Paradox:

• I am fascinated by paradox. Sometimes what looks like a paradox is actually not – we can resolve apparent contradictions with more understanding. The French paradox: High saturated fat but low heart disease. The Isreali paradox: High vegetable oil but high heart disease (The short post summarizes a very cool article).
• These paradoxes cease to be paradoxes if we consider two possibilities: saturated fat does not in itself cause heart diseases, and vegetable oils are not inherently healthy. 

Dang:

• New keto-friendly bar on the market. Clean ingredients. Low sugar. Sweet taste without the fake flavor that comes in many of these bars. Three flavors for now. Amazon is not cheap, I found a deal at Whole Foods. 

Drop Down and Give me 40:

• This JAMA article has a lot of people talking. In a 10 year study on 1104 male firefighters, pushup capacity seemed very effective in predicting cardiovascular risk. The results make sense, and most people would not be surprised at the findings. Pushups here are likely a surrogate for good health, much like grip strength. So sitting at a desk all day eating candy bars and rocking 40 pushups once at night probably will not protect you from a heart attack. 
• For you literature analysts, check out the one Figure in this paper. The apparently linear relationship between pushup category and risk breaks down at the 30-40 mark, where those subjects had MORE risk than 20-30. So once you can do 30 pushups, you have to hurry up and build to 40+ to get back to a lower risk. 
• Odd finding there, but the point remains, having the ability to do that many consecutive push ups likely predicts good health.

Tribes:

• Article from almost a year ago by Robert Wright, author of Why Buddhism is True. He argues with people like Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now) who believe pure reason can make humans all get along. Wright uses evolutionary psychology to back up his concern about our inherent tribalism. 
• But he does present a path forward. He wants everyone to be more mindful. Yes he is a fan of meditation, but in much of this article he is using the more straightforward definition, the opposite of mindlessness, to ask us to notice and eradicate our biases. 
• Here is an excerpt: “After all, our minds are designed to delude us into thinking we are being reasonable when we’re not. It is only when we make it a practice to look carefully at the mechanics of the delusion—look at the way affect steers reason, the dynamic Hume so vividly described—that we have much hope of solving the problem.” 

MovNat:

• Erwin LeCorre has been around for years, leading workshops in the movement paradigm he founded, MovNat. Here is an excerpt from his bio: “At age 19, while living in Paris, Erwan was introduced to a hard-core philosophy of natural physical and mental training and lifestyle called “Combat Vital”. For 7 years he trained in both natural and urban settings, day and night. He climbed bridges, balanced on heights, jumped from roof to roof, walked on all fours in the underground, swam in cold waters, and practiced breath training and fighting techniques.”
• His movement practice revolves around natural movements. Climbing, running, jumping, hanging, etc. What humans were intended to do.  
• His book was finally published and it is like a beautiful textbook. Plenty of free content on his website. 

Quote:

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that rips me apart, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. 
– Jorge Luis Borges