Babe I’m Going to Leave You

I’m done with Tabata and am moving on. Long story short: I read this article about complexes at T-Nation, tried it, and I’m hooked.

After a week and a half of doing complexes A, E, and F (located at the end of the article), I lost 3/4 of an inch around my waist, putting me at 32 1/2 inches, 192 1/2 pounds, and 12.0% body-fat. Cut your carbs (especially the bad ones), don’t eat crap, stay away from beer, and give this a shot. My abs have never looked better.

Why do I specifically stick to A, E, and F? Because snatches are dangerous to attempt without someone to teach you how to do them right.

I will admit to one quibble with Complex E, though: it features two overhead presses, one of which is the behind the neck press, which many lifters don’t do because they’re fucking dangerous. I’m going to experiment with replacing the second set of presses with upright rows.

Hate

Apparently, I can’t repeat this enough times: if your form consistently sucks, you only do half-reps, or you haven’t made any gains in over a year, do not interrupt my workout to share your fucking wisdom.

So Pure

Everyone’s talking about high-fructose corn syrup lately, and now that the corn industry is starting to push back, the discussion is rapidly becoming muddied. Based on what I’ve heard, read, and researched, and speaking as a non-doctor (except maybe a doctor of AWESOME), here’s what I’ve managed to carry away:

1. Of the the spots that the corn industry has been running states that HFCS is “nutritionally identical” to sugar. That’s not entirely true, of course; it’s of the fructose it contains, though. Chemically speaking, a molecule of table sugar (sucrose) is a molecule of fructose bound with a molecule of glucose. The glucose “breaks off” almost immediately and is absorbed by the body, causing a blood-sugar spike while leaving behind a fructose molecule, which your body will treat just like any other fructose molecule.

Fructose is processed differently than sucrose (as in, does not cause a blood-sugar spike), which means that it will not stem your cravings for sweets. This is why it’s so easy to consume so much of any food containing HFCS; it doesn’t satisfy your craving for sweets right away, so you keep eating.

2. HFCS is a cheap, abundant source of empty calories. It is prevalent because it is so cheap. What this means for the average consumer is that while we are all feeling the economic pinch, so much of the affordable food contains this cheap, abundant form of sugar. Is anyone really going to try to argue that a nation with growing waste-lines needs more sugar?

3. HFCS is heavily processed. It is produced by putting corn through an industrial process; it does not come out simply by squeezing kernels.

4. The statements that “corn is good for you,” so HFCS can’t be bad, are without meaning whatsoever. First of all: no it isn’t. Corn is oversubsidized and next to nutritionally worthless; any nutrients it does contain are excreted along with the undigested kernels. Second: ethanol is also made from corn. Are you arguing that we should drink that as a health tonic?

5. According to Democracy Now!, the predominant process for making HFCS increases our risk of exposure to trace amounts of mercury (although this could be rectified by implementing a safer process).