Four Thoughts

The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.341, Walter Kaufmann transl.

Four thoughts ...

It seems counter-intuitive to me to view eternity as linear. If it were linear then all of eternity would stretch out before I was born and forevermore after I die. How can this be? If eternity existed before I was born then the time would never arrive for me to be born. Thus eternity is circular and hence my belief in the Eternal Recurrence.

There is also eternity in a moment. A moment of action, now in the past, exists for eternity - is this not hard to deny? It cannot be changed and therefore exists forever, locked in time and space. As eons pass and eternity comes full circle this moment is replayed.

There is one fact that I cannot deny and that is that I exist. It is possible for me to exist. If it is possible once then it is possible again.

Life then becomes the very opposite of meaningless. We are locked into this circle of eternity forever therefore it is imperitive that, with all our energy, we make this life the best possible one we can.

Being Seen - Some More Thoughts

I've noticed a lot of people lately running in the dark with no lights or reflective gear whatsoever. This wouldn't be so bad except that they are often running on the road expecting traffic to see them in poor visibilty conditions. This seems really dumb to me as , after all, the whole purpose of exercising is to maintain fitness and improve strength - getting bowled over by a car or even a bicycle is going to stuff up all that hard work big time.

The theme of this blog is to promote survival so that people can remain fit and strong well into old age and an important aspect of this is taking measures to protect yourself from risk. The more risks you take the more likely a tragic accident is going to occur. It's simple math. So when out running or cycling in the dark or in poor visibilty conditions it is essential to make sure you can be seen. The above photo is of me wearing my Nathan, Human Propulsion Laboratories, reflective sash. The flash from the camera reveals the excellent reflective qualities of this safety equipment. I decided on the sash over a more conventional road worker type of jacket as, well, I didn't want to look like a road worker. The sash makes me stand out from the crowd. I didn't realise at the time I took the above photo that my Addidas leggings also had reflective bits as well. I've noticed that reflective strips on parts of the body that move are very effective such as on the legs or shoes.

Think about visibilty when purchasing new training gear.

Bicycle Lighting Systems

Now that it is deepest, darkest winter, providing some light for the early morning exercises is essential. On the bike I have fitted two S-Sun battery powered headlamps which are just adequate for lighting the way. The good thing about these units are that they are powerful LED type lights that can be quickly released from the bike and used while running as well. I have noticed many people running around the park on very dark mornings without lighting at all which I consider to be very foolish. The chances of tripping up are greatly increased especially on a moonless morning. There are also cattle and sheep about and the last thing you want to do is step into some pile of shit wearing your expensive runners.

The picture above is the most elaborate lighting system I have seen on a bicycle - again from Peter White Cycles.

Metabolism

I’m an advocate for intermittent fasting. I believe you should go for as long as possible without eating anything. If you stop eating at 8pm and don’t eat again until 11am or noon then you will have fasted for 15 to 16 hours. Do this every day and eat only healthy food like meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts and your weight will be well under control with your nutritional needs being met as well.

Some people seem to get outraged by this suggestion as it goes against a lot of conventional thinking. Many people think the metabolism will come to a screaming halt if it is not fed continuously. People even think that it is highly dangerous to go any length of time without eating and that the body will start consuming its own muscles. This may well happen after a week or so of fasting but it certainly isn’t going to happen in less than 24 hours.

The regime I propose above works for me because I rarely feel like eating breakfast anyway. I have heard of someone who never ate anything after 5pm and then ate breakfast giving them a shifted 15 hour break from eating and this worked well also.

So what happens to the metabolism? It is highly doubtful that the metabolism changes much at all with this style of eating. For the most part metabolisms are set by glands and are only altered by illness. There is evidence that the metabolism is increased by doing anaerobic exercise. Sometimes after a vigorous workout involving cycling, running and then weights I have felt that my metabolism has been increased. You can just feel that your body’s furnace is turned up for a few hours afterward.

The thing is you probably don’t want to have a high metabolism. If anything a lower metabolism is desirable. Animals with high metabolisms like shrews for instance have very short life spans while animals with low metabolisms like the tortoise have very long life spans. The shrew has a very high heart rate and the tortoise a low one.

A good exercise regime should result in a lowered resting heart rate and this is a good indication that the body is operating at an optimum level. The metabolism may not be lower but it probably is operating very efficiently. A heightened heart rate is certainly an indicator of poor health or over exercise. It seems to make sense that for a long and healthy life a strong heart that pumps slowly and steadily is desirable. The Active Survivalist should endeavour to lower the resting heart rate to somewhere in the forties and have a nice efficient metabolic rate if not a low one.

Survivalist Bike

This bike is very close to what I was thinking about with my Active Survivalist bike. The Silkroad from Peter White Cycles. The one thing I would change is the front forks which should have suspension for curb hitting and generally bouncing along. I imagine this could be easily fitted. It has a 14 speed Rohloff Speedhub instead of derailleurs. The front headlight is powered by a dynamo. Mudguards are considered a little infra dig these days but I believe are a survivalist essential - you don't want dirt spraying up into your face or all up your back in wet weather.

Update: On second thoughts this bike might not suit front suspension due to the design of the dynamo. The dynamo is built into the front hub - how cool is that? I think I could live without the front suspension for something like that. This bike is appealing because everything is built in making it look very uncomplicated and durable.

Skin Offal and Bones…yum

I have read many diet and fitness articles that say things like you should remove the skin from chicken, eat only the breast meat or eat only the leanest of meats. Tons of nutritious food is discarded every day because of silly ideas like this. Imagine pulling the skin off chicken and throwing it away – it’s the best part and packed with nutritious substances essential for strong bodies.

The same goes for pork skin and fat, livers, marrow, kidneys, heart, tongue, stomach – anything from an animal you can eat you should eat. I do tend to draw the line at brains though but that’s just a bit of squeamishness on my part, some people love them.

Canned fish is a good source of nutrition, especially fish that has the bones like sardines. Sardines seem to have the guts as well, at least my Brunswick ones do although I prefer King Oscar but being three times the price they are a rare treat. The bones that have been softened by the canning process are a great source of calcium in the diet. Sardines have a very high Omega 3 rating as well and are a very oily fish.

The lean meat is probably the least nutritious part of the animal. A century or so ago a couple of Europeans found themselves having to spend a year with Eskimos in the far north. The Eskimos ate a diet almost exclusively of fresh animal product. The visitors weren’t keen on the Eskimo food and grilled their own lean seal meat. After a while they became very weak and unhealthy yet the Eskimos were fine. They started eating the Eskimo diet that included almost the entire animal even the stomach contents in nice hearty stews full of fat. Soon they got their strength back and eventually returned to civilization stronger than ever.

The moral of the story? Eat lean meat and die.

Train Your Body to Burn Fat

Some people accuse me of being too skinny and that I should put on weight. In a way I agree with them – I would love to put on a bit of muscular weight around the chest and shoulders. Yet I suspect they mean that I should put on some fat. Why this would be a good thing is beyond me. Stores of fat around the midriff are never a good thing or a good look.

I actively eat quite a bit of fat yet I do not gain weight. This is because I force my body to burn fat as a fuel. There are millions upon millions of people out there who want to lose fat yet have trained their bodies to never use fat as a fuel source. Quite simply if your system is awash with carbohydrates from bread, rice, pasta, sugars it will never need to draw upon its supply of stored fat. A lot of the time it will have an excess of sugar and will store that sugar as fat.

It’s hard for people to get their heads around this concept. Sugars make you fat, fat makes you thin. If your food source is protein, fat and some sugars from fruit and non-starchy vegetables only, you will lose weight. The idea is to keep your muscles running on only a limited supply of sugars in the form of fructose and force it to burn fat and protein. If the body can burn fat as a fuel then in situations where there is little food in the blood stream it will readily draw upon the fat reserves.

Here is an interesting article on how carbs cause weight gain.

Fat and Fit?

Is it possible to be fat and fit? Imagine if you worked out hard four to six hours a week yet ate heartily all the time and were technically overweight. I've often thought that overweight people should be fit. Afterall they are constantly exercising carrying all that fat about with them. I used to run carrying a backpack with two 5KG bags of rice in it in an effort to improve my strength and endurence so why woudn't carrying 10KG of fat internally be any different? Yet it does seem to be different. I've never actually met a fat, very fit person. In fact very fit people are reasonably rare as it is. Do fat people eat unhealthy food? Would eating only healthy food and exercising regularly eventually result in a thin person?



My gut feeling (excuse the pun) is that the human body needs to be calorie depleted reasonably regularly and excessive fat deposits make this impossible. Eating all the time, even healthy food (and what is healthy food?) does not give the body time to use the fat deposits that need to grow and deplete regularly. Maybe depositing fat and burning that fat is a form of metabolic exercise. If you never burn that fat and move it around it solidifies and the body ceases to function as it should exposing it to the risks of cardio-vascular disease and cancer.

I googled up "fat and fit" and read a couple of articles. The follwing quotes are a few snippets that I thought were of interest:

"It's hard to maintain overweight if you're physically fit,"

"Being physically active and fat is better than being fat and sedentary, but not as healthy as being lean and physically active,"

"Obesity is a symptom of behavior, and that behavior is physical inactivity and poor diet,"
The fat-and-fit person is "an unusual situation,"

"Sure you can be fat and fit," says Tim Church, MD, MPH, PhD,vice president of research at Cooper Institute in Dallas. "Then again,it doesn't take much to be fit."

At every level of physical activity, according to researchers, fatness predicted a higherrisk of death.

"We've studied this from many perspectives in women and in men and we get the same answer: It's not the obesity -- it's the fitness," Blair said. "Fitness can substantially reduce, if not eliminate, the high risk of being obese."

"One of the big problems is by the time people become overweight or obese it's very hard for them to become active. They've developed arthritis or other problems that makes it hard, which is why we have to pay attention to weight early on," Willett said.

Being overweight significantly increases the risk of a host of debilitating and often deadly health problems, including heart attacks, strokes, cancer and diabetes.

"When you look at the data carefully, you find that people who are active and lean have the lowest mortality of all," Willett said.

PS - The picture is entirely gratuitous and irrelevant to this post yet does have a point of interest.

Develop the Will to Survive


Physical fitness is something almost everyone takes for granted when they are young and the loss of it is also taken for granted as we age. It is something that happens very slowly and imperceptibly as time passes - and then all of a sudden we look at ourselves and we are old, fat and decrepit. Sometimes I will look at an older person shuffling along and wonder if they had done things differently would they be more sprightly. It’s impossible to know yet the loss of capability in most cases must have occurred gradually. It’s the same with very fat people, they gradually become larger and larger.

Of course disease often plays a large role in the degradation of human performance. As one ages it becomes harder and harder to stay fit. Young people often never need to worry about their health. They feel immortal and they can practically eat anything. Yet the Active Survivalist will not have this advantage and staying trim and fit will become a challenge for the rest of their lives. Disease may well come rearing its ugly head so it’s important to stay in peak physical fitness for as long as possible. It makes sense to me that you need to keep your body strong and flexible and that the only way to do that is to regularly exercise. Not only exercise but to push yourself just that little bit harder. It’s not going to be easy because your body is not what it was and training for the rest of your life is, hopefully, going to be a very long time.

So equally as important as physical fitness is a strong will to survive. This should be a no brainer because if you are approaching fifty or beyond you are running out of time. This is the last chance to get your body back into shape and ready for the rigors that lay ahead. You want to give yourself the best possible chance at it so embrace diet and exercise with one hundred percent commitment.

Yet how to maintain that will to survive in the best possible shape? Forming an exercise habit through sheer dogged consistency would be a good start. Buy good gear to train in. Record your exercise progress and achievements. Overcome your natural laziness. Sometimes when you head out for your morning run you wont feel like doing it. Never take any notice of your first feelings in the morning. Sometimes I feel weak as I head out while everyone else is still asleep and I wonder if I should have a rest day, yet often this feeling passes and I feel terrific and finish my morning routines feeling better than ever. There have been times when the feeling of weakness hasn’t passed and I will listen to it then, but only after ignoring it for a while. A lot of people give up at the first sign of trouble and this is a mistake.

If you find yourself feeling absolutely and stunningly terrific and super strong this is a cause for concern. Usually it means that night you will come down with a cold or worse. Apparently this is a known medical phenomenon, possible something to do with the body going into hyper drive to combat the first wave of infection. The moral of this story is that the normal feeling is one of slight lousiness and not super terrificness so expect it to be a bit of a struggle.

Like getting fat and getting old physical fitness is a gradual process. Determine to get just a little better everyday. Think of it as a very long-term project – a lifestyle.

Some Thoughts on Cycling


Ever since primary school I have owned bicycles. They are probably the most efficient form of transport available and will become more popular as gas prices increase. Bicycles are becoming more popular for exercise as well with quite a resurgence in the racing style of bike. For quite a while I considered the mountain bike to be the ultimate bicycle because of its ruggedness. You can ride anywhere on a mountain bike, over curbs, off road, down steps and on lawns. But then I would ride my mountain bike around the park circuit and be passed by people riding the latest racing bikes and I began to feel a little old fashioned.

To have any street credibility I would have to get myself a cool new bike. So I went out and bought what could be described as an ‘entry level’ competitive bike. It has a 101 gear set and carbon fibre seat stem, forks and rear stay. Very lightweight and modern design with some mountain bike styling in its frame design.

A year later I find that I rarely ride it preferring instead to use my old converted mountain bike. I even sunk $600 into replacing the rear wheel, gears and chain. This bike is far more practical for my use than the road bike. As I ride to the park where I do my running I cross over curbs, lawns, cattle grates and roads, dodging traffic and pedestrians. The road bike is too fragile and unstable for this sort of activity.

The road bike is probably more useful for long distance riding where speed and efficiency are helpful and where the direction of travel remains fairly constant. I’m not sure that I favour this sort of riding now as you have to mix with a lot of fast traffic on a fragile and less stable machine. It may not be conducive to longevity.

What I really need to do is design an Active Survivalist bike. This bike’s focus would be durability and ruggedness with stability and good stopping power. It would handle all weather conditions and be able to carry equipment if desired. It would be designed for mostly road yet be quite capable off-road. It would need to be super reliable requiring the minimum of tweaking. I imagine it would have disk brakes, a flat handle bar, possibly internal hub type gearing with a steel frame and front suspension. It would have mudguards, strong wheels and wide smooth tyres. Extra mounting points for fitting accessories would be good too. All equipment would be of high quality and it would have to look cool, which is no mean feat. Built in rechargeable electrical equipment would be pretty neat as well for visibility and early morning night riding. The pedals would need to accommodate running shoes. This bike would be a sort of urban assault machine yet be quite capable of long distance riding too.

Maybe over the next year I will search for bits and pieces to build my own Active Survivalist bike.

Here is an amusing piece by P. J. O'Rourke on cycling.

Some Inspirational Poetry for Today


Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find
No highway more, no track, all being blind,
The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.

Though you have conquered Earth and Charted Sea
And planned the courses of all Stars that be,
Adventure on, more wonders are in Thee.

Adventure on, for from the littlest clue
Has come whatever worth man ever knew;
The next to lighten all men may be you . . .


JOHN MASEFIELD

I think I shall memorize this poem. It's just the thing for work when you're stuck on a problem.

The Evil that is Breakfast

The pernicious belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day has become thoroughly ingrained in our society. This myth has been created by the massive breakfast food cartels who purvey cereals to the unsuspecting masses. This multi-billion dollar industry is responsible for a large part of the obesity epidemic sweeping the world – did you know that there are now more overweight people than underweight people in the world? The cartels have been ably assisted by the fast food companies such as McDonalds who have also gotten heavily into the ‘must eat breakfast’ push.

Most people who arise reasonably early do not feel like breakfast. Many will force down slices of toast or high calorie cereal because they think or have been told they should. It’s madness to eat food when your body is telling you it’s not in the mood – unless you want to put on weight that is. The early morning is the best time to take advantage of fat burning. In the morning your stomach is empty and your blood depleted of sugars. Now is the time to do some cardio forcing the body to draw upon the fuel stored in the fat cells. Guzzle down two or three cups of sugar free coffee and get out there burning off the fat.

There is a danger of over-eating at mid-morning when the appetite starts to return. The Active Survivalist needs to ensure that at this time ‘clean’ foods such as fruit and nuts are eaten in moderation. If you have performed a workout in the morning think of the next meal as a recovery meal and ingest foods that are beneficial to recovery such as protein drinks or anything that is high in protein such as meat and dairy products. If you can, just eat a banana and an orange and hold out until lunchtime. Again don’t over do it at lunchtime either. It’s not going to be easy at first to fight the mid-morning hunger pangs but soon it will become a habit.

In short, breakfast – don’t do it.

Here is a link to an article that discusses things a little more scientifically.

Product Trial

With the onset of cooler weather and winter looming I have purchased some new training clothing. Specifically compression clothing. This is all the rage at the moment with athletes who seek to improve performance and post exercise recovery. As always those that are interested in physical fitness watch closely what is happening in the sports world and follow the trends. Now everyone can wear super high tech gear while they work out.

There do appear to be some good reasons for following this trend. Compression clothing has been shown to improve post exercise recovery although apparently it works best if you wear it after the exercise as well as during the exercise. Compression clothing holds the muscles a bit tighter and stops them jiggling about as you run reducing overall stress. It also aids with cooling as well as keeping the chill off on those cold winter morning jogs. And lastly but by no means least it makes you look cool - like a super hero minus the cape although being a self conscious sort of chap I do wear some clothing over the top of it. I might just wear the compression clothing for a bike ride as you can get away with a full body lycra suit while cycling. The world is probably not ready to see me running around with full body skin tight clothing leaving little to the imagination.

Go here to read a good summary of the benefits of compression clothing. And here to read an article on the research that has been done on it.

I have purchased a Skins long sleeve top packed with BioAcceleration Technology – oooh yeah. As well as a pair of Adidas leggings.

I will try it out and report on its effectiveness. I might even post a photo of myself wearing it if I can get a good shot.

Fitness Tests

When I turned 47 I decided to spend a good part of the next three years improving myself physically. The plan was to be stronger at 50 then I was at 25. I had let myself get out of shape and was once about 12kg overweight. Aches and pains were starting to beset me and I caught myself thinking that this was all part of the normal aging process. Before this fitness regimes were all a bit open ended with no particular goal in mind except general physical fitness. I remember once taking out a gym membership for $300 and only going twice.

Now I am 15 months into the program. This is the longest period of sustained exercise and weight control that I have done in my life and hopefully it is now an ingrained habit. One thing that I have noticed is that my aches and pains have disappeared. I used to get quite a sore left knee, clicking and sore Achillies tendons, groin pain and a little back pain from time to time but not anymore although I am careful not to injure myself. It seems that strengthening the muscles around the joints protects them from wear and tear and joint deterioration can be reversed.

I’m thinking that now is the time to set some goals that would define what being in good shape means.

This is my first draft of tests of physical fitness:

Running - One mile in under 7 minutes
Push Ups - 50+ without pause
Chin Ups - 15
Plank - 3 minutes
Side Plank - 2 minutes
Jogging - 10 KM
Cycling - 150 KM

I haven’t included any weight lifting tests here as I don’t own enough weights or do very heavy lifting. I imagine lifting half your body weight in a military press might be a good test – I’ll have to think about it.

I wont do all the tests in one go. Soon I will attempt to run a mile as fast as I can and post the results.

The Active Survivalist Anthem

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT


Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

DYLAN THOMAS

Road Rage

Quite simply, rage or anger is to be avoided at all cost. The most common form of public anger we see exhibited today is road rage. Almost all drivers seem prone to it and all have seen it in others. It’s understandable yet ugly and quite stupid.

The Active Survivalist needs to remain calm at all times in order to maximize the chances of long term survival. The burst of adrenalin that accompanies an attack of road rage is probably not good for your heart either although I'll have to research that. You’re not thinking straight when you are angry and you will do foolish, self-destructive things. Remember the last time you saw someone losing their temper and how foolish it looked? Are you impressed with such behavior? I doubt it.

The Active Survivalist is also getting on in years and long past the time when tests of manhood are needed or appropriate. Road rage could easily transform into actual physical combat which should only be resorted to in extreme cases of personal survival, preferably with superior weapons which are not usually readily at hand while driving to work. Remember that a small percentage of the population are psychotic criminals and there is no way you want to interact with them. That guy that cut you off maybe one of them or under the influence of something or other or both.

If you are reading this blog your intelligence is likely to be rated in the top 10% of the general population. This means that 90% of drivers are of lesser intelligence than you. There’s no way you want to be interacting with these dumbos! Just get to your destination with everyone in one piece and with no rushes of adrenalin.

Try to think the best of everyone. That guy who ran the red light might be rushing to work having been told the day before by his boss that if he was late one more time he will be fired. Or that woman pulled out in front of you so you are angry now because like you never, ever, pulled out in front of someone in your entire life – yeah right.

My theory about road rage is that people project their own intentions onto others and so get angry because they think they know the reasoning behind the bad driving. Often this reasoning is flawed and the bad driver simply made a mistake or misjudged. Even if they did it deliberately you yourself have been known to do such things as well so it’s hypocritical to get so angry.

Some people try to educate other road users through rage. It’s probably ok to educate other people but utilizing rage is not the way to go about it. You have to be subtle or educate by being a good example yourself. If you are not the police then it’s best to mind your own business especially when it comes to driving. I remember someone once wrote a letter of complaint to my boss about how I was driving 115kmh in 100kmh zone – we all had a bit of a laugh about that. Complaining just makes you look like a grumpy old man with no sense of humour.

You might find it helpful to adopt techniques to avoid rage. Pretend all other drivers are your mates or family – you’d let them in wouldn’t you? Pretend you are a secret agent attempting to traverse the city with as much discretion as possible – an incident will only call attention to yourself.

And finally why not relish the opportunity of a road incident to test your self-control? To not sound the horn or tail gate a person even under severe provocation should be seen as a personal victory. A victory that might see you living another day and train you for other incidents.

Extend this thinking into all aspects of your life and avoid anger altogether giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. It's for the sake of your own survival.

Product Endorsement

Ever since turning fourteen I have been plagued with a bad complexion. Not full-blown acne, just prone to break outs that I find quite embarrassing, especially now that I have reached middle-age. I thought it was only supposed to last a few years not thirty-five years! Anyway, a significant percentage of the population does suffer from bad skin for a very long time and I have often wondered why. Is it hormonal? As the onset of pimply skin comes with puberty I always believed it was but then maybe it is just the change in the composition of the skin - it becomes oilier once reaching maturity and pores get clogged.

A few years ago I went to the doctor prior to traveling to New Caledonia for a singles week at Club Med and I asked if there was anything that would help give me clear skin. She prescribed a mild anti-biotic that worked really well, almost over night, returning my confidence. It was called mino-tabs I think. However it's effectiveness seemed to wear off over time and I wasn’t too keen on taking anti-biotic for a long time anyway.

Exercise and mainstream healthy eating didn’t seem to have any effect except perhaps to make it worse. The sweating associated with exercise probably doesn’t help. Then I began to think about why the anti-biotics worked. The reason must be because the problem is bacterial. Sweating feeds the bacteria or gives it a nice, warm, damp place to live. I often noticed that patches of bad skin would spread and frequent washing seemed to only make it worse.

The answer is to kill the bacteria. Now there is a readily available product that does just that. It’s a miracle and I urge anyone who has a problem like this to seriously consider using it. The product is Johnson & Johnson’s Clean & Clear Continuous Control Acne Cleanser.


I used it twice daily for two or three weeks and then just daily in the morning. Now my skin is perfectly clear – it’s amazing. The active ingredient is Benzoyl Peroxide. It gives a nice cool-burning sensation and you can just feel those nasty little bugs dying by the millions. Some chemical remains on the skin after rinsing and this continues to work during the day.

Most Active Survivalists wont have a requirement for this product but their children or even grandchildren might.

Highly Recommended!

Update: I still use this product at least five times a week however I am starting to wonder if my change to a more paleolithic diet and intermittent fasting has brought about a cure. The only way to prove this, sort of, is to stop using it - I am afraid to do that though because my skin is so good now.

The Magic 200 Minutes

After much thought and practical experimentation I have come up with the figure of 200 minutes as the ideal total time per week to perform reasonably rigorous exercise. That's exercise like running, fast cycling, weights and other gym type exercises - exercises that leave you puffed and sweating. This equates to about four hours per week which is actually 240 minutes but then it takes into account periods of resting during the routines.

Four sessions of one hour each per week, say on Tesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday should suffice. This is actually not all that much although it is enough to reshape muscles and ward off weight gain and probably not enough to risk over-training. Any more than this and one runs the risk of over-exercising and experiencing a bit of metabolic breakdown resulting in a forced rest period of several days to a weeks duration.

This advice is for the middle-aged and above as I am sure a younger person could safely do more. However I see no benefit in doing more for the Active Survivalist unless they are training for a specific event. This level of exercise should be able to be maintained indefinetly forming an exercise habit.

If more exercise is required my advice would be to increase the intensity of the exercise rather than increase the time it takes to exercise. Run faster, lift heavier in carefully adjusted stages so that you move the joints the same amount of times but do more work. This will build strength and reduce the risk of repetitive strain injuries. You should also go hard on occasion so that training routines are not stale old slogs. After all when you are out there pushing hard, heart pounding, sweat dripping and gasping for breath you are truly alive. To be able to do this is what being an Active Survivalist is all about - it is Active Survivalist heaven.

Actively Turning Back the Clock

"A sedentary lifestyle increases the propensity to aging-related disease and premature death. Inactivity may diminish life expectancy not only by predisposing to aging-related diseases but also because it may influence the aging process itself,"

The above quote is from a recent study done at Kings College, London. You could title this, "inactively speeding up the clock." One thing is for sure and that is staying active is not going to do you any harm as long as you are careful. It becomes more and more essential as you age. Eventually aging will get get a stranglehold on you but you can delay its onset considerably so why grow old before your time? People don't seem to realise that by being inactive and overeating you are accelerating yourself toward an early grave

A Sad Week


From TheTimesOnline April 16:

Six students and a teacher were killed when they were swept down a flooded river during an adventure course in rugged New Zealand bushland yesterday

The 16 and 17-year-old students were part of a group of 40 from Elim Christian College in Auckland who were attending a week-long course with the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre near Turangi, 320km (200 miles) north of Wellington.

So young with so much to look forward to and now no more. I believe these children were let down by adults and by a culture that believes that outdoor adventure sports are essential for young people. They were barely more than children and they were canyoning in the mountains of New Zealand during stormy weather. Adventures are risky and are really the realm of expendible young men who know and take the risks. We shouldn’t expose children to such dangers.

Why am I writing about this on my Active Survival blog? Well, if we manage to prolong life dramatically it will be interesting to see how we approach adventurous activities. Let’s say they manage to prolong life indefinitely. Do you think people would still race motorbikes or sky dive? If your body regenerated itself forever how long would you expect to live for? It seems a strange question but regeneration will not guarantee immortality. A fatal accident could still occur and while I don’t have a reference I read somewhere that Insurance company data predicts that we will have a fatal accident every 1600 years on average. If your body never aged eventually your plane is going to crash and burn.

The Active Survivalist needs to stay sharp, stay alert and not take undue risks.

Advice to parents: Don’t let your children get involved with anything to do with rivers – they’re fukkin dangerous. I’m quite angry about it actually.