and I've already learned about initial studies on cholesterol conducted around the world and how they shaped the US governments recommended serving guidelines.

Look for this guy the next time you're in a bookstore.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a piece that I found poignant concerning cholesterol and fat. The author is talking about different types of cholesterol (HDL and LDL) which were only discovered after using some hi-tech ultracentrifuge to separate different densities of cholesterol molecules. I'm just going to throw the passage out there because I don't want to explain anything else due to my lack of understanding. Here it is, "The observation that monounsaturated fats both lower LDL cholesterol and raise HDL also came with an ironic twist: the principal fat in red meat, eggs, and bacon is not saturated fat, but the very same monounsaturated fat as in olive oil. The implications are almost impossible to believe after three decades of public-health recommendations suggesting that any red meat consumed should at least be lean, with any excess fat removed."

Now here's the good part, "Consider a porterhouse steak with a quarter-inch layer of fat. After broiling, this steak will reduce to almost equal parts fat and protein. Fifty-one percent of the fat is monounsaturated, of which 90 percent is oleic acid. Saturated fat constitutes 45 percent of the total fat, but a third of that is stearic acid, which will increase HDL cholesterol while having no effect on LDL. (Stearic acide is metabolized in the body to oleic acid, according to Grundy's research.) The remaining 4 percent of the fat is polyunsaturated, which lowers LDL cholesterol but has no meaningful effect on HDL. In sum, perhaps as much as 70 percent of the fat content of a porterhouse steak will improve the relative levels of LDL and HDL cholesterol, compared with what they would be if carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, or pasta were consumed. The remaining 30 percent will raise LDL cholesterol but will also raise HDL cholesterol and will have an insignificant effect, if any, on the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL. All of this suggests that eating a porterhouse steak in lieu of bread or potatoes would actually reduce heart-disease risk, although virtually no nutritional authority will say so publicly. The same is true for lard and bacon."

I'm not making this stuff up. This guy is my hero. He's essentially recommending that we all consume more porterhouse steaks and/or bacon. Often. Da WeeMan is probably on his way to the butcher right now!