Body Optimization Techniques

A key component of the BodyOptimization project.

Environmental risk factor reduction

By avoiding sources of harm from your surrounding environment, you can decrease risk to your health.

Avoid air pollution

• Minimize time spent in smoky (e.g. cigarrette or cigar) areas as second hand smoke has negative health consequences (citation needed)
• Live somewhere with minimal air pollution
• 2007-09 How Air Pollution May Cause Heart Disease
• 2009-01-21 CNN Drop in U.S. air pollution linked to longer lifespans

Minimize background noise

• Minimize time spent in persistently noisy environment, e.g.:
• commuting: cars, buses , trains (BART, MUNI)
• work: factories
• Live somewhere with minimal noise
• consider acoustic insulation for your home
• Sources (see these for noise harmfulness details)
• CDC Health Studies on Noise
• Wikipedia: Noise health effects

Intelligent Consumption

Simply by making small, scientifically informed choices about dietary intake, many metrics can be improved.

My eating guidelines

Work in progress. What I'm currently doing, YMMV, please consult your medical doctor and/or dietician before emulating. Will iterate and improve with more knowledge.

Overall guidelines: pescatarian, high calcium, high fiber

• avoid
• red meat hazards (citation needed)
• poultry hazards (citation needed)
• cornsyrup, refined sugars (see below)
• liquid cow milk (citation needed)
• consume
• FishBenefits
• calcium benefits (Weight-Loss Tip: Add Extra Calcium to a Low-Fat Diet)
• fiber benefits (reduction of cholesterol - citation needed)

Currently eating regularly (not necessarily in order)

• raw foods
• fresh vegetables (citation needed)
• e.g. salads, with organic blue cheese dressing (fats help you better absorb nutrients from salads: Carotenoid bioavailability is higher from salads ingested with full-fat... - thanks rachelannyes. also: Dietary Factors That Affect the Bioavailability of Carotenoids - thanks again rachelannyes.)
• fresh fruits (citation needed)
• sashimi (see FishBenefits)
• avocados - in burritos, see benefits of fats above
• mixed raw/cooked foods
• sushi, preferring brown rice sushi (e.g. from Whole Foods) fresh fish + brown rice benefits
• cooked foods
• fish (see FishBenefits)
• vegetables (mixed, broccoli, peas, corn)
• tofu - good source of protein (citation needed)
• egg white scrambles - high density source of protein (citation needed)
• egg yolks omitted due to high cholesterol content (citation needed)
• coffee - performance enhancement (citation needed)
• brown rice / toasted whole wheat bread (citation needed) - minimally, as carb source for particularly high physical activity days.
• olive oil and simple cheeses - in small amounts for cooking. a little bit of fat helps with absorption of vegetable nutrients. see citations above under fresh vegetables / salads / dressing / fats.
• processed/manufactured foods
• energy bars
• Clif bars (70% organic ingredients per self-labeling, no cornsyrup)
• Clif BUILDERS bars (32% organic ingredients per self-labeling, no cornsyrup)
• "plain" soy milk (Silk organic brand preferred) with plain Cheerios cereal, sometimes Honey Nut Cheerios
• yogurt with fruit (nonfat or lowfat organic Clover preferred)
• restaurants - recommended (I like these personally)
• Jamba Juice - they have calorie counts for all their smoothies. I particularly recommend their "enlightened smoothies".
• See FoodPreferences for more specifics.

Eating once in a while:

• raw foods
• walnuts

  "Walnuts, for example, are: Richer in heart-healthy omega-3s than salmon, loaded with more anti-inflammatory polyphenols than red wine, and packing half as much muscle-building protein as chicken..."

  - Best Life Magazine via Lifehacker's "8 foods you should eat everyday"

• restaurants - recommended (I like these personally)
• Spa Cafe in The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV, thanks to their menus with calorie/protein/fat counts. Need to encourage more restaurants to be transparent similarly, perhaps with the promise of more business.
• Chili's - their Guiltless Grill section has calories, total carbs, fat, saturated fat, fiber counts, e.g their Flagstaff, AZ location.
• restaurants - others that have calorie counts
• Chipotle calorie counter

Reducing consumption of:

• consider reducing even more (until total cholesterol < 200)
• cheese, cream (e.g. sour cream)

Avoiding specifically (both as end products and products containing):

• fried food (exceptions: ebi tempura roll sushi, snaking a fry or two from a friend once in a while)
• why: bad for cholesterol levels (fried food increases LDLs - citation needed)
• need to cut out completely (due to watching BodyOptimizationMetrics first half of 2007)
• chips, french fries
• corn syrup (exception: a (single) coke/soda/tonic at a bar in lieu of alcohol)
• why: SodaMakesYouFat
• artificial sweeteners (e.g. diet sodas)
• 2008-02-11 LATimes: Saccharin may lead to weight gain
• 2008-02-11 ABCnews: Study: Artificial Sweeteners Increase Weight Gain Odds Fake Sweeteners, Lack of Calories May Trick Brain.
• white starches, e.g. white/sourdough bread, white pasta, white rice (exception: small amounts in sushi, alternative: brown rice sushi e.g. from Whole Foods).
• why: bad for blood glucose levels, causes spiking thereof (citation needed), which in turn increases diabetes risk (citation needed)

Daily routine:

• eat and cook simple healthy foods per above, using cooking habits and intuition developed during former daily routine (see below).
• eat out / take out only a few times per week, preferably only socially, i.e. on occasion with friends.
• coffee nearly daily (the one exception to not eating out by myself)

Former daily routine: (how I got started and developed/learned much healthier habits, from 2006-10 to about 2007-06)

• Keep a food log of everything eaten with approximate times (e.g. breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack)
• Note calorie count of items consumed
• Stay within calorie budget range for slow weight loss according to calorie calculator. Be careful not to eat too much over or under the target calorie budget.
• 2100 cals/day based on: age, height, 165 lb, exercise 5/wk (almost intense 5/wk), slow weight reduction
• when goals achieved, slowly raise calorie budget until weight stabilizes, then maintain.
• note calorie distribution details (tuning which types of calories to eat in addition to limiting overall caloric intake). The Science of Fat-Loss: Why a Calorie Isn’t Always a Calorie - 2008-02-25 - Tim Ferriss blog.

Physical Training

With minor improvements in physical training over time, it is possible to ramp up physical capabilities and thus make steady forward progress per active measurements.

In general, train 5-7 times a week.

My approximate routines

In approximate current frequency order (highest first)

1. daily (5-7x week) or a few times a day
1. walking / jogging / running short distances (e.g. to coffee, to the market)
2. yoga
3. pilates
4. bicycling
2. 3x/week
1. climbing/bouldering (TThSa)
3. 1x/week
1. ...
4. 2x/month
1. OneHundredPushUps (MWF) - average dropped, need to pick this back up.
5. 1x/month
1. buildering (see BuilderingRules)

Other random activities done opportunistically:

• taking the stairs (instead of the elevator)
• two at a time
• running up the stairs
• skating/rollerblading/skateboarding

To be incorporated:

• jogging / running a mile
• parkour (citation needed)
• krav maga (citation needed)

Considering:

• Feldenkrais - recommended by Silona

Abandoned:

• ping pong
• no convenient opportunities, not worth going out of my way for
• hydranting (stepping on/over any hydrants encountered during above walking / jogging / running)
• due to spraining/worsening my right ankle by doing so.

Repairing and restoring

Sometimes we encounter hazards that cause us to fall below our normal operating levels, and thus require repairing or restoring of aspects of our health.

• HowToKickColds

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