Wandering Weights
Our Epic Journey Through All Things Heavy, Issue # 165

This is the time of year we look to Josh Hillis for guidance, either for ourselves or our clients. The author of Fat Loss Happens on Monday (co-written with Dan), Josh knows what most people need to do to lose fat and, more importantly, he knows how to explain and teach those skills. Based on his lengthy experience in the field, as well as his study of how habits work, he tells us how to give and receive a fat-loss discussion. Here are a couple of key conversations: The Josh Hillis Hard Talk and How food works in fat loss. Even if you don’t need to lose weight, chances are good that someone you know or coach will benefit from your quality conversation.

Well, I am home from Ireland with a nice cold. I got stuck in the travel issues of JFK Airport, but made it home just a day or so late. We were lucky to reroute away from the East Coast and get in without too much effort.

I swam in Galway Bay nearly every day. On our last day, a massive storm hit and left some flooding. There is something magical about sleeping a lot, walking a lot, eating quality food and swimming in icy waters.

I will be speaking at the University of Texas this weekend. It will give me a chance to visit the Stark Center again and maybe see Jan and Terry Todd. If you are into lifting, this should be on the “Bucket List.” I could stay for days in this museum and archive.

This was a quiet week on the internet for me. I loathe this new idea of Top Fitness Whatevers of 2018 and all of the hype and hokeyness of the New Year’s Resolutions. “Twelve Ways to Achieve Six-Pack Abs in Two Weeks” and all of that drives me nutty.

But, I still found some quality. Parker Burns, an old friend, had a very interesting blog this week.

Quoting:

I took the “books” into account. I understood what was going on outside of the weightroom. If I trained them to be phenomenal athletes, but caused them to flunk school, get fired from their jobs, and lose touch with their loved ones, I would have failed them as their coach.

Resolutions are important, and they shouldn’t be restricted to one time of the year. Working on ways to improve yourself should be a daily activity. I don’t want my advice to steer you away from making a resolution. I want you to account for the books because I want you to succeed. The books are what will cause you to give up 3 weeks in to your goal. Your resolution should be manageable, and simplified to the point that you understand every aspect of it. The more you can prepare for the books, the easier it will be to navigate the roadblocks that will inevitably come.

End quote

This might be too late, but I enjoyed this article on hangovers.

Quoting:

In P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster series, a hangover is the occasion of a happy event, Bertie’s hiring of Jeeves. Bertie, after “a late evening,” is lying on the couch in agony when Jeeves rings his doorbell. “ ‘I was sent by the agency, sir,’ he said. ‘I was given to understand that you required a valet.’ ” Bertie says he would have preferred a mortician. Jeeves takes one look at Bertie, brushes past him, and vanishes into the kitchen, from which he emerges a moment later with a glass on a tray. It contains a prairie oyster. Bertie continues, “I would have clutched at anything that looked like a life-line that morning. I swallowed the stuff. For a moment I felt as if somebody . . . was strolling down my throat with a lighted torch, and then everything seemed suddenly to get all right. The sun shone in through the window; birds twittered in the tree-tops; and, generally speaking, hope dawned once more. ‘You’re engaged,’ I said.” Here the hangover is a comedy, or at least a fact of life. So it has been, probably, since the Stone Age, and so it is likely to be for a while yet.

End quote

This article really opened my eyes about the true role of fiber. I was told at the USOC that we needed “more protein, more fiber (veggies) and more water” and this article supports some of this.

Quoting:

Dr. Gewirtz and his colleagues gave inulin to their mice as well, but at a much higher dose. The improvements were even more dramatic: Despite a high-fat diet, the mice had healthy populations of bacteria in their guts, their intestines were closer to normal, and they put on less weight.

Dr. Bäckhed and his colleagues ran one more interesting experiment: They spiked water given to mice on a high-fat diet with a species of fiber-feeding bacteria. The addition changed the mice for the better: Even on a high-fat diet, they produced more mucus in their guts, creating a healthy barrier to keep bacteria from the intestinal walls.

One way that fiber benefits health is by giving us, indirectly, another source of food, Dr. Gewirtz said. Once bacteria are done harvesting the energy in dietary fiber, they cast off the fragments as waste. That waste — in the form of short-chain fatty acids — is absorbed by intestinal cells, which use it as fuel.

End quote

Money is always part of the New Year’s discussions. This is the best advice I could find for you.

Quoting:

Buffett is notoriously frugal. And frugality is all about value. In this quote, Buffett explains that value and price are not the same thing:

    Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

Frugality isn’t about buying anything at a low price. It’s not about paying a lot for something just because it’s valuable, either. it’s about buying value at a low price. Another way of putting it:

    It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

End quote

I enjoyed this article about assumptions. I assume you will, too.

Quoting:

“So I figured that more stretching can only help.”

You would be surprised at how many people turn a mild muscle strain into a chronic nagging injury by repeatedly and indiscriminately stretching it. With lower back and neck pain, stretching the wrong direction often provokes the pain or radiculopathy (pinched nerve), and they wonder why the still feel numb irritation in their arm or leg. They speak about why their essential oils and glucosamine supplement regimen is not working while doing neck rolls and flexing toward their toes, reinforcing the poor static alignment and movement dysfunctions that got them into trouble in the first place.

End quote

Ideally, next week I will have some new stories and new pictures from the Stark Center. Until then, keep on lifting and learning.

Dan
DanJohn.net

This is the time of year we look to Josh Hillis for guidance, either for ourselves or our clients. The author of Fat Loss Happens on Monday (co-written with Dan),Josh knows what most people need to do to lose fat and, more importantly, he knows how to explain and teach those skills. Based on his lengthy experience in the field, as well as his study of how habits work, he tells us how to give and receive a fat-loss discussion. Here are a couple of key conversations: The Josh Hillis Hard Talk and How food works in fat loss. Even if you don’t need to lose weight, chances are good that someone you know or coach will benefit from your quality conversation.

The Sword in the Stone

TSITS 22

The Madam Mim Story

“‘It was a witch,’ said Kay.”

One of the problems with the heavily edited later versions of The Sword in the Stone is that it drops this fun story of the local witch, Madame Mim. Yes, Disney includes it in the movie, but so much of the story gets lost in the telling of this scene with the focus on chasing and cheap humor.

Skipping the rest of the story leaves the “It was a witch” point in a bind. Students often turn to resources to improve their work (or simply find a quicker way to do an assignment) and might turn to this kind of thing:

“Kay’s description of the arrow-stealing crow as a “witch” is somewhat accurate. In Chapter 11, the boys will see the crow sitting on top of the castle of The Oldest Ones of All, allowing the reader to infer that the crow is actually an animal-spirit, that serves the sorceress Morgan Le Fay, who is keeping watch over the Wart and Kay. Later in the novel, they will encounter her face-to-face during their adventures with Robin Wood.

More important in these two chapters is the joust between King Pellinore and Sir Grummore, which reveals different attitudes toward jousting (and proving one’s heroism through it). White begins Chapter 7 by offering his reader an extensive survey of jousting traditions, equipment, and practices.”

By not reading the original, Cliffsnotes misses so much of the story. It’s actually funny to read “allowing the reader to infer that the crow is actually an animal-spirit” and the line “more important in these two chapters is the joust” as the story of Mim stands on its own.

Let’s pick up:

Quoting:

“I don’t care if it was ten witches,” said the Wart. “I am going to get it back.”

“But it went towards the Forest.”

“I shall go after it.”

“You can go alone, then,” said Kay. “I’m not going into the Forest Sauvage, just for a putrid arrow.”

“I shall go alone.”

“Oh, well, “said Kay, “I suppose I shall have to come too, if you’re set on it. And I bet we shall get nobbled by Wat.”

“Let him nobble,” said the Wart, “I want my arrow.”

They went in the Forest at the place where they had last seen the bird of carrion.

In less than five minutes they were in a clearing with a well and a cottage just like Merlyn’s.

“Goodness,” said Kay, “I never knew there were any cottages so close. I say, let’s go back.”

“I just want to look at this place,” said the Wart. “It’s probably a wizard’s.”

The cottage had a brass plate screwed on the garden gate. It said:

MADAME MIM, B. B. (Dom-Daniel)

PIANOFORTE

NEEDLEWORK

NECROMANCY

No Hawkers,

Circulars or Income Tax

Beware of the Dragon

End quote

I have read this book for the better part of fifty years and only after retyping this section did I realize that…Kay is Right! Perhaps this is the reason for its omissions in the later versions as Wart has become the one who drives on witlessly and Kay is the voice of reason.

“Hawkers,” in the 1930s were people asking for food or handouts, we have our own terms in every generation. “Circulars” would be junk mail and that will never cease and the “dragon” makes for a funny little line as many of us would be aware of “Beware of the Dog.”

Dom-Daniel (Domdaniel) shows up in a variety of stories but it is, usually, an underwater cavern where evil entities commune. I had no idea until I looked this up that “Pianoforte” is the original name for “piano” and it means “soft and loud.” Necromancy is a specific part of the “Dark Arts,” as Mim and Merlyn will discuss, that practices raising the dead. The dead, after being conjured, would answer questions, unlock secrets or even be used to do things.

In other words, Mim is on the side of Voldemort and Sauron (the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings…if you don’t know).

Unusually, therefore, we can say:

Kay was right.

Dan

This is the time of year we look to Josh Hillis for guidance, either for ourselves or our clients. The author of Fat Loss Happens on Monday (co-written with Dan), Josh knows what most people need to do to lose fat and, more importantly, he knows how to explain and teach those skills. Based on his lengthy experience in the field, as well as his study of how habits work, he tells us how to give and receive a fat-loss discussion. Here are a couple of key conversations: The Josh Hillis Hard Talk and How food works in fat loss. Even if you don’t need to lose weight, chances are good that someone you know or coach will benefit from your quality conversation.

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