#I have weak scandinavian DNA

[hjartasalt]

This is actually one of the goofiest things I've read in my entire life

[girlactionfigure]

Hang Arafat Irfaiya!

Arafat Irfaiya is the monster that raped, murdered and mutilated a beautiful 19-year old girl last week because she was a Jew living in Eretz Yisrael. He is guilty of crimes against the Jewish people, and he should be executed for them.

There is a law in Israel that prescribes the death penalty for crimes against the Jewish people committed during WWII or “the period of the Nazi regime.” The limitation to the Nazi period is illogical and should be removed. Murdering Jews, qua Jews, in 2019 is not different than doing it in 1943. Murdering them in order to try to destroy the Jewish state is a crime against the Jewish people no less than deporting them to Auschwitz.

Military courts can impose a death penalty for crimes committed in the territories, but unfortunately the site of the murder was just inside the Green Line, so the trial will be in a civilian court.

The leniency shown by the Jewish state to murderers motivated by “nationalism” – Palestinian Arab Jew-hatred – is remarkable, including almost Scandinavian-style prison conditions, regular salaries paid by the Palestinian authority, and often early release as part of political deals or as blackmail for hostages.

This is stupid. The smiles often displayed by Palestinian Arab terrorists like Irfaiya as they are sentenced testify to the fact that they see themselves as victorious despite their conviction.

Keeping these creatures in prison is expensive, provides an incentive for hostage-taking – you may recall that in 2011 one Jewish soldier, Gilad Shalit, was exchanged for 1027 terrorists, many of whom were guilty of murder – and, thanks to the Palestinian Authority’s payment system and the adulation they receive in Palestinian society, probably encourages further terrorism rather than deterring it. When they are released, they often return to terrorism. In 2015 it was reported that six additional Israelis had been murdered by prisoners released in the Shalit deal.

Every time – and there have been many times – that a Palestinian Arab terrorist commits a particularly horrible murder, there are calls for the imposition of the death penalty. And every time, it doesn’t happen.

There are numerous objections to the death penalty in general. But in this case, and in most cases of Palestinian terrorism, they don’t apply. There is no doubt of Arafat Irfaiya’s guilt; there is physical evidence, including DNA, plus a confession and reenactment of the crime.

It is often said that the death penalty is not a deterrent, and this may be true in the West, especially in places like California, where the probability of a death sentence being carried out in a reasonable time is almost zero. In the Middle East, however, there are cultural factors that have the opposite effect. In our region, not executing a murderer is a sign of weakness, a signal that the victim’s family or tribe is too weak to preserve its honor. And a tribe without honor is a tribe whose members can be murdered with impunity. Failing to impose the death penalty actually has the opposite of a deterrent effect – it encouragesmurdering Jews.

Since 1967, Israel and the Jewish people have undergone a continuous loss of honor relative to their enemies, as they have made a series of unrequited concessions (starting with the surrender of sovereignty over the Temple Mount). With Oslo the pace of the concessions – and the concomitant terrorism against Israel – accelerated greatly, and there are beginning to be murmurs that still more is about to be expected of us.

If we wish to survive as a Jewish state, the pendulum must be forced to swing back the other way. I believe that a comprehensive policy to regain the initiative – and our honor – is needed. A small part of it would be to actually punish terrorists in proportion to their crimes. Executing Arafat Irfaiya would be a start.

But only a start. How did it come about that there are so many like Irfaiya? Why did two young Palestinian Arabs viciously slaughter five members of the Fogel family including a 3-month old baby girl?  Why did another Palestinian Arab teenager climb through a window and stab Hallel Yaffe Ariel to death in her bed? Why have there been hundreds of terror attacks against Jews by Palestinians in the past four years, many by perpetrators who are not known to be directly associated with traditional terrorist groups?

The answer is not complicated. When Israel invited Yasser Arafat back from exile and allowed the establishment of the Palestinian Authority as part of the Oslo accords, one of Arafat’s first actions was to decree that every institution in the territories under his control – schools, mosques, summer camps, newspapers, radio and TV – would teach violent hatred of Jews and Israel. Every anti-Jewish trope was included, from traditional Muslim “apes and pigs” slanders to memes borrowed from European antisemitism. Terrorists who murder Jewish women and children are treated as military heroes who have carried out successful “operations.” The project was continued by Mahmoud Abbas after Arafat’s death, and in Gaza after the Hamas takeover. Its effect has been to paint Jews as vermin that it is not only permissible, but laudable, to kill.

At some point, Abbas introduced the policy of paying salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons (if they should be killed during their attacks, the stipend is given to the family). Despite threats from the US and Israel to cut payments to the PA (the US has already reduced aid to the PA in accordance with the Taylor Force Act and PM Netanyahu has promised to start deducting equivalent funds from import duties collected on behalf of the PA), the PA continues to pay terrorists, which Abbas has called his top priority. Salaries are proportional to the length of prison sentences, which means that they are proportional to the severity of the crime.

The combination of the coordinated program of indoctrination, plus financial incentives for terrorist acts, has bred several generations of monsters like Arafat Irfaiya.

What this means is that the leaders of the PLO and Hamas, who have programmed the murderers and who pay them, are also guilty of murder. Indeed Irfaiya and the other monsters are no more than hitmen. The root of the problem is planted higher up.

We have a long road to travel to recover from the errors we’ve made since 1967 and since Oslo. But we have to start small.

As a first step, let’s hang Arafat Irfaiya and go on from there.

Abu Yehuda

[clawedcosplay]

New Bio???

So I’ve been working on this for a few weeks and I’m pretty proud of what I’ve got so far, but I also really want to improve it! 

So if you read this, rip it apart. Tell me whats good, bad, and pure shit! Make me cry if you think it’s necessary! I just really want to make it as good as I can before I start working on the comic but don’t tell anyone i told you

General

Given Name: Lagos Gender: Cis Male Sexuality: HAHAHAHAHAHA Age: 1,157 Alias: E-3 Steve Rogers, E-5 William “Pop Eye” Costello, O-6 John Smith, Special O-11 Alfred F. Jones Species: Officially Social Faction of United States of America Title: American Federal Government Employees, Elected Officials, and Military Active Duty and Veterans Nationality: Born Scandinavian; Officially United States Citizen Born: Around 861, born to a Thrall, assumedly the then collective tribes in what is now the UK, though this isn’t proven, and sired by who is now Sweden.

Physical

Hair: Dirty blond that is regularly bleached. Due to how fast he heals, his hair grows rather fast being as how the body sees it as healing. He has to shave every day, and if he shaves in the morning, by 11:00 pm he would have stubble. Give him a weekend of fishing and he will be able to braid his beard. He can speed the process up if he focuses, just as how he can control his healing if he focuses. He can also generate an excess of iron in the cells of the hair, giving the hair a red appearance, though this takes a lot of concentration. And he would have to cut the old blonde off.

Eyes: Blue almost always. Depending on the depth of his emotions, his eyes change color the same way the ocean does depending on depth. That being said, they loose all saturation and turn white shuts off his emotions, as he’s learned to. And if his eyes are gold? God fucking damn it monty.

Skin: Naturally fair but very tan thanks to how often he is outside, plus horrible tan lines from different uniforms and gloves.

Build: He’s almost always had a swimmer’s build, at least since the start of the civil war, but when the frogmen turned into SEALs, thanks to the new workout routine, he became more top heavy. Now he has more of a running back's build. From his childhood to the revolutionary war though, he was build like a red wood. A mix between a linebacker and a water polo athlete.

Height: From his maturity in Sweden to the gilded age, he was 6”1’. After the gilded age, when his spine was damaged in the civil war and replaced with a steel rod, he slowly lost height until modern times where he is 5’7”, though he grew an inch during the space race only to lose it again. Space travel expanded his joints, but all the metal bones contracted them again, along with the inces he lost to the spine surgeries.

Weight: Natural body weight; 170, though a lot heavier thanks to metal bones.

Blood type: N/A each red blood cell correlates to that of one individual human or dolphin. The DNA thus blood type is that of the given human. Where the amount of Americans and dolphins is dwarfed by the count of red blood cells in an average body, the lack of the former is thereby filled with a hybridized stem cell that creates his super healing. Thanks to his body’s dimensional hyperlinks to locations throughout the united states, his organs can draw on power from such places, making his body’s need for oxygen much lower. Not only can he survive on a tiny amount of red blood cells, but he can also hold his breath for about 30 minutes.

DNA: A hybrid of human and dolphin thanks to Tony. By “healing” parts of his body he wounds intentionally, he can control the dolphin based stem cells 

Alterations: Iron forearm on his left arm, created by the invention of the Ironclad during the civil war. Steel spine to mirror the steel monopoly building the backbone to the American Military. Gold and silicon bones in his right hand to mirror silicon valley; the inventions at which changed warfare forever.

Tattoos: All tattos were removed after 9/11 to prevent easy identification by the enemy. A spine over his own with red wings sprouting from it, ripped open skin to show an american flag under his left forearm, tally marks up and down his right thigh that stop at 1200, the lagos symbol on either ankle, a snake ringed over his left knee with “Don’t tread on me” inscribed. An Ahuizotl on the knee below the snake, the hand on his tail seeming to be holding the outline of a woman as two temples burn in the background. (… To be continued as the story progresses)

Scars: Triangle brand behind his left ear, slice on his hairline, burn through his left shoulder, bayonet slice through his right side, surgical slices on his left hand, speckled acid burns across his right temple, surgical I scar over whole torso, coat of arms brand over his chest (… To be continued as the story progresses)

Emotional

Strengths: Physical strength, super healing, built in connection to AGES (a system that connects all US Navy ships together and provides live intelligence on their geographic coordinates), perfect navigation, strong memory, can cause electrical surges using his spine and hand, can record magnetic signatures with right hand, combat training, blood diffused poisons take longer to take effect. He can also form a sword from the iron in his blood with a norse rune.

Weaknesses: Electrical surges from outside forces can shutdown the system in his spine. Once in his veins, poisons lasts much longer and has a stronger effect, even if it takes a while. While he can regrow most anything, he can’t magically fix damaged cyborg parts. He has to be conscious and concentrating to control his healing, and if not the body might heal things wrong. Especially if he can’t focus, the healing could give him away. Alcohol takes a long time to kick in which may seem good until he accidentally gives himself alcohol poisoning which is like every friday for him. He lowers his guard for sexy women. Summoning the sword will take at least an arm (not a leg though because fuck you edward).

Knowledge: He’s got multiple doctorates in engineering, a few doctorates in sciences such as physics and marine sciences. He also has sporadic degrees in classes such as leadership psychology, national security, warfare theory, and other useful places. Most of these are from military academies, though he will take a class or two (especially recently) online. In the last few years he has been working on degrees in cyber security, programming, and computer science, and he ends up re-taking the same classes every few years thanks to new languages being released or updated. 

Magic Powers: he can instantly navigate to any bar no matter where he is. No one knows how...

Logical Fears: Meat hooks, the ocean herself, loud sounds in certain situations, being physically helpless, becoming invested in people outside his men

Illogical Fears: Small children, superstitions, vore art (though maybe this is logical), commitment, blowjobs, Also, losing someone he’s in love with. Now i know this seems like a logical thing that everyone fears, but hear me out! He’s traumatically lost a girl before and it hurt him so much so that he can act illogically while trying to protect either them or his own feelings.

Please help me out if you can! Just the littlest comments on things you notice would help so much. I want to make him the best I can!

[ohnohetaliasues]

If you drew this yourself, I applaud you. Fantastic job.

I know this isn’t a complete OC, he and the other factions are more like hybrid OCs, but he’s got a lot of differences. Also, be as mean as you want! really pick this apart so I can improve. 

General

Given Name: Lagos Gender: Cis Male Sexuality: the “I swear I’m not gay” sexuality Age: 1,157 Alias: E-3 Steve Rogers, E-5 William “Pop Eye” Costello, O-6 John Smith, Special O-11 Alfred F. Jones Species: Officially Social Faction of United States of America Title: American Federal Government Employees, Elected Officials, and Military Active Duty and Veterans Nationality: Born Scandinavian; Officially United States Citizen Born: Around 861, born to a Thrall, assumedly the then collective tribes in what is now the UK, though this isn’t proven, and sired by who is now Sweden.

Physical

Hair: Dirty blond that is regularly bleached. Due to how fast he heals, his hair grows rather fast being as how the body sees it as healing. He has to shave every day, and if he shaves in the morning, by 11:00 pm he would have stubble. Give him a weekend of fishing and he will be able to braid his beard. He can speed the process up if he focuses, just as how he can control his healing if he focuses. He can also generate an excess of iron in the cells of the hair, giving the hair a red appearance, though this takes a lot of concentration. And he would have to cut the old blonde off.

Eyes: Blue almost always. Depending on the depth of his emotions, his eyes change color the same way the ocean does depending on depth. That being said, they loose all saturation and turn white shuts off his emotions, as he’s learned to. And if his eyes are gold? God fucking damn it monty.

Skin: Naturally fair but very tan thanks to how often he is outside, plus horrible tan lines from different uniforms and gloves.

Build: He’s almost always had a swimmer’s build, at least since the start of the civil war, but when the frogmen turned into SEALs, thanks to the new workout routine, he became more top heavy. Now he has more of a running back’s build. From his childhood to the revolutionary war though, he was build like a red wood. A mix between a linebacker and a water polo athlete.

Height: From his maturity in Sweden to the gilded age, he was 6”1’. After the gilded age, when his spine was damaged in the civil war and replaced with a steel rod, he slowly lost height until modern times where he is 5’7”, though he grew an inch during the space race only to lose it again. Space travel expanded his joints, but all the metal bones contracted them again, along with the inces he lost to the spine surgeries.

Weight: Natural body weight; 170, though a lot heavier thanks to metal bones.

Blood type: N/A each red blood cell correlates to that of one individual human or dolphin. The DNA thus blood type is that of the given human. Where the amount of Americans and dolphins is dwarfed by the count of red blood cells in an average body, the lack of the former is thereby filled with a hybridized stem cell that creates his super healing. Thanks to his body’s dimensional hyperlinks to locations throughout the united states, his organs can draw on power from such places, making his body’s need for oxygen much lower. Not only can he survive on a tiny amount of red blood cells, but he can also hold his breath for about 30 minutes.

DNA: A hybrid of human and dolphin thanks to Tony. By “healing” parts of his body he wounds intentionally, he can control the dolphin based stem cells

Alterations: Iron forearm on his left arm, created by the invention of the Ironclad during the civil war. Steel spine to mirror the steel monopoly building the backbone to the American Military. Gold and silicon bones in his right hand to mirror silicon valley; the inventions at which changed warfare forever.

Tattoos: All tattos were removed after 9/11 to prevent easy identification by the enemy. A spine over his own with red wings sprouting from it, ripped open skin to show an american flag under his left forearm, tally marks up and down his right thigh that stop at 1200, the lagos symbol on either ankle, a snake ringed over his left knee with “Don’t tread on me” inscribed. An Ahuizotl on the knee below the snake, the hand on his tail seeming to be holding the outline of a woman as two temples burn in the background. (… To be continued as the story progresses)

Scars: Triangle brand behind his left ear, slice on his hairline, burn through his left shoulder, bayonet slice through his right side, surgical slices on his left hand, speckled acid burns across his right temple, surgical I scar over whole torso, coat of arms brand over his chest (… To be continued as the story progresses)

Strengths: Physical strength, super healing, built in connection to AGES (a system that connects all US Navy ships together and provides live intelligence on their geographic coordinates), perfect navigation, strong memory, can cause electrical surges using his spine and hand, can record magnetic signatures with right hand, combat training, blood diffused poisons take longer to take effect. He can also form a sword from the iron in his blood with a norse rune.

Weaknesses: Electrical surges from outside forces can shutdown the system in his spine. Once in his veins, poisons lasts much longer and has a stronger effect, even if it takes a while. While he can regrow most anything, he can’t magically fix damaged cyborg parts. He has to be conscious and concentrating to control his healing, and if not the body might heal things wrong. Especially if he can’t focus, the healing could give him away. Alcohol takes a long time to kick in which may seem good until he accidentally gives himself alcohol poisoning which is like every friday for him. He lowers his guard for sexy women. Summoning the sword will take at least an arm (not a leg though because fuck you Edward).

I see what you did there.

Emotional

Personality: An extrovert who easily brings respect from those he meets. A womanizer, he does have an alcohol problem, and can also be quick to the punch… Though he’s not a bad person having learned morals from the ground up. He has a technical smartness with a strong right brain, thus good with math, engineering, and science, but isn’t the most artsy person. Being a splinter of APH America, he has some character differences. Where America would struggle with making a tough choice (ie. risk 100 people for 1000) Navy would have no problem, especially when he can’t see the people. Where as Alfred doesn’t always enjoy being a soldier, Navy prefers it. He feels more comfortable having a constant moral reminder by wearing the uniform. He is also afraid of commitment where APH America is willing to feel the pain of loosing loved ones to have loved at all, but Navy doesn’t like taking the chance. 

Knowledge: He’s got multiple doctorates in engineering, a few doctorates in sciences such as physics and marine sciences. He also has sporadic degrees in classes such as leadership psychology, national security, warfare theory, and other useful places. Most of these are from military academies, though he will take a class or two (especially recently) online. In the last few years he has been working on degrees in cyber security, programming, and computer science, and he ends up re-taking the same classes every few years thanks to new languages being released or updated.

Magic Powers: he can instantly navigate to any bar no matter where he is. No one knows how…

Logical Fears: Meat hooks, the ocean herself, loud sounds in certain situations, being physically helpless, becoming invested in people outside his men

Illogical Fears: Small children, superstitions, vore art (though maybe this is logical), commitment, blowjobs, Also, losing someone he’s in love with. Now i know this seems like a logical thing that everyone fears, but hear me out! He’s traumatically lost a girl before and it hurt him so much so that he can act illogically while trying to protect either them or his own feelings.

Also, let me know if you think I need more sections! Thanks a lot for doing this! I actually took a Mary Sue test once and he flagged it rip.

Okay, he seems pretty good. I’m guessing he’s another version of America, but he confuses me a bit. He’s not a gary stu, he’s pretty well made and I find him interesting. Thanks for the submission. He’s coming along nicely!

~Kat

[cipherpolfiles]

As much as I like Oda's cultural accuracy (that Elbaf is inspired by Scandinavian vikings and that's why they have Semla, a Scandinavian treat) I personally am more intrigued on where did non-Elbaf Giants come from. Saul explicitly mentioned not all Giants come from Elbaf, but so far, all non-Elbaf giants are affiliated with the Marines. Why is this so?

I think this might go the Norman-Viking route.

See, the Normans were Vikings who had forsaken their beliefs and way of life for Christianity in exchange for a piece of land in France, which came to be known as Normandy (Land of the Northmen).

The Vikings saw this exchanging their warrior gods for a scrawny, weak one as an unforgivable treason, as we say in Spain “bajarse los pantalones”, which literally translates to “pulling your pants/trousers down”; this is said when someone gives up or gives in to demands in a dishonorable manner, thus why Vikings were especially fierce when attacking the coast of Normandy: they were fighting against their disgraceful brethren. Of course, the Normans considered the Vikings to be savages despite literally sharing the same origins.

Something like this might have happened with the giants of Elbaf. Maybe centuries ago, a bunch of them might have been offered some kind of treaty which they accepted (more than likely with the World Government) and the rest of the giants, true to their traditions and way of life, saw it as treason. This would kind of explain why there are two factions among the giants and Saul’s indignation when he was compared to a giant from Elbaf.

The Norman-Viking conflict would be a good explanation for this rift among the same race.

What do you guys think? Does it sound plausible to you?

Thanks for the ask!

P.S. This actually reminds me of a convo I had with @firedickace about how ‘Spanish Vs. Portuguese’ (Us against Them) is taught in our schools when, in truth, we share the same DNA and were the same people once.

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/do-you-need-a-personalized-hydration-plan-to-maximize-performance/

Do You Need a Personalized Hydration Plan to Maximize Performance?

You know about body composition tools, DNA testing, and movement screenings. But there’s another kind of testing that can help your athletic performance: personalized hydration.

After a typical training session, most athletes are somewhat or very dehydrated, according to research published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. But when athletes followed a personalized hydration plan, tailored to their average fluid and sodium loss, they were able to exert more anaerobic power (that’s what you tap into to lift, sprint, and jump), recover faster, and improve attention and awareness. That’s just from having the proper amount of water and electrolytes.

Now, the athletes in this study were doing two-a-days or six-day training weeks, so they were sweating a lot. And the workouts their personalized hydration plan helped were anywhere from 60 minutes to two hours long. Researchers found relying on thirst alone may not be sufficient to rehydrate your body.

While participants reached for water the same number of times when they were drinking based on thirst versus the personalized plan, it’s the amount of fluids they drank as well as the composition that made the difference.

5 Signs You May Be Dehydrated

“For the personalized plan, we provided them with a guide for fluid intake—not too much, not too little—and adjusted the electrolyte composition of this fluid to match the electrolyte composition of their sweat,” says lead study author Michael Corcoran, Ph.D., assistant professor of health sciences at Merrimack College in Massachusetts.

It’s still unclear if the improvements were thanks to a greater amount of fluid or a better electrolyte balance in their water, but either way, the men performed better and hydrated more efficiently when they followed a personalized plan during their intense workouts.

And depending on your sweat loss and your workout intensity, a personalized plan might help your performance, too.

How Hydration Affects Performance

It’s harder to train with full-throttle intensity when you’re dehydrated. Your body has less water, which means less blood volume, so your heart has to pump more vigorously, upping your heart rate. Your core temperature is also warmer, so your metabolism is a bit less efficient. Overall, you have to work harder to achieve the same performance result, Corcoran says.

5 Combat Rope Moves to Torch Your Metabolism

But in order to replenish water, you have to replace electrolytes—the chemicals (namely sodium) you lose with sweat. Electrolytes help your body take up both glucose (fuel) and water more efficiently. That makes these molecules crucial to neuromuscular functioning. And research is starting to show even mild electrolyte depletion may subtly affect an athlete’s nervous system, causing their reflexes and reaction time to be slower, regardless of their carb energy stores, Corcoran adds.

Why Sports Drinks Aren’t Always Enough

“Most people lose between 0.5 to 1.5 liters of sweat per hour, but sweat loss can vary dramatically from person to person. It’s highly dependent upon factors like workout intensity and the climate,” Corcoran explains. Bigger dudes produce more sweat, for example, and the more fit you are, the harder you’re pushing during any given workout, so you’re sweating more than the average guy.

But there’s also a genetic component to it. Some people just sweat more than others, and some lose more sodium per drop.

In fact, research in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports found that among marathon runners, some had lower levels of electrolytes in their blood even after refueling with the same amount of water and salt as other runners. This is where a personalized hydration plan comes into play.

Do You Need a Personalized Plan?

A personalized hydration plan has two components: quantity (how much fluid you’re losing under certain conditions) and quality (what exactly you’re losing: namely sodium chloride or salt).

Whether or not you need one all depends on how active you are.

“The average fit guy who goes to the gym or participates in short events, like a 5K road race, does not need to get a sweat test. Drinking to thirst is more than sufficient,” Corcoran says. “But sweat testing may be advantageous for athletes who engage in very hard, prolonged training for several hours or days.” This can include triathletes, marathoners, and ultramarathoners.

Those who fall in between—half-marathoners and those who perform intense training four days a week—might benefit if they’re experiencing side effects common to dehydration, like fatigue, weight loss, cramps, elevated heart rate, or heat illness, he adds.

11 Reasons to Never Neglect Water

Although, let’s be clear: Not all endurance athletes need to get a sweat test.

“I actually think going by thirst helps avoid problems associated with overhydration that a lot of endurance athletes can fall into,” says Shawn M. Talbott, PhD, Utah-based exercise physiologist and nutritional biochemist. He’s referring to the nausea, weakness, drop in blood pressure, and even seizures that can happen as a result of hyponatremia, the clinical name for overhydration that affects some 10% of triathletes as well as other distance athletes. (Learn more in How Drinking Too Much Water Can Be Life-threatening for Endurance Athletes.)

That said, Talbott contends a sweat test could potentially be useful for athletes suffering stomach or muscle cramps, or having GI issues late in a competition—all signs they aren’t getting enough fluids. Mostly that’s endurance runners and triathletes, but potentially also serious soccer players or anyone going hard for a longer period of time and feeling physiological pushback from their body.

The hard-and-fast rule: If your workouts are under an hour, you’re fine to drink plain water when thirsty. If you’re sweating for more than an hour regularly, replenish electrolytes and water. If you’re working for upward of 90 minutes at a reasonable intensity (i.e., not just a two-hour walk), consider a personalized hydration plan, especially if you have cramping or GI issues late in the game.

How to Get Tested for a Personalized Hydration Plan

Remember, a plan has two components: how much fluid and how much sodium you’re losing.

You can determine the first part yourself. Weigh yourself naked immediately before an average workout, train, track how much fluid you drink, then weigh yourself naked immediately after.

“A 2% body weight loss means you’re dehydrated,” Corcoran says. That is, your thirst mechanic is not sufficient to keep you hydrated. There’s not an exact ratio of how to replenish based on your loss, but more on that in a sec.

If you’re consistently weighing in at 2%+ less post-training, or you just love quantitative data and have a few hundred to blow, you can get a sweat test to determine your average sodium loss (some even cost $200-$300). It’s a harmless process: a machine analyzes a patch that’s been on your skin. (You can try a company like Precision Hydration.) The main thing is to work with a knowledgeable coach or trainer who can explain what your sweat sodium value means and how to apply a strategy afterward.

Whether you get a sweat test or just try the naked-on-the-scale strategy, use the results as a baseline and then track how you’re responding to the intervention of more fluids, both Talbott and Corcoran agree. Good signs: fewer muscle cramps, less GI distress, more energy late in the game. Red flags: You’re dashing to the porta-potty at every mile marker of a race—a sign you’re overhydrating and entering dangerous territory.

The 7 Most Important Rules of Staying Hydrated

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[wastedflyer]

Racism and the perils of self-victimization

Whenever people hear the word “racist”, the first thing to come to their minds is likely white Americans hating black people, or Nazi Germans hating Jews (possibly both). Racism also conveys the idea of a powerful group of people oppressing a weak and rather helpless ethnic minority. Yet it’s important for us to stop for a moment and consider what racism really is, and what are the social dynamics that foster a racist mentality and behaviour.

The word “racism” naturally derives from the word “race”. It implies not only considering others differently from “us”, because of they way they look (colour of their skin, the way they dress, particular facial features, etc.), but also the idea that one ethnic group is (or rather, believes to be) superior or better than the other(s). Note how this definition doesn’t imply that all racism is basically white people looking down on non-white people. Moreover, one ethic group may be unaware or blind to divisions among different, wider groups: People from Asia or central Africa may be unable to tell an American Jew from an American non-Jew, just like a white American may be unable to tell a Japanese person from a Chinese one, or a Tutsi from a Hutu. My particular experience illustrates perfectly how the concept of race is vague and imprecise: growing up in South America, having mixed European ancestry (mostly English, Spanish and Italian), I always thought (just like everyone else around me) that I was “white”, as I lacked the black and/or aboriginal element typical (or stereotypical) of Latinos. However, when I moved to North America I learned that I was not “white”, because apparently “white” in these parts implies “northern European”, thus the fact that I had a good share of Spanish and Italian made me non-white (who knew?) My point is that it’s not easy for one individual to tell which ethnic group they belong to. Human race has been in a constant state of mixing and remixing through the ages, and that’s true for all “races”. Even someone who claims having (say) “pure English” ancestry will most likely have a mix of Germanic, Scandinavian/Viking and Celtic, and then there’s the Irish Celtic that’s a bit different from the continental Celtic. You get the point. There’s no such thing as a “pure” race. We’re all, without exception, a mix o various races. If that’s the case, though, why is the notion of “race” so prevalent around the world? Not just among the so-called “white” people, but also among every ethnic group? Hutus, Tutsis, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (not to mention the multitude of various Chinese ethnic groups). English vs Irish, Northern Italian vs Southern Italian, Russian vs Ukrainian, Turk vs Kurd, the list of rivalries among ethnic lines (sharp or blurred) is truly endless. It may seem, then, that being protective of “our race” is almost a biological feature of all human beings. Being proud of our kin and wishing to protect it is something that not only all humans do (consciously or not) but something common for many animal species too: herds, packs, prides… it’s all about sticking together and helping each other.

Yet, many times through history, humans have taken this protective instinct a little (and a lot) too far. The most vicious, visceral and hateful racism is based on the furiously protective instinct of a community consumed by fear. “Fear?”, you may wonder, “how can a powerful ethnic group be afraid of an oppressed minority?”. The answer to that question is that it’s all a matter of perception. Germans in the 1920s and 1930s had been wrecked by war reparations resulting from their defeat in WWI. Germans believed they had been betrayed, and saw themselves as unjustly oppressed by a ruling, wealthy elite. In short, before the horrors of the Holocaust had been set in motion, the German people believed themselves to be victims. Victims of an imagined Jewish elite. Victims of “The Jews”, period. Likewise, today’s English are quitting the European Union as they fear becoming the “victims” of Easter Europeans taking up their jobs and using up their welfare resources, and Americans appear to be terrified of becoming the victims of “Mexican rapists” and “Muslim terrorists”. It’s in this self-victimization attitude where the whole problem of racism arises: if we see ourselves as endangered and oppressed victims, we’ll fail to even consider that we can do any harm. If we believe that we are the victims, we’ll consider any opposition to our perceived “oppressors” (real or imaginary) as justified.  This misplaced justification is the root of every racist behaviour, it’s what turns evil racism into a perceived righteous struggle. Wherever there’s racism, it’s because there’s a segment of society that believes itself to be the victim of another segment of society, which is often associated with some ethnic group (“Jewish”, “Poles”, “Mexicans”, etc.) So, let’s make ourselves (and the whole human race) a big favour: whenever we believe our ethnic group is “endangered” by another, be it white Americans feeling as victims of black criminals, Jews feeling as victims of Arabs, Arabs feelings as victims of Jews, Russians feeling as victims of Ukrainians or Turks feeling as victims of Kurds, let’s stop and think: no “bad apple” can represent a whole ethnic group, no individual action can be attributed to a whole people.  Don’t all human beings share 99% of their DNA in common? Aren’t all human beings equal in the eyes of God? Let’s not be cowards, let’s not be afraid of other human beings. If “our race” were truly “superior”, it definitely wouldn’t need to be isolated by walls or laws to keep us safe. Let’s not be stupid. After all, there is only one race: the Human race.