Cold Thermogenics: Freezing Yours Balls OFF! (not literally)



A friend of mine recommended a book to me a while back that really made a good impact on me.   Many topics I will mention here on my blog have reached me due to this friend of mine and the knowledge has shared with me.  He also writes a blog, and is a much more satirical, witty writer than I. Check out his blog here. 

image from: thetrendguys.com

The name of this particular book he recommended is called “The Flinch” written by Julien Smith (it can be downloaded for free as an ebook if you want to check it out). The concept of this book is that of a topic I mentioned in my first post about striving to put yourself in uncomfortable situations on a daily basis. In this book he discusses different exercises to try on a daily basis. One that stood out to me (and that everyone can try) is the cold shower exercise. I have always been any advocate of hot showers my entire life and would refuse anything different. This concept resonated with me and got me to thinking. Was this really necessary to take a cold shower?? Why did something so simple take so much thinking about before I could even try it? The whole point of this exercise to do like Nike says: “Just Do It!”.

As hesitant as I was, I finally mustered up the courage to just try it. No one has ever died from a cold shower… I think. The thing that this practice taught me is that the hardest part of so many things in life is just going for it and jumping right in head first. I learned that with time many things that are uncomfortable at first become much easier to stand.

I ended up doing some research on cold showers and found it also had some amazing health benefits along with the psychological aspect of the practice. These things include:l 

•  Enhance immunity against infections and cancer
• Give your glands (thyroid, adrenals, ovaries/testes) a boost, improving hormonal activity  Jump-start your mood and motivation
• Crank up your metabolism to fight type 2 diabetes, obesity, gout, rheumatic diseases, depression, and more
• Normalize your blood pressure
• Decrease chronic pain

• Train and improve your blood circulation
• Detoxify your body
• Fight fatigue
• Strengthen exhausted, irritable nerves
• Rejuvenate, heal, and tone the skin
• Deepen your breathing
• Help with insomnia
•  Improve kidney function
• Reduce swelling and edema
• Improve lymphatic circulation, thereby increasing immune function
• Reduce stress by regulating your autonomic nervous system
• Regulate temperature, fighting chronically cold hands and cold feet and excessive sweating
• Keep your hair healthy
• Improve hemorrhoids and varicose veins

  

  image from:therunningbug.co.uk

• Reduce aches and pains 

information from: http://www.cold-showers.com/

One of the best reasons I found for a taking showers was not included here. The reason is called brown fat adipose tissue. This tissue is normally found in infants or animals that hiberbate. The function of this tissue is to degerate body heat. This brown tissue burns calories from fat cells to keep the body warm. Unfortunately, as people grow older they loose most of this brown fat. It has been shown people have regenerate this brown fat, however, by increasing their exposure to cold. You can read more about this great way to loose fat while doing nothing HERE!

What I believe the best way to go about these shower are by going from water as hot as you can stand it to turning the water to as cold as the shower can get. This helps increase your body’s blood circulation and lymphatic function by stimulating vasodilation (from the hot water) and vasoconstriction (from the cold water). This acts like a pump for your lymphatic system, which is responsible for removing your bodies toxins from the blood stream.  I do this after every workout I do to get more blood flow to my muscles to recover faster. I have been doing this at least once every day for about two months now, and I feel great after every shower. Do some research on your own and give it a try if it interests you!

Intermittent Fasting: Just a Fancy Term for Starving Yourself?

All my life I have been health conscious. When I was five years old I was devouring bowls of spinach, encouraged by my mom telling me it would make me strong like Popeye.  I used to run around telling people I was going to be in the Olympics when I grew up. That didn’t quite pan out for me, but the intentions were there. As I grew older I would have push up competitions with my other two brothers and my father, determined to win. And I always did. High school came and I enrolled in weight training courses as much as I was allowed. I kept up with health and nutrition articles from sources like Men’s Health and Details magazine. These days I have been opened up to a variety of other resources from people who are up to date in the latest studies in health and fitness.  I will continue to share more of these sources as they become relevant in my future posts

For right now, I want to share I dieting approach that was brought to my attention a few months ago. Upon discovering this I have been fascinated with the idea and have been practicing it on a daily basis since then. The name of the game is Intermittient Fasting and the team is lead by a captain by the name of Martin Berkhan. I will try to keep this post basic and simple but for anyone who reads this and has any interest in learning more, I urge you to check out his website at www.leangains.com. Another big guy on this topic is Dr. John Berardi at www.precisionnutrition.com. He has a FREE ebook you can download on intermittent fasting that tells more about it and his personal experiences with it. This book is extremely insightful for anyone who is going to attempt this approach and only takes an hour or two to read cover to cover. This diet has become extremely popular in the past year or two, especially among bodybuilders and celebrities. Even Hugh Jackman used it for his Wolverine role! http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/hugh-jackman-reveals-takes-lot-chicken-become-wolverine-223632622.html .

Basically, the concept of this diet in to go for periods of fasting (only consuming non calories liquids i.e. coffee, tea, water, diet soda) followed by shorter periods of eating.  Most of you are sitting back in your chairs thinking to yourself “of course you will lose weight, you’re starving yourself!”. Keep reading..

People have fasted for thousands of years. Some people do this intentionally for religious reasons, and some unintentionally at times when they are unable find food. Everyone naturally fasts while they sleep. If you eat dinner at 7 pm and then wake up and eat breakfast at 8, you fasted for 13 hours without even thinking of it. Your body needs this break from digesting foods for a variety of reason. Your body cleanses itself from the toxins and pollutants consumed though the environment and processed foods. It allows your body to balance out your hormone levels, lowers blood lipid levels (cholesterol), and lower your blood glucose levels.

All these things are extremely important for anyone looking to lose weight. Lowering your blood glucose a key factor, because it then increases you insulin sensitivity. And when losing weight, insulin will be your best friend. In short, insulin is a protein that is secreted by your pancreas in response to glycogen (from carbohydrates and sugars). The insulin removes the glycogen from your blood and stores them in the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver. Your body uses the glycogen in these stores for energy for your organs and muscle movements. These stores are limited though, and if you over consume glycogen your body will then use fat cells for storage. Once your glycogen stores get too depleted your body has to move to other sources of energy and oxidized fat to use. Since your brain can’t run on these fatty acids your liver produces ketones for it to use, and your body is now in a state of Ketosis( I will fully cover the ketogenic diet and ketosis very soon in another posts).

After a few weeks of fasting

Personally, I have really enjoyed this diet. I have never had much of an appetite in the mornings anyhow, and ate just because I heard that it will “jumpstart” your metabolism (bullshit). After eating breakfast I would feel hungry only an hour or two afterwards. This is common for many people and the reason for this is thought to be due to ghrelin stimulation (an amino acid that stimulates hunger, and is found in the tissues of organs such as the stomach and intestines). I have found that if I skip breakfast I don’t get hungry until much later in the day. The normal routine for intermittent fasting (IF) is the 16:8 approach (16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of feeding) though many people also do 20:4 as well as 24 and 36 hour fasts once or twice a week. Personally have done each type of fasting and found that a daily 16:8 approach works well for me. Most days I don’t even realize and I go to the 20:4 approach without even thinking about it. I have done up to a 48 hour fast which I wouldn’t recommend doing too often.  However, it is extremely liberating doing these longer fasts as you get a much better knowledge of how your body works and what REAL hunger feels like compared to psychological hunger. I have definitely seen changes in my body over the past few months that I haven’t seen from my approach prior that consisted of doing lots of cardio and eating many small meals including complex carbs. The thing about this approach is that even if you consume the same amount of calories you normally would each day, there are still health benefits from the period without food where your body can remove the toxins that cause inflammation in your body and increases insulin sensitivity so when you do ingest carbs they are used as energy and not stored as fat. I’ll tell you what, I have never been able to see veins in my abs, and now that I can I ain’t goin’ back!



Before IF when I was doing a lot of cardio and eating 6 times a day



LETS GET THIS SHIT STARTED

It's been three years of traveling. City to city, country to country. Usually for periods of three months. Sometimes more, Sometimes less. Before then I was just another southern boy in Kennesaw, Georgia looking for a chance to get away, start over, try something new, and grow. I used the opportunity that presented itself… my genetics. I fell into the world of modeling. It was a ticket to ride, and ride I did. Miami, New York, Los Angeles. All good, fun times but I wanted more. I decided to follow the path of a few models I had come across who travel to Asia for a few months at a time. To me it seemed like a crazy adventure. And that it has been.

I have always been a firm believer that to grow as a person, you must put yourself in as many uncomfortable situations as necessary. Making an effort of being around people who you normally wouldn't befriend if you were back home in your comfort zone with your friends and family you have known all of your life. Opening your mind up and taking everything you can learn from them. Their likes/dislikes. Their thoughts and opinions. There ways of doing certain things. Just watch, learn, and take everything in.

I have tried my best each day to do that. I thought I had been doing a good job of it until a recent roommate of mine made more of an impact on me than anyone else has in quite some time. I realized I wasn't making the most of my time traveling to these places that most people will never get a chance or opportunity to visit. I travel to each city for a period of three months. Three months isn't anything like a week long vacation where you sit poolside at your fancy hotel or visit a museum here and there. Three months is enough time to where you can fully immerse yourself in the foreign culture you never could have imagined experiencing.

This blog is to hold me accountable. Accountable to really make the most of the valuable time I have here. I realize the amount of time I have to travel is limited. From here on, I am going to experience each city to the fullest. Go to see for myself the best things the city has to offer. Eat the best food. Learn the history and culture as much as possible. Alongside to that, I am going to keep an account of personal endeavors I am into to better myself. These things include (but are not limited to) fitness & nutrition (which I have been obsessing over lately. More on that later.), learning new languages and daily routines I do to better myself. Also, I know many people may be interested about the modeling aspect of my life, so I will also share my experiences with the fashion industry from my perspective. I will share what it’s like working with modeling agencies, going to castings, working at photo shoots and fashion shows, and also the things most people don't see like the model apartments, night life and things of that nature.

In a few days I travel to Hong Kong. This is where it will start. Lets begin.