Paleo Dan

For at least the past three years, I would get sick with a respiratory infection at some point  in October or November. Two and three years ago, it was while I was visiting family for Thanksgiving. It is seriously not fun spending Thanksgiving day tracking down an urgent care facility in a small town and then waiting over an hour in the local Walmart waiting for the prescription to be filled.

Last year, in mid-October, it took me out of the gym and lingered for two or three months until I went to the doctor for drugs. When I finally went in January 2009, as I had never been to that doctor before, they ordered blood tests. In addition to other issues, my serum 25(OH)D level was 8.3 ng/mL-i.e., seriously deficient. The doctor had me take 50,000 IUs of Vitamin D2 twice a week for 8 weeks. That got my level up to 35.3 ng/mL when I had a followup test in May.

Unfortunately, other than that 800,000 IUs and some time spent in the backyard pool over the summer, I did not supplement my Vitamin D at all until toward the end of September when I started taking 10,000 IUs of Vitamin D3. My blood test five days later showed that my 25(OH)D level had dropped back below the normal minimum of 32 ng/mL to 24.4. Much better than the 8.3 starting point, but still deficient.

After one week at 10,000 IUs, based upon a post from Dr. Kurt Harris over at PāNu (look down in the “Replacement, Not Supplementation” section), I dropped my supplementation to a normal level of 4,000 IUs daily. I remain at this level regardless of daily sun exposure, which these days in nil. However, based upon a ton of information I’ve been reading lately, I have been doubling my daily dose to 8,000 IUs when illness is nearby-i.e., when my wife or kids are sick.

My next blood test is scheduled for this coming Monday (November 2). In two weeks time, at the followup visit, I expect to see some nice improvements to my vitamin D level. Hopefully, my anti-streptolysin O level will be either reduced or, at the least, not increased… that’s the reason, you see, for the number of blood tests I’ve had recently.

Update 1/18/2010: Shortly after this post, I upped my supplementation back to 10,000 IUs for the winter. At my blood test January 18th, my 25(OH)D was up to 115 ng/mL. Woot! I’ve cut my supplementation back down to 4,000 IUs. I’ll keep it here until my next blood test in July. I can say that I’ve never felt healthier. My sinuses have been much clearer over the past few months than they have ever been.

Here are some great links to information on vitamin D:

A Compendium of Vitamin D Information There is a ton of useful information on this page. It certainly earns the “compendium” part of the title. Some of my favorite sections of the page are:

• Chronic Pain “Epidemiological studies indicate that 93% of people with chronic muscoskeletal pain are deficient in Vitamin D“

• Depression This really explains the seasonal blues for me. I had just assumed it was “cabin fever” or something mental. To know that it could be vitamin deficiency really gives me hope for future winters… bring it on!

• Vitamin D and Cancer This section really hits close to home… as a man, anything that “reduces the risk of prostate cancer” is high on my list of to-dos. And, having lost my grandmother to pancreatic cancer, knowing that “just 400 IU of Vitamin D per day reduced the risk of pancreatic cancer by 43%” gives me hope for myself and my kids.

• Vitamin D and the Immune System A couple of sentences in this section are what prompted me to write this post. “Increased incidence of respiratory infection is linked to Vitamin D deficiency. Epidemiological studies indicate that people with low levels of Vitamin D are 40% more likely to have a respiratory infection.” Alrighty then! That explains my last three years!!!

H1N1, Vitamin D3 and Innate Immunity is another post from Dr Harris over at PāNu. This post is part of the reason I double my supplementation when there is illness in the house. In short, “[i]t appears vitamin D is incredibly protective against H1N1.” This part is amazing to me: “0.73% of residents were affected, as compared to 7.5% of staff. This 10-fold difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). That is, the chance that this was a chance occurrence is one less than one in a thousand.” If you don’t want to read the post, know that residents of the long-term care facility receive daily supplementation of vitamin D based upon individual 25(OH)D levels.

Vitamin D supplements show anti-diabetes potential Dr Michael Eades posted a link to this article this morning on his twitter account DrEades. I promptly posted it to my Facebook page before I decided to write this post. In short, the article reports that a randomized, controlled trial has shown that vitamin D improves both insulin sensitivity and insulin resistance, two common risk factors for diabetes. Awesome!

Vitamin D Is DINOMIT Against Cancer is a post from Tom Naughton that links to a video from the UCSD School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center titled “How Vitamin D Reduces Incidence of Cancer: DINOMIT Model.” I would link directly to the video, but you really need to start reading Tom’s stuff anyway so go… after you finish here! Also, you need to watch Tom’s documentary film Fat Head.

The Miracle of Vitamin D over at the Weston A. Price Foundation site. This page has a lot of information and a ton of references to follow… 82 of them!

That should get you started on your own research.

Note: I reckon this is what you call a plateau… I haven’t changed weight more than +/- 3 lbs in over a month. I’ve cut my carbs to try and jump start some fat burning (I’ve been eating too much fruit and crutch foods such as primal muffins, etc). Once it’s started, that should be enough motivation to really control my carbs and keep to a stricter paleo diet.

Note: My back is still a bit sore from my previous workout, but I don’t think it affected this workout too much. I was feeling it on the rower, but it didn’t slow me down too much… not as much as the deadlifts and split squats did.

Note: Somewhere amongst the heavy squats, bent over rows, and the dumbbell push presses I tweaked my upper back. As it was my upper back and not my lower back, my money is on either the rows or the presses. I didn’t have any problems until the second set of presses, so I’m thinking that it happened somewhere between getting up off the floor after the hip extensions and lifting the dumbbells to my shoulders for the presses.

Over a year ago, I ran a 5K in 37 minutes and 42 seconds. I don’t recall how much I weighed at the time, but I do remember that I had not trained at all for it. I may have been lifting weights for a few weeks, but that’s about it. Of course, my time shows that. And, when I say I “ran” I use that term loosely… as I recall, there was quite a bit of walking intermixed with the running.

Almost four weeks ago, I ran in the inaugural All Access 5K and posted a race report. I ran that race in 35 minutes and 40 seconds… about 2 minutes faster than my previous race. Not only that, but this time I actually ran the entire time. That meant more to me than the time it took.

Well, today, I ran the 2009 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure as a member of Team Lyon. This time I crossed the line in 32 minutes and 45 seconds… another three minutes shaved off! I’m about five pounds lighter today than I was four weeks ago. When I first wrote that, I thought to myself “what! Only 5 pounds!?” But, then I realized that while my weight hasn’t come down a whole lot, I have had to tighten my belt once or twice just to keep my pants up and that makes me feel great. I know that my workout program is working. I’m happy with my results and look forward to lowering my time even more on my next 5K. And, for reference, I ran this race again in my black Vibram FiveFingers KSOs.

Now, about today’s race… It was wet and chilly! I will not go so far as to say that it was “cold”… my friends in Boston, Fort Collins, and other more northern locations would definitely take issue with me saying that 50°F is cold… though, in my defense, it was windy and wind coming off the ocean can be damn cold no matter what the air temperature is!

Where was I… oh, so aside from the wind, rain, and chill, it was an absolutely beautiful day for a race at the beach. For those of you that know the Virginia Beach strip, the race started and ended at 31st Street–the start was on Atlantic heading south towards Rudee Inlet, at 8th Street the course turned onto the Boardwalk and headed north back to the finish. The first leg down Atlantic wasn’t too bad… the buildings were able to shield us from at least some of the wind. The return over on the Boardwalk was not quite so much fun. It was on this leg of the race that I was passed by another runner wearing black VFF KSOs… woot! No, not the being passed part, but the VFF KSO part. It is nice to see the movement continue to grow.

I was a little disappointed in the lack of a finisher’s “medal.” Yeah, I like shiny things… but I think that’s a geek thing. On the plus side, they had water, donuts (don’t worry, I didn’t eat any), pomegranate apple sauce, and a few flavors of yogurt for the finishers.

In short, I had a great time and it was another well run race at the oceanfront.

As a wrap up, some bad news… my iPhone battery had died on me, so I don’t have any pictures… nothing from the start, nothing from the finish, no photos of my VFFs! Oh well, next time I’ll take two of each photo and post them.

Today, I compiled a list of links for my parents and my in-laws. I figured that it would be a good idea to share them with you too.

First of all, I’m a big fan of Tom Naughton’s Fat Head. Since seeing it, I’ve started following Tom’s posts on his blog at fathead-movie.com. His latest post, Four Diets, One Study, is a good read and includes a video from a professor at Stanford. A few other posts on his site that I pointed out for comic relief and/or nutritional information: The French Paradox, Margarine and Mother Nature, Jimmy and MONICA: A Tale From the Heart, and Vitamin D Is DINOMIT Against Cancer. All of his posts are worth reading… at least the ones I’ve seen.

Another great blog to follow is the blog of Dr. Michael Eades. His latest post from October 13th includes the same video that Tom’s post above does. My favorite recent post from his blog is Are we meat eaters or vegetarians? Part II.

The final link I relayed to the ‘rents was a summary of Taubes’ Book and the Real Cause of Obesity over at the Normal Eating Blog. I highly recommend reading Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Calories, but I agree with Sheryl’s description that it is informative and dense to the point that a lot of people likely won’t finish. I’ll finish it, but I’m a geek by nature and an engineer by training so I’m, by definition, abnormal.

Just took some measurements of my waist, arm, chest and thigh to compare against my last measurements from August 18, 2009.

I’ve dropped almost 5 inches from my waist and almost 3 inches from my chest. My thigh put on about half an inch, but I’d expect that with the gains I’ve made on my squats and deadlifts and with the running I’ve done. My bicep measurement dropped 1.5 inches, but I had a really hard time measuring it the first time with the plain ol’ sewing tape I used… I upgraded to a MyoTape this time for one handed use.