Book Review: Fitness For Geeks 201
jsuda writes "You would think that geeks would be as interested in fitness as dogs are of TV. After all, geeks already put in hours of finger dancing on keyboards, assembling hefty code fragments, and juggling PHP programming functions. Although intended, in part, as a guide to real physical fitness the book, Fitness for Geeks, entices geeks with what they are really interested in–the science of fitness, nutrition, and exercise. In 11 chapters over 311 pages (including notes and an index) author, Bruce W Perry, describes in great detail the science of fitness and all of its components–food selections, timings, and fastings; exercising of all types; sleep, rest, and meditation; the benefits of hormesis (shocking the body with stresses); and the benefits of natural sunlight." Read on for the rest of jsuda's review.
One of the major themes is respect for ancestral behaviors relating to fitness, as he sees the human body as having built-in "software" (biological and physiological "pathways") regulating its needs for certain foods and nutrients, its affinities for sprinting and intermittent fasting, and a preference for sunlight. These behaviors were evolutionary-based adaptations to their environment which in some ways was much more physically stressful than ours is now.| Fitness For Geeks: Real Science, Great Nutrition, and Good Health | |
| author | Bruce W Perry |
| pages | 336 |
| publisher | O'Reilly Media |
| rating | 6/10 |
| reviewer | jsuda |
| ISBN | 1449399894 |
| summary | shows the hacker and maker communities how to bring science and software into their nutrition and fitness routines. |
He argues that modern humans have gotten way too far away from their ancestral roots at the expense of their health and fitness. They would be better served by committing to behaviors which are modeled after those of our distant predecessors. That means large doses of natural sunlight, exercise programs emphasizing high demand tasks like sprinting, food selections high in quality fats and proteins and low in processed foods and sugars, and intermittent fastings. In other words, channel your inner caveman.
He supports his thesis with reference to hundreds of scientific studies. However, he doesn't sufficiently explain why modern human lifespans are so much longer than that of the ancients despite diets high in Twinkies, exercise defined as walking down the hall to the Coke machine, and light exposure limited to LCD illumination.
While the major interest of the book for geeks is in the science, Mr. Perry is also advocating real improvement in personal health and fitness. The author is a software engineer and computer-topic writer and also a serious runner, biker, and outdoor enthusiast. He seems to be a very intense proponent of maximum personal fitness both as an instructor and personally where he tracks and measures nearly every physical thing he does during the day. He monitors and measures macro nutritional ratios (carbohydrates, fats, proteins); micro nutritional consumption levels (vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals); exercise metrics like energy use (Metabolic Equivalents of Tasks--MET's); the times, rhythms, and patterns of exercise program elements; and more.
Like a serious geek, he uses all the latest and greatest hardware and software tools to monitor and measure including GPS devices, motion detectors, smart phone apps of all kinds, and web-based trackers and analyzers. He describes many of the features of apps like FitBit, Endomondo, Fitocracy, and Garmin Connect, including screenshots of configurations, data charts, result pages, and comparison charts. He highlights use of web-based databases especially the nutritional information available at the USDA National Nutrient Database.
Mr. Perry also throws in a bit of food and food marketing politics as he emphasizes buying from local food suppliers, or even better, growing your own food and hunting your evening's meal. He shuns supermarket products, for the most part, even providing strategies on how best to navigate the typical mega markets to avoid being psychologically and emotionally manipulated by marketing techniques which attempt to get the consumer to buy more than they need, pricier items, and the latest junk foods they happen to be promoting that week. Mr. Perry is one serious guy!
I don't think that he is a typical health-concerned person or even a typical geek, although he is an independent spirit with great curiosity about things he's interested in. He seems to be serious about fitness to an idiosyncratic degree. In addition to all of the monitoring and measuring, he experiments with up to four different fasting strategies, goes for cold water swims, and does a variety of push-ups while waiting for boarding at the airport.
His book, I think, would appeal primarily to serious health freaks or competitive athletes who have the time and need to micromanage their eating, sleeping, and physical activities, and later analyzing all of the accumulated data.
The author writes knowledgeably and comprehensively about his topics and provides a lot of detail, especially on the tracking and measuring apps. He includes a handful of sidebar interviews with nutritional and fitness experts, some photos and graphics, and tosses in a few code references like anti-patterns and the random function, among others. What isn't in the book is referenced to websites containing more specific information, data, and videos.
Although he sprinkles some personal anecdotes and humor into the writing, overall, the book, while well organized, is a slow, often mind jumbling read. There is almost too much information, too many options to try out for some activities, and not enough focus. It will not win any literary awards. To some readers, it may be sort of like reading lab reports.
A lot of geeks like reading lab reports and there is a sufficient number of competitive athletes and health fanatics who'll find this book quite valuable and interesting.
You can purchase Fitness For Geeks: Real Science, Great Nutrition, and Good Health from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Not for this type of geek (Score:5, Informative)
His book, I think, would appeal primarily to serious health freaks or competitive athletes who have the time and need to micromanage their eating, sleeping, and physical activities, and later analyzing all of the accumulated data.
Indeed. This is more for “fitness geeks” or geeks with an interest in the science of fitness than for the stereotypical geek with no interest what-so-ever.
In general, I think for most people (not just geeks) fitness stuff comes down to a matter of time and practicality more than knowledge anyway. Most advertised approaches to healthy living require far more time/energy/money than the average working guy has to invest (and if they had the time, would rather spend it doing something else) or require behavior which is incompatible with current lifestyle (eating 14 small meals a day might be great for your health.. but complicates the work day).
The approach that ultimately worked for me was:
- Learning how to read the nutritional info. You’d think this is simple... but I found this complicated at first. Just knowing what numbers you should be looking for makes things a lot easier. There really needs to be a “non-health nut” guide to this.
- Get into some physical activity that you _enjoy_. This was huge for me. I can’t stand doing a workout for the sake of it. I have little free time and I don’t want to spend it doing something monotonous. Got into a little “for fun” floor hockey thing and loved it. It turned into something I actually looked forward to. From their got into some other stuff.
- Cut out the insanely unhealthy stuff. I accepted that I wasn’t going to be able to go full on health nut with my diet. I like food too much to live off tofu and carrots. I still eat lots of junk but I’ve cut down on or eliminated some of the really bad stuff (soda was a big one.. ).
- Bring in the healthy stuff. A lot of it tastes like crap.. but occasionally you find something that is either acceptable or in some cases better than the unhealthy stuff. It’s a lot of trial an error (mainly error) but every time you go to the grocery run down the health nut section and try something that looks not-terrible. Once in a while you get surprised. Also a lot of that stuff tastes bad on its own, but in a tomato sauce or something it’s indistinguishable.
Pacing was important too I think. I accepted I wasn’t going to go from unhealthy sloth lifestyle to “reasonably in shape” lifestyle (which was my ultimate goal) overnight. I didn’t do anything dramatic. I didn’t vow to live off salad for the rest of my life. I just made a general effort to gradually move in a healthier direction. I didn’t weigh myself every day or obsess in the mirror, I was more concerned with internal health than appearance. Over time all the little stuff adds up.
Also sorry for the novel of a post. I just kinda got on a roll.
So basically... (Score:5, Informative)
2) Exercise more
3) Go outside
4) Sleep more
All we need is to add 'but on the internet!' to that list and we have the book summed up.
Re:Not for this type of geek (Score:5, Informative)
Bring in the healthy stuff. A lot of it tastes like crap.. but occasionally you find something that is either acceptable or in some cases better than the unhealthy stuff.
"healthy substitute" for junk food like a "healthy cookie-like substitute" or a "healthy ice cream-like substitute" or a "tofu-turkey" is always going to taste unbelievably awful.
Food that is more or less evolutionarily similar to what our ancient ancestors ate, like maybe a grilled steak with a side salad, or a nice stir fry, or perhaps a fresh orange, apple, grape and berry salad tastes mind numbingly delicious.
Re:Just go for a fucking run! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, no.
If someone is morbidly obese, "going for a fucking run" is one of the worst things you can tell them to do.
On the off chance they're actually ABLE to run, the stresses on their joints and muscles will be so extreme they're highly likely to injure themselves. Even jogging is a fairly high impact exercise and can result in unnecessary damage.
For the morbidly (or mildly) obese, the idea exercise would be swimming for low impact full body workouts, but barring that, walking is far better than not moving at all.
Combined with a proper regulated diet in the, say, 2500 calorie range which is still a ton of food (About two fast food meals with 0 cal drinks), the pounds will just drop off. Fast food is hardly the ideal food, but for weight loss all that really matters is calories.
Source: Anecdote from my losing a hundred pounds and going from walking a mile in 20 minutes to running a mile in 7 in the spam of 8 months.
Yeah, about that "caveman" thing ... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm deeply skeptical of attempts to reproduce the "natural" diet, exercise plan, etc. of our ancestors, for a couple of reasons.
First of all, you can't recreate the environment in which humans evolved. You just can't. That world is gone. You could, I suppose, move to central Africa and try to live a life as much as possible like the way you think people lived a quarter of a million years ago, but the environment has changed considerably in that time and in any case, most people in the industrialized world (such as, you know, pretty much everyone who's likely to read the book) aren't going to change their lives to that degree just to get into shape.
Second, who's to say that our remote ancestors even had the ideal environment for their bodies? We're a young species; a lot of our anatomy is obviously best suited to an arboreal lifestyle, and the transition from semi-quadrupedal tree-dwellers to bipedal ground-dwellers isn't really complete -- many of the knee and back problems which even very healthy people tend to develop in old age can be traced to this, as can the not-so-trivial problem that childbirth is more difficult and dangerous for humans than for practically any other mammalian species. It's reasonable to suspect that our physiology, too, is the result of many quick-fix compromises over the last few million years, more so than most animals'.
So the best thing, it seems to me, is not to try to live like our ancestors did in a world that no longer exists, but to come up with diet and exercise plans that work well for us, as we are, in the world in which we live. Weightlifting is an example. No non-human animal does anything even remotely like it, and it's a safe bet that early humans didn't either -- but there's a fair body of evidence that there's no other single type of exercise that carries the same level of whole-body ftiness benefit that repetitively moving heavy weights in carefully planned and controlled motions does. Running is probably the second-best form of exercise in terms of overall benefit, but running with shoes on a concrete or asphalt track is very different from running barefoot (with feet conditioned to it by a lifetime of never even having heard of shoes) through long grass. Bicycling? Again, completely alien to our ancestors.
I'm all for looking at our biology for ways to improve our health, and studying our evolution is certainly one way to do that. But assuming that we're going to come up with any kind of "natural, and therefore healthy" lifestyle based on dim of ideas of how long-ago proto-humans lived in a vanished world is just silly.
Hundred Push-Ups and other tools (Score:5, Informative)
A geeky friend of mine recently pointed me at the One Hundred Push-Ups program [hundredpushups.com]. It appeals to me because it's a webpage, it doesn't require anything complicated in the way of equipment or anything like that, it presents a simple and easy to understand plan with lots of numbers, and it takes place over a specific time period. You follow the plan, and the numbers keep going up till you reach your goal. (Assuming you manage to stick through to the end.) It might take more than six weeks if you have to take some do-overs, but it's definitely a finite period of time at the end of which you should see some definite improvement, something that really appeals to me. (I'm just starting week four myself right now.)
Another site i've used in the past is Calories Per Hour [caloriesperhour.com], particularly the BMR and RMR calculator. [caloriesperhour.com] You can use it in conjunction with an exercise program, or just for setting up a diet plan. There's lots of numbers and math, which appeal to me as a geek, but at the end you have a nice simple number or two which tell you how much you can eat every day if you don't want to gain weight, and how much you can eat every day if you want to lose weight in a methodical and long term manner.
Of course on that note there's also The Hacker's Diet [fourmilab.ch], which similarly takes the fairly straightforward approach that losing weight = consuming less calories than you burn.
You can argue a long time about paleo diet vs atkins diet vs south beach(?) or whatever other fad diet you've heard of, but in the end weight is just a matter of calories in vs calories out. If you want to lose weight you can reduce the calories going in or increase the calories going out. Certainly adjusting the kind of food you eat can make you healthier in other ways, but controlling the number of calories you eat is the first step. And if you start paying attention to the number of calories you eat you'll quickly discover that the healthier you eat the more you get to eat. Even just making the same food at home that you would have gotten at a fast food restaurant will save you a lot of calories than you can then spend on a snack or something. So instead of feeling like you _have_ to eat healthy to fit some particular diet you've decided to subject yourself to, you feel like you're getting rewarded for eating healthy.
FTC Disclosure (Score:4, Informative)
This review is posted on Amazon as the foremost review of the book, with one difference:
"(FTC disclosure (16 CFR Part 255)): The reviewer has accepted a reviewer's copy of this book which is his to keep. He intends to provide an honest, independent, and fair evaluation of the book in all circumstances.)"
Can we get the courtesy of the same disclosure here on Slashdot?