My Theory of the Male Cycle

If you ask any male of the human species who happens to be in a long term relationship with a female of the species, he will be able to tell you that his mate goes through a regular and predictable series of body changes and mood swings depending on the time of month. For some women these swings are mild, for others, wild.

I have know women who, like clockwork, have an easy month followed by a manic one. I have known some who get a zit in the same place every single cycle. I've seen it all, elation, depression, swollen parts, dry patches, hot flashes, and cold stares. I've even helped a few ladies through menopause.

We have come to expect, and respect, the fact that a woman's body is an extremely fine tuned organic wave pattern. There's a consensus that a female is simply more physically and emotionally complicated than a man, which I mostly agree with.

But I wanted to write about how men actually operate in their own mysterious cycle. This is a fact that most couples overlook and which causes a lot of unnecessary strife in relationships.

Most of this is based on my own experience keeping track of subtle changes in my mind/body condition during the years of yoga and meditation. But once I lay out my theory to other guys they seem to recognize similar patterns in their own lives, once they know what to look for.

So, here's what I've figured out so far:

• The male cycle lasts about 3 months. Whether this has anything to do with the seasons has yet to be determined but that would make sense.
  

• It is characterized not so much by changes in mood, but by fluctuations in motivation and energy levels.
  

• The cycle is defined by two polarities:
  

1. The high point, in which a guy is eager to work, has a creative boost, and feels more positive and in control about the direction of his life. A lot of things will finally get done in this 1-2 week period.
   
2. And the low point, the male becomes more introverted. It can be hard to muster excitement for even fun activities. At this time the male will question his choices and motivations. He will tend to stick to his dwelling or usual hangouts. There will also be a strong need for solitude or solo activities.

• There is a similar arc in the sexuality of the male, although libido runs along a smaller series of cycles that are harmonious with this 3 month cycle. (I.e, the guy will feel keen sexual desire at both the highest and lowest points of this cycle. During the inbetween times the desire for sex will diminish.)
  

• When the cycle is at odds with life events, the shadow-side of the high and low points will arise. In practice this means that motivation can become aggression, and quiet solitude depression.
  

So, how can we use this information to make our lives run more smoothly?

First, guys need to start paying attention and identify where they are in their own cycle. This can be established pretty easily once you're on the look out for it. Once you've got a handle on this, start doing what I call "surfing the wave".

If you've ever tried real surfing, you'll know that you can't catch every wave. Sometimes you're in the wrong spot, and no amount of paddling is going to get your board where it needs to be. So you just let the wave wash under you, and keep your eyes open for one that will be in the right place at the right time.

So, for example, you have a new project that you want to take on. Think about your timing and try to align the time that the project will require a big push with the 1-2 week high point of your cycle. Similarly, if there is a lot of grunt work to be done at some point, that is an ideal kind of activity for the trough of the wave, when it's hard to be creative and visionary.

And moms, friends, spouses, and sisters, you too need to tune in to the male wave pattern. Knowing that a guy is entering his low weeks, beware that it will be tough to get him to do much, but that it's not forever. In a few weeks he'll be back to his old self and in a few more weeks he'll be your ideal man again. Of course, that's only for a brief time too!

I've labeled this cycle with "high and low points", which isn't the best phrasing because it makes one sound desirable over the other. In fact, like any wave pattern, the peak wouldn't exist without the trough. The low point of the cycle is in fact when the seeds of creativity and problem solving are sown.

Naturally I've got a lot to say about this but I'll stop here for now. Try to investigate these things for yourselves and get back to me with correlating or contrary evidence!

And guys, don't sell yourselves short. In your own way, you have just as many deep unexplored aspects of yourselves as your female counterparts. Learn to work with these subtle forces rather than fight against them.

You Might Want to (Not) Sit Down for This

I couldn't get much training in over the last two weeks as I traveled across the US. I calculated that I spent 36 hours in a seated position over the course of the trip, in various planes, cars, buses, and taxis. This was pretty dreadful for me.

The seated position, with the knees bent and the back resting on a support, is one of the most harmful postures for a human being. It's a double whammy, attacking our structural stability from top and bottom. Here's how the damage occurs.

Lower Body

If you're sitting right now, reach down and palpate the underside of your knee and thigh

. Unless you've shifted in some strange way to touch the area, you will feel that the knee ligaments and hamstrings are soft and relaxed. In itself this is fine, all day different muscle groups are contracting, relaxing, twisting, and stretching. The problem comes when a body spends prolonged time in this knees bent seated posture. Over time, because the hamstrings aren't being used, they actually shrink, so that their resting length resembles the length they have as you sit.

This means that when you stand up, your hamstrings will be shorter than the length required to stand properly. They will tug down on the pelvis where they connect. Your pelvis becomes tilted slightly forwards, which throws off the natural S curve of your spine, which then leads to forwards sloping shoulders and a neck that sticks out like a turtle. If you don't know what this looks like find an office worker who doesn't exercise and you'll be guaranteed to see it.

Upper Body

At the same time all that shortening is happening in the legs, your back is also being affected. When we sit in a chair, we aren't using our back muscles (specifically the spinae erectae) to support ourselves. We're using the structure of the chair.

Imagine I were to equip you with a robot support device that slipped over your arm and did 90% of the work your biceps and triceps usually do. Here's a device just like that developed by Ratheon.

You can imagine that after a few weeks like this your arms would shrink to little more than skin and flab, and you'd rely on the robot arm more an more.

This is exactly what happens to people living a Western lifestyle who begin sitting in chairs from early childhood. The supporting back muscles get both tighter and weaker from disuse. In those rare times people sit in a backless chair or on the floor they find that after a few minutes it's very uncomfortable and hard to sit still. This is because the back muscles are literally failing to do their intended work without the crutch of a chair back.

Weak back muscles will exaggerate the deformation of the S curve, compromise your posture, and lead to back pain and injury.

The Bottom Line

We need to think about sitting just as we're learning to think about rich, calorie laden foods. As a once-in-a-while treat. Had a long day and are totally exhausted? Sure, crash on the sofa for a half hour. But don't park there for hours on end. And most importantly, avoid getting yourself into work situations that require 40+ hours of sitting a week. If you have no choice, the best you can do is to create a standing desk, or even better, a treadmill desk.

If that isn't feasible, use a balance ball for a chair.

If that isn't possible, then try to keep your knees at 90 degrees so that the hamstrings are slightly flexed and don't use the back of your chair to support you. But know that those small changes aren't enough to offset the damage, and look for ways out of a job that is chipping away at your health and posture. You'll look and feel better for it.

America

I'm planning on writing a three part blog piece on The United States on my personal blog Here Lies Patrick later this week, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there about the state of health and eating in my home country while it's still fresh in my mind.

I've seen a lot of people work their way through the PCP and have noticed that people based in America have a harder time than others shedding fat and getting over that last hump, the final body changes that make the difference between a "not bad!" physique and a "wow" physique.

I've thought about this for months, and wanted to use this trip to the States to confirm some of my theories. Here is what I've come up with.

1 . In the US, you are punished for small slip-ups.

Anyone working towards peak condition will be watching their diet closely. But we're all human, there will be times when you simply HAVE to have something sweet, or you're on a road trip and have to get a snack at a gas-station, or you go out to eat with friends. In Japan, for example, I love to have manju as a treat when I'm craving something sweet. Manju is a thinly breaded dumpling with sweet bean paste in the middle. They usually come individually wrapped so I'll have one or two and feel satisfied. Manju is nothing but sugar and flour and rice, and definitely not a good choice if you're trying to stick to a diet.

However, in the US, when someone slips-up and veers off-diet the choices are much more damaging. Because this country has perfected the art of squeezing the maximum amount of sugars and calories into a small amount of food, what seems like a small treat is actually adding 30% more fat to your diet that day. And the worst part is that because these treats are made up of artificial ingredients (HFCS and its ilk) your body doesn't recognize that it's been fed and tends to crave more. So, a Japan based PCPer will be able to get away with a few slip-ups without a problem, but US based PCPers will be punished for the smallest mistakes.

2. Cars and Distance

I was talking to my aunt about her troubles keeping weight off despite having an active life and good diet. I brought up the point that, like most Americans, she spends a lot of time driving around her sprawling town and between cities.

Driving is a tricky thing. Let's imagine that, as she did, you take a two hour drive to go see a family member in a "nearby" town. You get there, meet your nephew, have lunch, catch up on the latest, do some errands in town, and drive back home. You would say, "Whew, that was a pretty busy day," right?

However, from your body's perspective you sat completely still for 4-5 hours as you drove and ate lunch. Imagine sitting on your sofa for four hours in a single day. You'd feel like a lazy slob. And yet people do the equivalent in their cars week after week, year after year. The tough thing is that you feel tired, driving requires an enormous amount of mental exertion and unflagging attention, but physically, you've had zero exercise. This will really catch up to people.

3. The Nutrition Facts label has backfired

If you buy anything in North America you will be familiar with this chart.
It seems like a good idea, an easy way for consumers to get a rough idea of what percent of fat, carbs, and nutrients are in their food. However, people are misunderstanding the Nutrition Facts label in several serious ways.

a) Based on a 2000 calorie diet

2000 calories is actually quite a lot. It's an average based on an already overweight American population. It will apply to only the tallest of women. It's how much a muscular man of regular height would eat to maintain his weight. And yet people who are overweight and lacking muscle will think they've had a good day if they hit the 100% marks on the Nutrition Facts. This is sheer folly.

b) Serving Size

I've noticed that the serving size from which the percentages are derived are hardly ever what anyone eats. 1 tablespoon of salad dressing? When is the last time you put a tablespoon of salad dressing on a salad? The manufacturers are well aware of this, but they choose a serving size that keeps the percentages low so that at a quick glance it doesn't look so bad for you.

c) The Salt Percentage is whack

Often the salt content isn't even given a percentage, it will just say something like "Sodium, 150 mg", but when it is, still beware. The US RDA of salt is 2,400 mg. This is an insane number. The American Heart Association recommends 1000 mg a day. I think even that is too much. But here is the real insanity:

The average American consumes 3000-4000 mg of salt a day. Eating that much salt will give you the red, puffy look that almost all Americans have. It will wear down your heart and kill you before your time. It is the single most overeaten substance in the US diet.

So let's add this all up. I'm looking at a bag of Double Stuff Oreos, Cool Mint Creme © that my Grandfather had in his house. The Nutrition Facts says that these are 11% or my daily fat and 5% of my daily sodium. Doesn't sound too bad for a little treat right? But when I factor in that my daily calorie intake should actually be 1500 calories, my salt the 1000mg that the AHA recommends, and that I will actually have 4 cookies, not the serving size of two cookies, the picture looks different. My little indulgence will come out to around 30% of my daily fat, and a whopping 35% of my daily salt. And that's from FOUR OREO COOKIES. Is it any wonder that for every 4 Americans, 2 are overweight and 1 in 4 is obese?

I teach people healthy lifestyles for a living, and even I get tripped up in America. I've gained a good 2-3 pounds of fat in my two weeks here. What chance does a regular person dealing with a job and kids have? Things have to change.

These are just my first thoughts on this, I'll be sharing more later. My last word is that if you are in America and trying to be healthy, consider yourself behind enemy lines. You will have to work harder and have stronger willpower than anyone else. The whole culture is working against you. Good luck.

Don't Waste Your Money...

...on supplements and herbal remedies!

In my week in America I've overheard several people waxing poetic about the power of their vitamins and supplements. From fighting colds to building bone density, there seems to be something for any condition that comes in a scientific looking bottle and promises natural results.

I've been in stores that focus solely on these things, row after row of fish oils, vitamins A through Zinc, herbs, pollens, tinctures, balms, antioxidant teas, the list is endless.

These things are all a waste of your money and time, and you are being played for a sucker. If you eat a varied and wholesome diet you won't need any supplements because there won't be anything TO supplement. You'll already have reached maximum vitamin and mineral needs for your healthy body. There's no such thing as having 110% vitamin C in your system. After 100% you will just pee it out.

In our world of easily accessible fresh and frozen foods, a moderately healthy eater would be getting over the course of a few weeks all the vitamins he or she needed to have a normally functioning body. What's ironic is that the kind of people who spend hundred of dollars on supplements are already eating very well and are actually the people who need vitamins least.

The counterargument I hear the most is "But supplements can't hurt and there's a chance they could help." This is a pretty stupid way to go about things. Wearing tinfoil hats couldn't hurt either. But we have no evidence that they do anything besides make us look silly, and there's similar scanty evidence that vitamins do anything either for a normally eating person.

And what's worse is that the consumption of vitamins sends the message that alone we aren't equipped to give ourselves optimum health, we must rely on the wise men in white coats to manufacture substances that will sustain us. It's just a few years down the road that we won't think it's such a leap to take a pill for sleeping or to feel normal. This is all music to the ears of the drug and vitamin makers.

So don't give them any more money. Trust your body and not the pseudoscientific background noise of the "wellness products."

Hit up the vegetable and fruit section and give the pill-makers the finger.

Curl Baby Curl!

Last night I was talking to a friend of mine who's thinking about getting into better shape. He really wants to put on some muscle, but work takes up most of his time and he doesn't really know where to start. On top of that his wife is expecting their first baby in September.

The solution hit me like a lightning bolt. A way for him to solve all his problems in one fell stroke.

Once that baby arrives he needs to start curling it. A curl is the term for most any exercise where you hold the hands out and bring them towards you, working the biceps. In the PCP we have 5 different kinds of curls, (Curl, One-Arm Curl, Thumbs-Up Curl, Outside Curl, and The Show Off) but we don't have a Baby Curl.

The magic of the Baby Curl is that you will start off with a very low weight between 4-6 kilos and be steadily improving your strength as the newborn gets bigger. You will be able to learn really good form in the lighter months and be challenged as the kid tops 10, 20, then 30 kilos. By the time he's in junior high you're really going to have some serious burn! But if you've followed the plan and curled him 4 times a week for 10 years it won't be anything you can't handle.

I almost want to have a kid just to try this. If you're lucky enough to have a little tyke, don't waste anymore time, get off the couch and start curling that baby!