I've written about Nassim Taleb and some of his great work a few times before.  I review notes on his 3 books I've read every so often because they're that good.  Hope you enjoy this!

Becoming Anti-Fragile

“Comfort is the road to waste.” - Cato

Ironically, one of the greatest books on exercise of all time, "Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder" was written by an economist-philosopher-polymath.  His name is Nassim Taleb, and actually he’s a Ph.D., but prefers you not call him “Dr.” Taleb, because he reserves that title for MDs.  This is just one of his many maxims.  Quite simply, he’s one of the best and most interesting thinkers of the last century, because he’s connected the dots between so many different fields- economics, science, philosophy, religion, exercise, and linguistics, among many others.  

It’s challenging to put his major contribution to the field of health into one sentence but it could be summed up like this:

Fragile things break or fail with disorder or stress.
Robust things resist disorder or stress.
Anti-fragile things are those which become stronger with disorder and stress. 

To be healthy, become anti-fragile and live an anti-fragile life.  

In other words, stress and unpredictability is good for systems and make them stronger so we should seek out stress that is short and intense to make us anti-fragile.  The way this works in economics is best exemplified by pizza restaurants: Pizza restaurants are good in general in NYC because the bad ones go out of business.  The free market system is a stressor which is good for the customer, because it gives us better pizza.  On the same hand, our goal with exercise and lifestyle should be to become anti-fragile, one who gets stronger and better as a result of unpredictable stress, not chronic, long-term, and daily stress, but intense and short-term stress.  We want to get stronger from the short stress in our lives, not let it break us down by allowing it to be chronic.   We want to become "free-range humans."

Exercise done right makes us stronger, and less fragile, it makes us anti-fragile, like Taleb teaches.  Fragile things break with stress, anti-fragile things actually get stronger with stress.  That’s what we want to be, anti-fragile. We want the right kind of stress to make us stronger.  Here are a few of Taleb’s maxims, which cover all sorts of fields:

•    Some chaos and disorder make things stronger.  •    It’s better to be dumb and anti-fragile than smart and fragile.
•    Those trying to help us are often hurting us the most.  
•    Skin in the game should always be a requirement.
•    Less is more and is usually more effective. And debt always destabilizes.  
•    It takes a lot of work to make things simple. 
•    The key is to remove versus add unnatural stressors (medications, debt, gluten, etc.)
•    “A man is morally free when, he judges the world and judges other men with uncompromising sincerity”- Santayana 
•    The more specialized and technologically advanced society becomes the more vulnerable it is to collapse. 
•    Exercise is convexity: run, don't walk.
•    Is fitness being in shape, or is it redundancy? Antifragility is much more than fitness (being able to deal with past events).  It's more like being able to deal with unexpected and incredible events that have never happened.
•    There’s post-traumatic stress syndrome, but there could also be post-traumatic growth.
•    The best horses lose against slower ones, and win against better ones.  Some do better in Calculus 103 than Calculus 101.
•    The absence of a challenge degrades the best of the best. 
•    Criticism and attacks are often the best things for you.
•    What is unintelligible is not necessarily unintelligent.  
•    Chronic daily stress is much more dangerous than acute short-term stress. 
•    Machines you use it and lose it; People you use it or lose it.  
•    Stress is knowledge, and knowledge is stress. 
•    If it’s alive it needs stress. 
•    The central illusion in life is that randomness is risky, that it is a bad thing; that eliminating randomness is done by eliminating randomness.
•    There is no stability without volatility.
•    Modernity: A lack of free-range humans.
•    Periodically, even daily it's good to do a daily worst case scenario, just to realize it doesn't really matter.
•    We don't create practice out of theories, we create theories from practice
•    studying the ingredients of cooking will not make you a better cook, cooking will.
•    Errors multiply, 110k cars on a road is non-linearly worse than 100k cars. In other words, 100k might move just as fast as 90k or  10k
•    Being small is usually better: a cat or a mouse, not an elephant, survives when dropped off something several times its size
•    The best way to check if you're alive is by checking if you like variability; food wouldn't have a taste without hunger, results are meaningless without effort, convictions are without uncertainty.
•    What do you do in a world you don't understand? f(x) Don't worry about "x", worry about a function of x; don't conflate events and exposure.

Read Next:  Sparta vs. Babylon

If you want to eat better and improve your health I'm now accepting clients to work with privately on Nutrition. We're going to use the concepts I laid out in my Nutrition book, "3.0 Nutrition: Eating Better than Ever", and utilize the nutrition application, Cronometer, which is the best out there for dramatic changes in eating. If we work together, you'll have access to the Gold Edition, which tells you everything you'd ever want to know about what to eat and what not to. I expect participants to see dramatic results.
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Check out the Cronometer site below and / or download the app. We can work together online and in virtual appointments, so there's no need to meet in person. Send me a private message for more info.

3.0 NUTRITION: Intro to Nutrition Coaching

This video explains exactly what I’ll be doing with my clients in Nutrition coaching. I expect to see massive results, relatively quickly, affecting both health (weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, inflammatory markers, energy, digestion, skin) but also in regards to leanness, fitness, and fat loss. Let me know if you have any questions.

Some other nutrition tidbits.....

PLANT BURGERS

I read a long research article about plant burgers and decided to try the “Impossible Burger” today. I have to give it a thumbs up on taste, it was excellent. I think it’s prudent to not overeat these though, maybe one per week max. They are definitely modified to taste this way, so who knows the long term effect. On paper, they’re better for people with heart disease and definitely better for you than your typical fast food fare. I still eat meat, but it’s good to limit it somewhat. Primarily this is because of the industrial practices involved in the huge amount of meat we eat. Long-term it depletes the soil. We eat twice as much meat per person now as we did in 1960. Grass-fed beef is better for you and also better for the soil, the environment, and it ironically makes the planet healthier. I grew up on my Grandpa’s cows and I can tell you that beef is healthier. 

Eating more plant foods is definitely the way to go overall, incorporate as many plant foods as you can (French Fries don’t count). But I’m definitely not giving up meat. Give it a try and see what you think!

HEALTHY SNACKS & LOW CARBS?

People are asking me quite a bit about healthy snacks. The perfect is the enemy of the good. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just go for some protein and healthy carbohydrates. The key is to avoid sugar and fried foods like chips and fries. I like a little green tea in the afternoon for antioxidants and light caffeine. I usually eat something like this 30-60 minutes before training martial arts. All of you low-carb people come and live in my world for a day, and I'll have you desperate for some whole grains and fruits. Try working on your feet 10 hours, since 5 am, running sprints for 30 minutes, and training martial arts for 90 minutes. You need carbs for the vitamins, for the antioxidants in fruit, for focus, for fiber, and most importantly for energy. No great athlete eats a low-carb diet. Dr Dan Benardot, in his book "Nutrition for Serious Athletes" specifically states that athletes' number one mistake is not eating enough. Now athletes and the general public are drastically different situations. You have to adjust. Keeping your blood sugar steady is the bottom line.

Read Next:   A Year to Celebrate

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