The Android's Dream by John Scalzi

The Android's Dream by John Scalzi is an entertaining action/science fiction romp through one possible future. The characters are fun and not too serious, and the writing reminds me most of a young Neal Stephenson--which is good. He also runs into more hardcore space opera/alien territory without taking himself too seriously--which is also good. This is probably the best sci-fi I've read this year, but only pick it up if you're in the mood for a quick, breezy read that's fun and enjoyable and packed with action: it's more "sci-fi" than science fiction. Highly recommended.

9/10

On Diet (part 1)

This is one of the posts that I promised a while back. I've lost about 25 pounds since this time last year and my measurements say that it's over 90% fat. (I have been using a simple waist-wrist:weight ratio. I know it's not hydrostatic weighing, but I knew my body fat was too high, and now it's getting lower). I know I'm stronger than I've been--especially in pressing and upper body pulling--since I have been since about 2003-2004 when I set a bunch of PRs. But now I'm significantly lighter. I'd like to introduce you to the dietary concepts that I think are important and worthwhile, that have enabled me to lose weight and fat while gaining strength.

These are:
1. Eat a lower carbohydrate diet.
2. Consider carbohydrate cycling.
3. Fast occasionally, intermittently, and randomly.

Eat a Lower Carbohydrate Diet

The one book that I think everyone who is trying to lose fat should read is "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. Most of the fat I have lost has been in the time since I read Taubes' book. Twice as much fat in less than half the time-that's four times the rate of loss. This is the kind of thing that you could sell on an infomercial, but it's all true: faster fat loss while retaining strength and muscle, much less hunger, and increased energy levels. I realize that I am one person and this is not a representative, scientific sample (how do you measure "increased energy levels" anyway?) but it does represent my experience.

OK, so I've had great results since reading Taubes' book. Why? The biggest problem I have had following lower carbohydrate diets in the past is psychological. The dietary zeitgeist of the last 25 years has been that all fat is bad, and protein is viewed with concern: being a vegetarian is not only healthy, it's somehow more ethically laudable than eating meats.

The problem is that eating a lower carbohydrate diet works. So you get a certain sense of dislocation and cognitive dissonance: as your diet is working, you're being told that it couldn't possibly be working, and even if it is, it's killing you. So you try to walk a fine line in between the two extremes: fat-free chicken, veggies and fish do not an appetizing diet make. We need some fat to feel sated. So we feel hungry all the time, and we slip off the diet. Or we do the Atkins' plan and eat a bunch of butter and cheese and saturated fats, we feel physically better, but then our mind starts hemming away with "You're clogging your arteries... you're going to die." So we mentally screw ourselves up, and find ourselves unable to continue working with the diet, even though all measurements show that it's working. I've had a couple of "realizations" where I thought "this can't be good for me" and that would basically end that.

Taubes lays this debate/cognitive dissonance pretty much to rest, by spelling out most of the research done on the dietary question for the past 200 years, then showing how the science got off track, and why the common "knowledge" became that fats would kill you. Anyway, I've posted too much text, it's time for a couple of links so you can decide if you like what he has to say or not. I've got a couple of videos. Excellent stuff, but I hope you have an hour per link and enough time to pay attention, at least to the audio.

Berkley, November 27, 2007

Stevens Institute of Technology, February 6, 2008

And you can buy Taubes' book here.

One note about the second link: it goes to Jimmy Moore's blog. Jimmy Moore annoys me, but he puts up consistently good information. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Also note that Taubes book is descriptive, not proscriptive. You're smart though, otherwise you couldn't have read his book, so you can figure out a game plan that would work. If you can't, I like the Protein Power and Protein Power Lifeplan as a place to start. There a tons of books out there that are proscriptive and lower carbohydrate.

Consider carbohydrate cycling

Once you've nailed down the basics of a lower carbohydrate diet, I would recommend looking into a carbohydrate cycling approach.

Basically, why I think this is a good idea is that it's psychologically satisfying. If you are on a diet, eventually you're going to want to eat ice cream, so it's a good idea to give yourself a few hours a week where you can eat whatever you want.

The best books I've read about this approach are the following:

1. The Metabolic Diet by Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale
2. Natural Hormonal Enhancement by Rob Faigin
3. The TNT Diet by Dr. Jeff Volek and Adam Campbell

These books all deal with the tricky topic of losing fat without losing muscle, or losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time, or gaining muscle without gaining fat. The traditional "wisdom" of bodybuilding is that you "bulk up", gaining muscle and fat at the same time, and then you "cut up". The problem comes when you put on too much fat in the bulk, and lose too much muscle in the cut. A carbohydrate cycling approach allows you to avoid this negative cycle.

I recommend the third book: it has the best proscriptive plans, but the least science and it's cheaper and more easily available. The other two have good (but less flexible) plans and much, much more science. Depends on what your wants/needs are.

I'm going to leave the third part of this post for later, as I've gone on long enough, and it's going to involve quite a few more hyperlinks.

Stay tuned.

Grave Peril/Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

I was pleasantly surprised and pleased by Grave Perilby Jim Butcher. I finished it in about a day, the fastest I have read any of his books so far. The action is brisk and unflagging, and the danger quotient is high. Dresden, Butcher's hero, is appealing as ever and creative in dispatching much more powerful (in terms of raw power) baddies than himself. The series, however, begins to stray somewhat from the private eye with magical powers initial setup into a more Shadowrunstyle. This isn't necessarily bad, as it's a natural progression from what comes before. This is my favorite book in the series so far.

Butcher keeps up the pace with the fourth book, Summer Knightby continuing some of the previous plot threads, but not taking up some of the more important ones. This leads to a feeling of this being a transition book: the previous book was so compelling that you just want to get back to some of those story threads. I am looking forward to reading the next book.

So far, I am very satisfied with this series.

Grave Peril: 9/10
Summer Knight: 8/10

"IV" by Chuck Klosterman

Chuck Klosterman is probably the world's smartest Rock/Movie/Sports Critic. So what if he's probably the only one? Klosterman is all about drawing unexpected connections and critical thinking. He perfectly merges stoner philosophy with serious, mindboggling inquiry.

It's too bad, then, that IV has three parts, only one of which really brings these strengths to the fore. Part one features some pretty straight-forward personality profiles with Rock/Movie/Sports stars, while part three is a lukewarm novella with no real ending. Part two has all the strength in it: good article after good article, most of which (unfortunately) I had already read in Esquire.

So, basically, what this review is going to come down to are the following four points:

1. If you haven't read Klosterman, and you're 18-40 years old with a thorough grounding in pop culture, you should read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.
2. If you read, and liked Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, you should read IV in the following order: part 3 (optional) part 1 (good) and part 2 (great).
3. If you read and disliked Klosterman, you should be shot. Sorry.
4. If you liked Fargo Rock City and Killing Yourself to Live you should disregard my advice, as you probably already own this book in hardback. There are new essays in the paperback though, so you may want to check these out.

Part 1: 7/10
Part 2: 9/10
Part 3: 4/10

Overall, 8/10 and well worth the read.

"The Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson

I don't know if I'm supposed to be the prototypical Bryson fan: for one, I'm under thirty, and I imagine that there's supposed to be a generation gap between Boomers and Generation Y. The problem is that he's so damned funny that it's difficult to describe to people what his writing is like. The best comparison that I can think of is the teacher that makes learning about things fun: he tricks you into learning about things. And you laugh out loud, more than once, when you read his books.

The Thunderbolt Kid is about Bryson's childhood in the fifties, and it really makes you realize how absolutely different, how transformed our little world has become in the last hundred years. His perspective allows a backward look with the two room farmhouse where his grandparents lived, the cavernous schoolhouse where he reads Dick and Jane books in elementary school, and the enormous theaters where he attends Saturday matinees. He compares these things to the miracles of technology that are sprouting all around him: the automobile, the atomic bomb, and the television set. You can't help but think about all the things that have come since then that have transformed life even more.

Really, though, Bryson could write about shopping for socks at Wal-Mart and it would probably be worth reading. Really, picking up any of his books is a ticket to a good time.

8/10

"Fool Moon" by Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher's sophomore effort in the Dresden Files, Fool Moonseries suffers a bit from too much. There are too many types of baddies, too many baddies themselves, and not enough focus. It's not entirely bad, as Butcher seems to bring most of the plotlines into play by the end. We begin to see some formulaic aspects come into play as once again, Dresden creates two potions, gets beaten like a redheaded stepchild, and is stripped naked once again.

This is almost like Die Hard 2. Clearly derivative, but still not bad. Plus Dresden gets his ass beat like John McClane.

Well, the reason we have formulas is because they work. I'll be interested to see what Butcher does with the next book in the series.

6/10

"Storm Front" by Jim Butcher

Storm Front reminds me of the early books of Laurell K. Hamilton, but not in a bad way. Indeed, a lot of the excesses and nonsense that have come to characterize Hamilton's latest work are absent in the first book in Butcher's "Dresden Files". Gone are the two chapter-long sex scenes and instantly killed villains with the ever-escalating power levels (like a bad episode ofDragonball Z) and in are the slowly escalating levels of stress and danger for the protagonist. Though the book feels derivative now (with Harry Potter and the aforementioned Hamilton) the plot is handled deftly and moves quickly, with no fatty unnecessary bits.

I can't remember who said it, but someone said: "Strand your hero in a tree, and then throw rocks at him." Butcher takes this to heart. There's no letdown. Harry Dresden, quite simply, gets his ass kicked, but somehow comes out on top.

I'm looking forward to reading more of Butcher's work. I'll keep you up to date.

8/10