#i had to take a break from studying for like 6 hrs in a row

[crowcryptds]

it’s me boy i’m the ps5

[ramblingsfromthytruly]

"You'll not always be motivated so you have to be disciplined."

day 29+30+31/50 productivity challenge - condensing 3 days into 1 post cuz of 2 all nighters in a row i- dw tho cuz i did sleep a couple of hours in between here & there.. still genuinely dunno how i survived. learn from my mistakes & don't procrastinate cuz that's the only reason i was stuck in this mess

23rd September 2024, Monday

[almost nobody from my class actually went to school (& i'm not an exception) cuz tuesday's a study break & wednesday's our chem exam]

💤: 8 hrs - i mean ig at least that's one plus side of sleeping in?

🕒 1 p.m.- *sigh*

afternoon morning skincare

duolingo

practiced playing keyboard

did some college-related research

gradblr intro post

took bath

studied + made notes chemistry ch: structure of atom (not fully)

did so much planning fml (not good, not good at all, i procrastinated a lot!!)

did an exercise video

🚰: 4 glasses

24th September 2024, Tuesday

[study break day]

🕒 6:30 a.m. - my "night" is over & the day has begun

morning skincare

revised chemistry ch: some basic concepts of chemistry

🕒 12 - 3 p.m. - napped

duolingo

had a mental breakdown, pathetically cried, felt like a failure, etc

studied chemistry ch: structure of atom

took bath

night skincare

packed bag for tmr

🕒 10 p.m. - 12 a.m. - napped

🚰: 3 glasses

25th September 2024, Wednesday

[chem exam]

studied chemistry ch: classification of elements and periodicity in properties

studied chemistry ch: chemical bonding and molecular structure

morning skincare

quickly wrote down all formulae + important values

🕒 8 a.m. - left for school sleep deprived asf but caffeinated & motivated to get through the terrible exam

chemistry exam: i will be in deep shit when results come out *sigh* obviously i'm not happy when my friends do bad but only one comfort is that we're in shit together (they're literally the only 2 ppl i talk to in school). i NEED to do well on all my other exams, like somehow make an extraordinary improvement to show that i'm good with the other subjects and will just prioritize studying chem in the future. also made a deal with my mom that if i get above 83% overall then i'll finally get my own tab and headphones. we've been meaning to buy it for some time now, and my mom agreed only because my first tests' marks was at 64% (cuz i didn't study..). not exactly an "academic weapon" just yet.. only yet hopefully..

🕒 1-5 p.m. - came back home & slept like a log (no one's surprised)

(re) planned my day

took bath

ate my first meal of the day (how did i survive till here with just a coffee before school??)

played chess online (lost once, won once)

planned week after dussehra break

night skincare

decided to take a break today & wake up early tmr to start anew; i.e. operation proper sleep every night is green!

🕒 12 a.m. - went to bed finally

🚰: 4 glasses

🎧: a beautiful ravenclaw-themed playlist on youtube

[mensbodybuildingtips]

How to Maintain Muscle and Strength with Minimal Exercise

How much training does it actually require to preserve muscle mass as well as stamina? What types of exercises are most reliable? Continue reading to discover out!

We all understand just how much perseverance and consistency it requires to get a great physique.

You have to strike the weights 3-5 times per week, weekly, for at the very least 1-2 years.

You often have to also discover time for a pair hours of cardio per week.

You have to enjoy what you eat, controling intake to fulfill your goals of getting or shedding weight.

While several of us discover to appreciate the process, no one ever stated it was simple. It takes intense, routine work.

Now, just how do things transform as soon as you've achieved the kind of body you desire? Do you have to function equally as tough to maintain a great physique as you do to construct one?

If that question does not matter a lot to you-if you're like me as well as you simply enjoy the physical fitness lifestyle-then perhaps this one will certainly capture your interest:

How can you keep muscle and toughness when you're unable to follow your normal exercise routine?

Although a few of us would love to be able to hit the health club 5 times each week without any unintended breaks, year-in, year-out ... life will unavoidably toss us curve balls.

Staying in form while traveling can be complicated. The vacations are notorious for tinkering routines (as well as diet plans). Household and also job frequently take precedence over personal time.

Are you merely destined losing muscular tissue and strength in such scenarios? Or is there a simple means to avoid such problems?

Well, as you'll see in this article, it's much less complicated than most people believe to maintain muscle as well as stamina, as well as remain to make gains.

Let's get to it.

How Much Workout it Takes to Maintain Muscle mass and also Strength

I have good news for you:

It's a lot easier to maintain an excellent body as well as degree of conditioning than it is to obtain there.

How easy, you ask?

Well, think about a research conducted by the College of Alberta with affordable rowers. After 10 weeks of weightlifting 3 times each week, 18 varsity female rowers were divided right into 2 groups. Both groups then did 6 weeks of upkeep resistance training, with one team training when each week, as well as the various other twice each week.

The results? Both groups improved their stamina in 2 workouts they performed every week, as well as maintained strength in the four others in their routine.

Yes, that's right-according to that research, you can maintain your stamina training just when per week. And that's not the only study demonstrating this.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham performed a study where subjects raised weights 3 times weekly (9 sets per workout) for 5 months, and afterwards were assigned to one of three teams for the next eight months:

No exercise at all.

One weightlifting workout each week that contained 9 total sets.

One weightlifting exercise per week that consisted of 3 overall sets.

Over the course of the following 8 months, team 1 shed muscle mass (naturally), but both teams 2 and 3 were able to maintain many of the muscle mass they had gained in the first part of the study, or even increase their strength.

So, exactly what we can find out from these research studies is this:

You can not just maintain muscular tissue and strength training only 1-2 times weekly, you can really make gains.

Sure, you won't be able to make the very same kinds of gains as you can training 3-5 times each week, but you can do much better than many people think.

One study performed by The College of Queensland revealed that subjects that trained a muscle mass group twice weekly made about 70% of the gains of those training three times per week.

A research study conducted by the University of Florida showed that topics doing isometric training twice each week made regarding 80% of the gains of those training three times each week.

Researchers from Laurentian College located that team of topics training two times per week, executing 27 complete sets weekly, made equal gains to one more team training 3 times each week for the same variety of sets.

The key takeaway right here is that once a week exercise volume is at least as essential, if not more crucial compared to, exercise frequency.

So, below's the point that will come as a wonderful relief to numerous:

Regardless of just what's taking place in your life, if you can slip away from the pressure for a pair hrs each week, you can minimally maintain your hard-earned gains.

Now, just how do you finest go regarding the training? What kind of exercises will deliver the very best outcomes when you're only educating 1-2 times each week?

The Perfect 'Muscle Upkeep' Program

When you can only educate one or two times each week, just what you do is extremely important.

If you remain in respectable shape as well as merely gotten on some equipments as well as got a pump, you absolutely will not make gains, and also will probably shed muscular tissue over time.

The profits is when you lower exercise frequency, you have to boost volume and also, most significantly, intensity (the amount of weight you're raising).

You likewise wish to concentrate on exercises that hire the maximum period of muscular tissue, which are the big substance raises like Deadlifts, Squats, Bench Press, as well as Armed forces Press.

I might explore some even more advanced physiology right here to additionally explain the partnership in between frequency, quantity, intensity, as well as exercise selection, but let's save that concept for an additional blog post as well as obtain to the practical.

Here's the best ways to obtain one of the most out of training twice per week.

Training Twice Per Week

When you could just train two times each week, I advise you use someday to train your press as well as draw muscles, as well as an additional day to concentrate on your legs, with a little extra push.

The following exercises take about a hr to complete. Rest 2-3 mins between each collection, and also take at the very least someday of remainder between each (two days of rest between each is suitable, I assume).

Day 1: Push/Pull

Deadlift: Heat up and 3 collections 4-6 associates (80-85% of 1RM)

Bench Press: Heat up and also 3 collections of 4-6 associates (80-85% of 1RM)

Barbell Row: 3 collections of 4-6 associates (80-85% of 1RM)

Military Press: 3 collections of 4-6 representatives (80-85% of 1RM)

Day 2: Legs as well as Added Push

Bench Press: Heat up and also 3 sets of 4-6 reps (80-85% of 1RM)

Squat: Heat up and also 3 sets 4-6 reps (80-85% of 1RM)

Hack Squat (sled, not barbell) or Leg Press: 3 collections of 4-6 associates (80-85% of 1RM)

Romanian Deadlift: 3 collections of 4-6 associates (80-85% of 1RM)

This is an extremely easy and also reliable workout. With it, you should anticipate to earn gains, not merely remain the same.

It trains every major and also small muscular tissue team in your body, and also the focus on the 4-6 rep array concentrates on generating myofibrillar growth, which is ultimately just what produces the huge, strong, dense muscular tissue that we all want.

As with any kind of program, one of the most crucial aspect in regards to making gains is progressive overload. That is, you have to keep adding weight to the bar as time goes on.

To do this, simply add weight once you struck 6 reps in a collection. Rise 10 lbs, whether by including 5 pounds per side of the barbell, or going up 5 lbs on dumbbells.

Training Once Per Week

If you could only educate as soon as weekly, do not despair-you can not just preserve muscle, toughness, and also conditioning, but you too can make gains.

The adhering to workout hits every significant muscle mass group in the body, as well as takes around 1:15 to finish. Rest 2-3 minutes between each collection. It's hard, but very effective.

Squat: Warm up as well as 3 sets 4-6 reps (80-85% of 1RM)

Deadlift: Heat up and also 3 sets 4-6 reps (80-85% of 1RM)

Bench Press: Heat up and 3 sets of 4-6 associates (80-85% of 1RM)

Barbell Row: 3 collections of 4-6 associates (80-85% of 1RM)

Military Press: 3 collections of 4-6 reps (80-85% of 1RM)

Again, absolutely nothing fancy here-just heavy, substance lifting, hitting your entire body. Move up on your weights as defined above.

So, if you're short promptly or simply desire to cruise for a bit and also maintain your physique, I wish this short article helps!

[calorieworkouts]

Why Do Some Runs Feel So Freaking Hard?

Even if your views typically aren't set on running a marathon, we've all had those days when you reduce to a walk during a three-mile jog-- although you easily breezed via a six-miler earlier in the week. It's not that you're instantly that out of shape, right?

Not whatsoever. Exactly what gives? Why do we want to quit completely on some runs, while we feel as unbreakable as Kimmy Schmidt on others? We asked the specialists to locate out.

Observe Your Body

"Every jogger is visiting experience an off day," spokens Jeff Galloway, a running coach and previous U.S. Olympian. Range runners are all too acquainted with "hitting a wall surface"-- that can't- go-on feeling that occurs on a future. As well as it's not an urban myth: Study reveals it takes place when your body is diminished of glycogen stores in the liver and also muscles, leading to an abrupt sensation of exhaustion as well as a loss of energy.Metabolic aspects limiting performance in marathon joggers. Rapoport BI. PLoS Computational Biology, 2010, Oct.,6( 10):1553 -7358. Both greatest physical perpetrators? Overtraining as well as low blood sugar level, Galloway says.

To protect against burnout, the ideal technique is to scale back on your training. Jason Fitzgerald, a running train at Toughness Operating and also a 2:39 marathoner, supports a method he calls adaptation, or duplicating the same training timetable 2 weeks in a row. It's advantageous since it requires you to not regularly add even more mileage and do harder workouts weekly, which can be overwhelming both emotionally and physically.

To repair reduced blood glucose, eat a pre-workout carb-based treat 60 minutes before your runs, which studies show could raise performance.Pre-Exercise Nutrition: The Function of Macronutrients, Modified Starches and Supplements on Metabolism and Endurance Efficiency. Ormsbee, MJ, Bach, CW, Baur, DA. Nutrients. 2014 Could, 6( 5): 1782-1808. An additional element is inadequate hydration, Fitzgerald claims. The American University of Sports Medicine advises moisturizing with 500 milliliters (about 17 ounces) of fluid two hrs before you function out.American University of Sports Medicine position stand. Exercise and liquid replacement. Convertino VA, Armstrong LE, Coyle EF. Medication and also Scientific research in Sports and Exercise, 1997, Sep.,28( 1):0195 -9131.

Low muscle mass stress-- exactly how acquired your muscles are-- is likewise an aspect, Fitzgerald states. When you have a higher muscle tension, your muscles are primaried, all set to go, as well as really feel more spring-like. When stress is low, your muscles do not agreement as promptly-- implying you're more likely to really feel sluggish and also sluggish. Boost your muscular tissue tension by heating up for your run on a tough surface area, doing a few sprints before a run, or taking an ice bathroom the evening prior to your workout.

Other aspects like inadequate rest and damp weather can make your typical four-mile run feel like a harrowing 10-miler, Fitzgerald adds. "If you're not getting sufficient sleep, you will not recuperate effectively or adjust to the hard workouts that you accumulate to," Fitzgerald states. (Try these suggestions to rest better tonight.) He also suggests checking in with on your own to ensure you're fully recuperated from your previous exercises, and asking yourself if you are patterning your workouts and runs appropriately.

Train Your Brain

Your mind plays practically as essential a duty in your runs as your bodily state. Studies show that mental exhaustion hinders recurring running efficiency, causing runners to have a higher price of regarded effort (RPE). Mental Tiredness Impairs Intermittent Running Efficiency. Smith MR, Marcora SM, Coutts AJ. Medicine as well as Scientific research in Sports and Exercise. 2015 Aug,47( 8):1682 -90. Galloway, who wrote Mental Training for Runners: How you can Remain Motivated, explains: "We rely upon the subconscious brain to do the majority of exactly what we do, yet if we permit it to govern our running, which it can do and also often does, as soon as the anxiety develops up from all resources, the mind will certainly produce stress and anxiety and negative hormonal agents, making your run a bad one."

The good news: By having a psychological training program, you can turn that around. Comply with these six pointers to develop your mental strength.

1. Consider something certain.

Galloway recommends concentrating on the following part of your run or an enjoyable plan you have for the upcoming weekend break. "When you believe of something particular, you change out of the subconscious into the aware, where unfavorable hormonal agents typically aren't being generated," Galloway clarifies. "Then you could begin producing endorphins-- a.k.a. your individual empowerment circuit."

2. Find your "magic words'.

Associate a mantra (or "magic phrase") with favorable previous encounters that will certainly enable you to pull the stamina from those successes once again during a bad run. "Claim the words over and over once more to turn on the frontal wattle of your brain, which closes off the negative thoughts from your subconscious," Galloway recommends. (Try something like "You can do it," "I obtained this," or one of these inspiring physical fitness rules.)

3. Utilize your creativity.

This appears crazy, however bear with us: Picture tossing a large elastic band around a jogger ahead of you, and pretend they're pulling you along, Galloway suggests. You could make fun of yourself, but by after that you'll be a half-mile in the future-- as well as really feeling a great deal more positive.

4. Press via.

We understand battling your mind's negativity can be difficult. As well as while some joggers may quit early, retiring to their sofa as well as Netflix, Fitzgerald recommends a little bit of challenging love. "If a runner is having a bad day since they didn't obtain sufficient rest, missed their morning coffee, are worried, or it's hot out, I recommend pushing through it when feasible," he says. "Any kind of race you're going to run is most likely not visiting go completely, as well as every run is not visiting feel fantastic. I think there's a bunch of worth in a bit of suffering."

5. Set a goal.

To remain encouraged, Fitzgerald advises registering for a race or having a mileage goal in mind. "If you don't have an objective, skipping out on the last fifty percent of a run won't have a considerable effect on your training," he discusses. "Registering for a race and committing to a timetable is the finest means to obtain as well as remain concentrated."

6. Change up the view.

Fitzgerald blends his own routine by going path running. The surface change as well as new environments supply a psychological advantage, which equates to a far better run. Try out new setups yourself.

The Takeaway

Above all, runners ought to expect that not every run will certainly create the desirable jogger's high, and possibly you will not be 100-percent psychologically existing at every race you run. By sticking it out or using one of the psychological training methods above, you can transform a bad run into a good one. "Also when the speed of the run is slow-moving, functioning yourself with what might have been a bad run and having it end up respectable is very equipping," Galloway claims.

Of course, if conditions are unreasonable-- say, you're at risk for heat stroke or you feel like you're visiting vomit-- Fitzgerald suggests modifying your exercise. "Perhaps you cut 10 to 25 percent of the distance or readjust your pace expectations," he explains. "If you're unable to do a fallback or also a plan C of the workout that was originally arranged, then bag it, take a healing day, and also try once again tomorrow."

[sportsandfitnessinfo]

New Post has been published on http://fitnessandhealthpros.com/fitness/how-to-exercise-with-an-autoimmune-condition/

How to Exercise with An Autoimmune Condition

Autoimmune diseases really throw the body for a loop. You’re attacking your own tissues. Your inflammation is sky high. What’s usually good for you—like boosting the immune system—can make it worse. You’ll often restrict eating certain foods that, on paper, appear healthy and nutrient-dense. You take nothing for granted, measure and consider everything before eating or doing it. Sometimes it feels like almost everything has the potential to be a trigger.

Is it true for exercise, too? Must people with autoimmune diseases also change how they train?

First things first, exercise can help. You just have to do it right, or risk incurring the negative effects.

Don’t overtrain. Most autoimmune diseases are characterized by chronic inflammation. Anything that increases that inflammatory load, like too much exercise, will contribute. Overtraining—stressful exercise that you fail to recover from before exercising again—will increase your stress load and increase autoimmune symptoms.

Avoid exercise-induced leaky gut. Intense, protracted exercise—think 30-minute high-intensity metabolic workouts, long runs at race pace, 400 meter high intensity intervals—increases intestinal permeability. Elevated intestinal permeability has been linked to rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, and researchers think it may play a causative role in other autoimmune diseases too.

Yet not exercising might be even worse because exercise increases endorphins. Most think of endorphins purely as “feel-good” chemicals. They’re what the body pumps out to deal with pain, as a response to exercise, and it’s through the endorphin receptor system that exogenous opiates work. Endorphins also play an important role in immune function. Rather than “boost” or “diminish” it, endorphins regulate immunity. They keep it running smoothly. Without endorphins, the immune system begins misbehaving. Sound familiar?

Low-dose naltrexone is a promising therapy for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. It works by increasing endorphin secretion, which in turn helps regulate the immune system’s misbehavior. I won’t posit that exercise is just as effective as LDN, but it’s certainly a piece of the puzzle.

This is the same relationship everyone has with exercise. Too much is bad, too little is bad, recovery is required, and intensity must be balanced with volume. The margin of error is just smaller when you have an autoimmune disease.

How should you exercise, then?

It depends on what type of autoimmune condition you have. Let’s explore some of the more common ones.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis hurts. It makes exercise a daunting prospect, which is why so many people with RA choose to stay inactive. Yet exercise consistently helps.

Exercise may improve sleep, reduce depression, and improve functionality in RA patients. Animal models of RA suggest that acute exercise inhibits the destruction of and even thickens cartilage.

What works:

Yoga works. A survey of RA patients found that many benefit from regular yoga practice. Another study found that it reduced pain, improved function, and increased general well-being in RA patients.

Light and very light intensity works. One study found that around 5 hours of “light and very light” intensity activity each day were often more effective at improving cardiovascular health in RA patients than 35 minutes of moderate intensity training each day. This isn’t necessarily unique to RA, as I think everyone’s better off walking and moving for 5 hours versus jogging for 30.

Working the afflicted joints works. For RA patients with hand and finger joint pain, a high-intensity exercise program centered on the hands improved functionality more than a low-intensity one.

High intensity works. 4 4-minute-long high intensity intervals on the bike at 85-95% of max HR increased muscle mass and cardio fitness while beginning to reduce inflammatory markers in women with RA. Notably, neither pain nor disease severity increased. In another study, RA patients were able to perform high-intensity resistance and aerobic training without issue.

Multiple Sclerosis

As with RA, people with multiple sclerosis really seem to benefit from exercise. They sleep better. If you start early, it may reduce the risk of developing MS. Exercise even drives brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is reduced in MS.

What works:

Tai chi works. Though the sample size was small, tai chi improved functional outcomes in patients with MS.

Both strength and endurance training work better than either alone. A 24-week lifting and endurance program has been used to increase BDNF in MS patients. A 12-week lifting and high-intensity interval program improved glucose tolerance in MS patients.

Lifting in the morning works. A recent study found that MS patients had more muscle fatigue and less muscle strength in the afternoon compared to the morning. Muscle oxidative capacity—the ability to burn fat during low level activity—did not differ between times.

Intense exercise works: The greater the intensity, the more BDNF you produce. That’s a general rule for everyone, and it’s no different for MS.

Crohn’s Disease

In Crohn’s, the body attacks the GI tract. It’s a bad one. Because Crohn’s can involve crippling GI pain, impaired digestion, fatigue, joint pain, and emergency diarrhea, patients often avoid exercise. They shouldn’t. If you can get past the mental roadblocks Crohn’s erects, exercise can really help.

What works:

Sprints and medium intensity both work, but sprints are less inflammatory. Both all-out cycling sprints (6 bouts of 4×15 second cycle sprints at 100% peak power output) and moderate cycling (30 minutes at 50% peak power) were well-tolerated by children with Crohn’s, but certain inflammatory markers were higher in the moderate group. Another inflammatory marker also stayed elevated for longer in the moderate group.

Resistance training and aerobic activity both work. Either alone or both in concert improve Crohn’s symptoms by modulating immune function.

Walking works. A low intensity walking program (just 3 times a week) improved quality of life in Crohn’s patients.

Type 1 Diabetes

People often forget about type 1 diabetes, but it’s an established autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the pancreas and reduces or abolishes its ability to produce insulin. For type 1 diabetics who wish to reduce the amount of insulin they inject, exercise is essential.

It up-regulates insulin independent glucose uptake by the muscles. That removes the pancreas from the equation altogether, and it reduces the amount of exogenous insulin needed to process glucose.

It’s also safe, as long as you have your insulin therapy under control.

However, as high-intensity exercise tends to increase blood glucose and easy aerobic exercise decreases it in type 1 diabetics, you really need to have your ducks in a row. The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal recently published their consensus guidelines for safe exercise with type 1 diabetes, with the main takeaway being that diabetics should monitor their glucose levels before, during, and after training to ensure the numbers don’t get away from them. One study found that quickly giving a dose of insulin following high-intensity training counteracted the rise in blood glucose.

What works:

Combining resistance training with aerobic training works. The combination lowered insulin requirements and improved basically every marker of fitness, along with general well-being.

Resistance training works. In one study, resistance training seemed to lower blood glucose regardless of intensity. However, in one I mentioned above, subjects needed a dose of insulin following high-intensity resistance training to keep glucose under control. “Lift, but watch your glucose” appears to be the safe path forward.

Those are four of the most common and well-studied autoimmune diseases. Others may not have the same rich body of literature, but exercise probably helps there, too.

In Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients with normal thyroid hormone levels, for example, 6 months of aerobic training improved endothelial function.

Be careful with Graves disease, though.

Graves is an autoimmune hyperthyroid condition. Instead of underactive thyroids, Graves patients have overactive thyroids. There aren’t many trials on exercise in Graves patients, but there are some case studies that suggest some dangers.

In 2012, a Graves patient ended up with rhabdomyolysis (a terrible condition where you break down and pee out muscle tissue) after a non-strenuous exercise session.

Again in 2012, another patient with Graves got rhabdomyolysis after a session.

Euthyroid Graves patients—people with normal thyroid levels—can exercise safely, however. It improves functional capacity and delays relapse.

Again, be careful with Graves.

Because they’re so trepidatious about it and inactivity numbers are higher than the general population, most autoimmune disease patients would be better served with more exercise, not less. Autoimmune disease patients who loyally read MDA and other ancestral health blogs, however, might be the type to engage in CrossFit WODs and train really hard and rather excessively. If so, you might need less exercise, not more.

As I read the literature, autoimmune disease patients should be exercising in accordance with Primal Blueprint Fitness, albeit even more strictly:

Lift heavy and go intense, but keep it really brief. Low-volume, high-intensity. Short sprints, 3-5 rep sets, that sorta thing. Intensity is relative, so don’t think you have to squat your own bodyweight right away.

Spend most of your training currency on long, slow movements. Hikes, walks, gardening, gentle movement routines are your best friends. Basically anyone with an autoimmune disease can do these activities, and they always help.

Mobility training is required, especially in autoimmune diseases that affect the joints and connective tissues. If your joints are compromised, your other tissues have to be that much more limber, loose, and mobile. Try for something like VitaMoves or MobilityWOD.

Having an autoimmune disease doesn’t make you fragile. You can still train, and evidence shows that you can probably go harder than you think—provided you allow for ample recovery and keep a lid on how much training volume you accumulate.

Anyway, that’s my take on all this. I don’t have an autoimmune disease, though, so I’m only going on what the literature says. I’d love to hear from people who deal with autoimmune disease on a personal level. How do you exercise? What works? What doesn’t? What have you learned along the way?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

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Originally at :Mark's Daily Apple Written By : Mark Sisson

[avanneman]

American Catholics and American Jews are not happy campers. And neither, it seems, are America’s evangelicals

This conversation didn’t happen, but it could have:

Monseigneur Vivaldi: “Have you read that Pennsylvania grand jury report? Over three hundred priests accused of sex abuse! We’ve hit rock bottom! It can’t get any worse than this!”

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: “Hold my beer.”

Yes, Viganò’s now notorious letter is rockin’ the church in ways that it hasn’t rocked for centuries—that is to say, in public.

The American press, which consistently applies a “see no evil” approach to reporting on the papacy, responded to the once in a millennium news of Pope Benedict’s resignation with a “Gee, I never saw that coming” shrug, as if a champion athlete retired at age 35 instead of hanging around to the ripe old age of 38.

Underneath and within the Catholic Church itself, of course, there was an immense amount of subterranean grinding—the socio-cultural equivalent of the San Andreas Fault processing a volcanic eruption on the other side of the world. Pope Francis was greeted with open arms, outwardly—“We have a pope! We have a pope!” along with lots of talk about the canonization of John Paul II, because what’s more Catholic than a canonization, and what better way to take people’s minds off their troubles?

Well, wiseguy secularized atheists like myself were not paying much attention, but a lot of Catholics were paying attention, and the more they got to know Pope Francis, the less they liked him. Earlier this year, Ross Douthat published To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism, coming pretty close to accusing the vicar of Christ of being, well, the Anti-Christ.

“This is a book about the most important religious story of our time: the fate of the world’s largest religious institution under a pope who believes that Catholicism can change in ways that his predecessors rejected, and who faces resistance from Catholics who believe the changes he seeks risk breaking faith with Jesus Christ.”

Ross in his wrath rather reminded me of one of Melville’s Polynesians, who erects a wooden statue to pray to, earnestly seeks its blessing, and then when the god fails to come through, knocks it off its perch and gives it a few solid kicks. Ross, if God allows a bad man to become Pope, maybe there isn’t one! (God, I mean.)1

Well, Ross in his wrath was surprising enough, but the Archbishop’s assault is more than any mere Protestant could have predicted.2 Viganò’s announced goal of forcing Pope Frederick’s resignation would mean two resignations in a row. Is that any way to run the Church?

I don’t think so. I think a Catholic Church that forces the resignations of two popes in a row is not the Catholic Church. It’s something else. I’ve felt for a long time that the “European” Catholic Church in the U.S. will shrivel and the American Catholic Church will become exclusively a Latin institution. The Irish and the Italians, who have sustained the American Catholic Church throughout the twentieth century, will find they have more in common with their secularized Protestant neighbors than with the Hispanic hierarchy that is starting to emerge. However brightly the current fires blaze—and they’re certainly going to blaze brightly indeed—I think the future is already set.

Okay, that takes care of the Catholics. What about the Jews? My thinking about the Jews springs from a single article in the New York Times, “The West Bank Model Is a Failure”, a remarkably even-handed—and all the more damning for being so—account of all the faults of Israeli domestic policies as they affect Palestinians living on the West Bank. What makes this article remarkable is that it was written by Marty Peretz.

Ninety-nine percent of the American people have no idea who Marty Peretz is,3 but for the one percent who do, Marty’s name is definitely one to conjure with. For decades, Marty was the owner-publisher of the New Republic, perhaps the most famous intellectual journal in the U.S. During Marty’s long tenure, the New Republic functioned as the premiere organ of liberal neocon opinion, working against the New Left and all its works. Marty’s well-heeled arrogance and favoritism (he married an heiress but seemed to have an eye for stunning young lads) alienated everyone who didn’t make the A team.

Marty was, naturally, a vociferous supporter of the invasion of Iraq, and the multiple disasters that sprang from that corrupt enterprise helped destroy his influence among the younger generation of chin-strokers. The New Republic changed hands in 2010 and Peretz, as far as I could tell, lapsed into silence. But now he’s back, and talking about Israel as he’s never talked before. And if Israel has lost Marty, it’s lost all of American Jewry west of Orthodoxy.

The Times has published a number of articles in the past few years by American Jews deploring the ever rightward shift of Israeli policy in both religious and political affairs, leaving most American Jews feeling more and more left out. It was no secret that devotion to Israel was, in effect, a secular religion for many Jews. Now that mainstay is fading, even as the level of intermarriage of non-Orthodox Jews and non-Jews has reached 71%. Many Jews, I think, used to believe that “assimilation” was so far from being even remotely possible, however “assimilated” they might appear and behave, something so airy and light as to be a mere shadow's shadow, not worth even a moment's worry and thought. And now it seems to have happened, perhaps a decade back, while no one was looking.

But wait, there’s more bad news for the Jews: the lawsuit challenging Harvard with discriminating against Asians. However the particulars of that suit are settled, it’s a very good bet that the percentage of Asians at the Ivies is going to increase. It’s also a very good bet that the Ivies will be very, very reluctant to let the admission rates for blacks and Hispanics fall below their shares in the national population. Which means that something else will have to give, and that something else will very likely be the massive overrepresentation of Jews in those schools.

Six years ago, Ron Unz published a long study in the American Conservative, “The Myth of American Meritocracy”, accusing the Ivies of discriminating in favor of Jewish applicants and to the disadvantage of Asians. (As a Jewish graduate of Harvard, Unz was fairly well inoculated against charges of favoritism.) According to Unz’s article, about 25% of undergraduate students in the Ivies were Jewish, even though Jews constitute only about 2% of the total U.S. population. Asians constitute perhaps 5.6% of the population. In coming years, we’re likely to see the Asians take over as the “brains” of America. This will be softened by extensive intermarriage, but it will be noticeable. Without Harvard or Israel, where will America’s Jews turn?4

The real support for Israel among American voters, it seems, will rest almost entirely with the Evangelicals, who have their own troubles, #MeToo, of course, but even worse is the split caused by Donald Trump, who is giving the evangelicals more than anyone ever gave them, for a very ugly price. As a convinced secularist who does not believe any supernatural value system can ultimately sustain itself,5 I think it likely that “conscience evangelicals”, who have the stomach to see Trump as he is, will inevitably find themselves drawn away from religion towards secular liberalism, and the “true believers” who remain will grow inevitably more corrupt.

It isn’t emphasized enough how much the wrath of the Moral Majority and the other politicized evangelical groups that emerged in the 1970s was prompted by the ever-increasing efforts of the federal government to enforce the desegregation of southern schools, particularly the decision in the Carter Administration by the IRS to deny tax-exempt status to de facto segregated private schools, something Ronald Reagan promised to undo. Once Reagan was elected, one of the favorite causes of evangelicals was maintenance of good relations with our anti-communist and pro-apartheid pals in South Africa.6 While the moral fervor of many evangelicals was, and is, impressive, and touching, the intellectual substance of the faith has always been painfully thin. True believers had best prepared for a bumpy ride.

Only a month or two before the latest wave of revelations of sex abuse in the Church began to break, Ross, perhaps a little swept away by a “fabulous” Catholic-themed Metropolitan Museum of Art gala, sighed “Make Catholicism Weird Again”. I wonder if he’s still longing for the incense and bells. ↩︎

I am by background a secularized Protestant, but I’ve never believed in God and have never regretted it. Passionate atheists who “hate” religion bore me, but believers are likely to bore me even more. ↩︎

Word can’t even spell his name, which must pain Marty just a little, for he certainly fancied himself an important man. ↩︎

I believe it was Marty Peretz (or perhaps Irving Kristol or Norman Podhoretz) who “shocked” Gore Vidal by dismissing the American Civil War as “ancient history”. Asians will certainly have their own perspective. ↩︎

This doesn’t mean that Islam is going to resolve itself into a dew any time soon. A century from now, there will probably as many Muslims as there is now. ↩︎

Reagan was not pro-segregation, but he was very much pro-segregationist. He hated the American civil rights movement and had to be talked out of his instinctive support for the white supremacists in South Africa, who were, of course, anti-communist, which for Reagan the only thing that really counted. It’s to Reagan’s credit that he let himself be talked out of supporting apartheid, but far more to the credit of those who talked him out of it. ↩︎

[differentpersonafire-blog]

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[milenasanchezmk]

How to Exercise with An Autoimmune Condition

Autoimmune diseases really throw the body for a loop. You’re attacking your own tissues. Your inflammation is sky high. What’s usually good for you—like boosting the immune system—can make it worse. You’ll often restrict eating certain foods that, on paper, appear healthy and nutrient-dense. You take nothing for granted, measure and consider everything before eating or doing it. Sometimes it feels like almost everything has the potential to be a trigger.

Is it true for exercise, too? Must people with autoimmune diseases also change how they train?

First things first, exercise can help. You just have to do it right, or risk incurring the negative effects.

Don’t overtrain. Most autoimmune diseases are characterized by chronic inflammation. Anything that increases that inflammatory load, like too much exercise, will contribute. Overtraining—stressful exercise that you fail to recover from before exercising again—will increase your stress load and increase autoimmune symptoms.

Avoid exercise-induced leaky gut. Intense, protracted exercise—think 30-minute high-intensity metabolic workouts, long runs at race pace, 400 meter high intensity intervals—increases intestinal permeability. Elevated intestinal permeability has been linked to rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, and researchers think it may play a causative role in other autoimmune diseases too.

Yet not exercising might be even worse because exercise increases endorphins. Most think of endorphins purely as “feel-good” chemicals. They’re what the body pumps out to deal with pain, as a response to exercise, and it’s through the endorphin receptor system that exogenous opiates work. Endorphins also play an important role in immune function. Rather than “boost” or “diminish” it, endorphins regulate immunity. They keep it running smoothly. Without endorphins, the immune system begins misbehaving. Sound familiar?

Low-dose naltrexone is a promising therapy for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. It works by increasing endorphin secretion, which in turn helps regulate the immune system’s misbehavior. I won’t posit that exercise is just as effective as LDN, but it’s certainly a piece of the puzzle.

This is the same relationship everyone has with exercise. Too much is bad, too little is bad, recovery is required, and intensity must be balanced with volume. The margin of error is just smaller when you have an autoimmune disease.

How should you exercise, then?

It depends on what type of autoimmune condition you have. Let’s explore some of the more common ones.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis hurts. It makes exercise a daunting prospect, which is why so many people with RA choose to stay inactive. Yet exercise consistently helps.

Exercise may improve sleep, reduce depression, and improve functionality in RA patients. Animal models of RA suggest that acute exercise inhibits the destruction of and even thickens cartilage.

What works:

Yoga works. A survey of RA patients found that many benefit from regular yoga practice. Another study found that it reduced pain, improved function, and increased general well-being in RA patients.

Light and very light intensity works. One study found that around 5 hours of “light and very light” intensity activity each day were often more effective at improving cardiovascular health in RA patients than 35 minutes of moderate intensity training each day. This isn’t necessarily unique to RA, as I think everyone’s better off walking and moving for 5 hours versus jogging for 30.

Working the afflicted joints works. For RA patients with hand and finger joint pain, a high-intensity exercise program centered on the hands improved functionality more than a low-intensity one.

High intensity works. 4 4-minute-long high intensity intervals on the bike at 85-95% of max HR increased muscle mass and cardio fitness while beginning to reduce inflammatory markers in women with RA. Notably, neither pain nor disease severity increased. In another study, RA patients were able to perform high-intensity resistance and aerobic training without issue.

Multiple Sclerosis

As with RA, people with multiple sclerosis really seem to benefit from exercise. They sleep better. If you start early, it may reduce the risk of developing MS. Exercise even drives brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is reduced in MS.

What works:

Tai chi works. Though the sample size was small, tai chi improved functional outcomes in patients with MS.

Both strength and endurance training work better than either alone. A 24-week lifting and endurance program has been used to increase BDNF in MS patients. A 12-week lifting and high-intensity interval program improved glucose tolerance in MS patients.

Lifting in the morning works. A recent study found that MS patients had more muscle fatigue and less muscle strength in the afternoon compared to the morning. Muscle oxidative capacity—the ability to burn fat during low level activity—did not differ between times.

Intense exercise works: The greater the intensity, the more BDNF you produce. That’s a general rule for everyone, and it’s no different for MS.

Crohn’s Disease

In Crohn’s, the body attacks the GI tract. It’s a bad one. Because Crohn’s can involve crippling GI pain, impaired digestion, fatigue, joint pain, and emergency diarrhea, patients often avoid exercise. They shouldn’t. If you can get past the mental roadblocks Crohn’s erects, exercise can really help.

What works:

Sprints and medium intensity both work, but sprints are less inflammatory. Both all-out cycling sprints (6 bouts of 4×15 second cycle sprints at 100% peak power output) and moderate cycling (30 minutes at 50% peak power) were well-tolerated by children with Crohn’s, but certain inflammatory markers were higher in the moderate group. Another inflammatory marker also stayed elevated for longer in the moderate group.

Resistance training and aerobic activity both work. Either alone or both in concert improve Crohn’s symptoms by modulating immune function.

Walking works. A low intensity walking program (just 3 times a week) improved quality of life in Crohn’s patients.

Type 1 Diabetes

People often forget about type 1 diabetes, but it’s an established autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the pancreas and reduces or abolishes its ability to produce insulin. For type 1 diabetics who wish to reduce the amount of insulin they inject, exercise is essential.

It up-regulates insulin independent glucose uptake by the muscles. That removes the pancreas from the equation altogether, and it reduces the amount of exogenous insulin needed to process glucose.

It’s also safe, as long as you have your insulin therapy under control.

However, as high-intensity exercise tends to increase blood glucose and easy aerobic exercise decreases it in type 1 diabetics, you really need to have your ducks in a row. The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal recently published their consensus guidelines for safe exercise with type 1 diabetes, with the main takeaway being that diabetics should monitor their glucose levels before, during, and after training to ensure the numbers don’t get away from them. One study found that quickly giving a dose of insulin following high-intensity training counteracted the rise in blood glucose.

What works:

Combining resistance training with aerobic training works. The combination lowered insulin requirements and improved basically every marker of fitness, along with general well-being.

Resistance training works. In one study, resistance training seemed to lower blood glucose regardless of intensity. However, in one I mentioned above, subjects needed a dose of insulin following high-intensity resistance training to keep glucose under control. “Lift, but watch your glucose” appears to be the safe path forward.

Those are four of the most common and well-studied autoimmune diseases. Others may not have the same rich body of literature, but exercise probably helps there, too.

In Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients with normal thyroid hormone levels, for example, 6 months of aerobic training improved endothelial function.

Be careful with Graves disease, though.

Graves is an autoimmune hyperthyroid condition. Instead of underactive thyroids, Graves patients have overactive thyroids. There aren’t many trials on exercise in Graves patients, but there are some case studies that suggest some dangers.

In 2012, a Graves patient ended up with rhabdomyolysis (a terrible condition where you break down and pee out muscle tissue) after a non-strenuous exercise session.

Again in 2012, another patient with Graves got rhabdomyolysis after a session.

Euthyroid Graves patients—people with normal thyroid levels—can exercise safely, however. It improves functional capacity and delays relapse.

Again, be careful with Graves.

Because they’re so trepidatious about it and inactivity numbers are higher than the general population, most autoimmune disease patients would be better served with more exercise, not less. Autoimmune disease patients who loyally read MDA and other ancestral health blogs, however, might be the type to engage in CrossFit WODs and train really hard and rather excessively. If so, you might need less exercise, not more.

As I read the literature, autoimmune disease patients should be exercising in accordance with Primal Blueprint Fitness, albeit even more strictly:

Lift heavy and go intense, but keep it really brief. Low-volume, high-intensity. Short sprints, 3-5 rep sets, that sorta thing. Intensity is relative, so don’t think you have to squat your own bodyweight right away.

Spend most of your training currency on long, slow movements. Hikes, walks, gardening, gentle movement routines are your best friends. Basically anyone with an autoimmune disease can do these activities, and they always help.

Mobility training is required, especially in autoimmune diseases that affect the joints and connective tissues. If your joints are compromised, your other tissues have to be that much more limber, loose, and mobile. Try for something like VitaMoves or MobilityWOD.

Having an autoimmune disease doesn’t make you fragile. You can still train, and evidence shows that you can probably go harder than you think—provided you allow for ample recovery and keep a lid on how much training volume you accumulate.

Anyway, that’s my take on all this. I don’t have an autoimmune disease, though, so I’m only going on what the literature says. I’d love to hear from people who deal with autoimmune disease on a personal level. How do you exercise? What works? What doesn’t? What have you learned along the way?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

[cristinajourdanqp]

How to Exercise with An Autoimmune Condition

Autoimmune diseases really throw the body for a loop. You’re attacking your own tissues. Your inflammation is sky high. What’s usually good for you—like boosting the immune system—can make it worse. You’ll often restrict eating certain foods that, on paper, appear healthy and nutrient-dense. You take nothing for granted, measure and consider everything before eating or doing it. Sometimes it feels like almost everything has the potential to be a trigger.

Is it true for exercise, too? Must people with autoimmune diseases also change how they train?

First things first, exercise can help. You just have to do it right, or risk incurring the negative effects.

Don’t overtrain. Most autoimmune diseases are characterized by chronic inflammation. Anything that increases that inflammatory load, like too much exercise, will contribute. Overtraining—stressful exercise that you fail to recover from before exercising again—will increase your stress load and increase autoimmune symptoms.

Avoid exercise-induced leaky gut. Intense, protracted exercise—think 30-minute high-intensity metabolic workouts, long runs at race pace, 400 meter high intensity intervals—increases intestinal permeability. Elevated intestinal permeability has been linked to rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, and researchers think it may play a causative role in other autoimmune diseases too.

Yet not exercising might be even worse because exercise increases endorphins. Most think of endorphins purely as “feel-good” chemicals. They’re what the body pumps out to deal with pain, as a response to exercise, and it’s through the endorphin receptor system that exogenous opiates work. Endorphins also play an important role in immune function. Rather than “boost” or “diminish” it, endorphins regulate immunity. They keep it running smoothly. Without endorphins, the immune system begins misbehaving. Sound familiar?

Low-dose naltrexone is a promising therapy for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. It works by increasing endorphin secretion, which in turn helps regulate the immune system’s misbehavior. I won’t posit that exercise is just as effective as LDN, but it’s certainly a piece of the puzzle.

This is the same relationship everyone has with exercise. Too much is bad, too little is bad, recovery is required, and intensity must be balanced with volume. The margin of error is just smaller when you have an autoimmune disease.

How should you exercise, then?

It depends on what type of autoimmune condition you have. Let’s explore some of the more common ones.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis hurts. It makes exercise a daunting prospect, which is why so many people with RA choose to stay inactive. Yet exercise consistently helps.

Exercise may improve sleep, reduce depression, and improve functionality in RA patients. Animal models of RA suggest that acute exercise inhibits the destruction of and even thickens cartilage.

What works:

Yoga works. A survey of RA patients found that many benefit from regular yoga practice. Another study found that it reduced pain, improved function, and increased general well-being in RA patients.

Light and very light intensity works. One study found that around 5 hours of “light and very light” intensity activity each day were often more effective at improving cardiovascular health in RA patients than 35 minutes of moderate intensity training each day. This isn’t necessarily unique to RA, as I think everyone’s better off walking and moving for 5 hours versus jogging for 30.

Working the afflicted joints works. For RA patients with hand and finger joint pain, a high-intensity exercise program centered on the hands improved functionality more than a low-intensity one.

High intensity works. 4 4-minute-long high intensity intervals on the bike at 85-95% of max HR increased muscle mass and cardio fitness while beginning to reduce inflammatory markers in women with RA. Notably, neither pain nor disease severity increased. In another study, RA patients were able to perform high-intensity resistance and aerobic training without issue.

Multiple Sclerosis

As with RA, people with multiple sclerosis really seem to benefit from exercise. They sleep better. If you start early, it may reduce the risk of developing MS. Exercise even drives brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is reduced in MS.

What works:

Tai chi works. Though the sample size was small, tai chi improved functional outcomes in patients with MS.

Both strength and endurance training work better than either alone. A 24-week lifting and endurance program has been used to increase BDNF in MS patients. A 12-week lifting and high-intensity interval program improved glucose tolerance in MS patients.

Lifting in the morning works. A recent study found that MS patients had more muscle fatigue and less muscle strength in the afternoon compared to the morning. Muscle oxidative capacity—the ability to burn fat during low level activity—did not differ between times.

Intense exercise works: The greater the intensity, the more BDNF you produce. That’s a general rule for everyone, and it’s no different for MS.

Crohn’s Disease

In Crohn’s, the body attacks the GI tract. It’s a bad one. Because Crohn’s can involve crippling GI pain, impaired digestion, fatigue, joint pain, and emergency diarrhea, patients often avoid exercise. They shouldn’t. If you can get past the mental roadblocks Crohn’s erects, exercise can really help.

What works:

Sprints and medium intensity both work, but sprints are less inflammatory. Both all-out cycling sprints (6 bouts of 4×15 second cycle sprints at 100% peak power output) and moderate cycling (30 minutes at 50% peak power) were well-tolerated by children with Crohn’s, but certain inflammatory markers were higher in the moderate group. Another inflammatory marker also stayed elevated for longer in the moderate group.

Resistance training and aerobic activity both work. Either alone or both in concert improve Crohn’s symptoms by modulating immune function.

Walking works. A low intensity walking program (just 3 times a week) improved quality of life in Crohn’s patients.

Type 1 Diabetes

People often forget about type 1 diabetes, but it’s an established autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the pancreas and reduces or abolishes its ability to produce insulin. For type 1 diabetics who wish to reduce the amount of insulin they inject, exercise is essential.

It up-regulates insulin independent glucose uptake by the muscles. That removes the pancreas from the equation altogether, and it reduces the amount of exogenous insulin needed to process glucose.

It’s also safe, as long as you have your insulin therapy under control.

However, as high-intensity exercise tends to increase blood glucose and easy aerobic exercise decreases it in type 1 diabetics, you really need to have your ducks in a row. The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal recently published their consensus guidelines for safe exercise with type 1 diabetes, with the main takeaway being that diabetics should monitor their glucose levels before, during, and after training to ensure the numbers don’t get away from them. One study found that quickly giving a dose of insulin following high-intensity training counteracted the rise in blood glucose.

What works:

Combining resistance training with aerobic training works. The combination lowered insulin requirements and improved basically every marker of fitness, along with general well-being.

Resistance training works. In one study, resistance training seemed to lower blood glucose regardless of intensity. However, in one I mentioned above, subjects needed a dose of insulin following high-intensity resistance training to keep glucose under control. “Lift, but watch your glucose” appears to be the safe path forward.

Those are four of the most common and well-studied autoimmune diseases. Others may not have the same rich body of literature, but exercise probably helps there, too.

In Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients with normal thyroid hormone levels, for example, 6 months of aerobic training improved endothelial function.

Be careful with Graves disease, though.

Graves is an autoimmune hyperthyroid condition. Instead of underactive thyroids, Graves patients have overactive thyroids. There aren’t many trials on exercise in Graves patients, but there are some case studies that suggest some dangers.

In 2012, a Graves patient ended up with rhabdomyolysis (a terrible condition where you break down and pee out muscle tissue) after a non-strenuous exercise session.

Again in 2012, another patient with Graves got rhabdomyolysis after a session.

Euthyroid Graves patients—people with normal thyroid levels—can exercise safely, however. It improves functional capacity and delays relapse.

Again, be careful with Graves.

Because they’re so trepidatious about it and inactivity numbers are higher than the general population, most autoimmune disease patients would be better served with more exercise, not less. Autoimmune disease patients who loyally read MDA and other ancestral health blogs, however, might be the type to engage in CrossFit WODs and train really hard and rather excessively. If so, you might need less exercise, not more.

As I read the literature, autoimmune disease patients should be exercising in accordance with Primal Blueprint Fitness, albeit even more strictly:

Lift heavy and go intense, but keep it really brief. Low-volume, high-intensity. Short sprints, 3-5 rep sets, that sorta thing. Intensity is relative, so don’t think you have to squat your own bodyweight right away.

Spend most of your training currency on long, slow movements. Hikes, walks, gardening, gentle movement routines are your best friends. Basically anyone with an autoimmune disease can do these activities, and they always help.

Mobility training is required, especially in autoimmune diseases that affect the joints and connective tissues. If your joints are compromised, your other tissues have to be that much more limber, loose, and mobile. Try for something like VitaMoves or MobilityWOD.

Having an autoimmune disease doesn’t make you fragile. You can still train, and evidence shows that you can probably go harder than you think—provided you allow for ample recovery and keep a lid on how much training volume you accumulate.

Anyway, that’s my take on all this. I don’t have an autoimmune disease, though, so I’m only going on what the literature says. I’d love to hear from people who deal with autoimmune disease on a personal level. How do you exercise? What works? What doesn’t? What have you learned along the way?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

[watsonrodriquezie]

How to Exercise with An Autoimmune Condition

Autoimmune diseases really throw the body for a loop. You’re attacking your own tissues. Your inflammation is sky high. What’s usually good for you—like boosting the immune system—can make it worse. You’ll often restrict eating certain foods that, on paper, appear healthy and nutrient-dense. You take nothing for granted, measure and consider everything before eating or doing it. Sometimes it feels like almost everything has the potential to be a trigger.

Is it true for exercise, too? Must people with autoimmune diseases also change how they train?

First things first, exercise can help. You just have to do it right, or risk incurring the negative effects.

Don’t overtrain. Most autoimmune diseases are characterized by chronic inflammation. Anything that increases that inflammatory load, like too much exercise, will contribute. Overtraining—stressful exercise that you fail to recover from before exercising again—will increase your stress load and increase autoimmune symptoms.

Avoid exercise-induced leaky gut. Intense, protracted exercise—think 30-minute high-intensity metabolic workouts, long runs at race pace, 400 meter high intensity intervals—increases intestinal permeability. Elevated intestinal permeability has been linked to rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, and researchers think it may play a causative role in other autoimmune diseases too.

Yet not exercising might be even worse because exercise increases endorphins. Most think of endorphins purely as “feel-good” chemicals. They’re what the body pumps out to deal with pain, as a response to exercise, and it’s through the endorphin receptor system that exogenous opiates work. Endorphins also play an important role in immune function. Rather than “boost” or “diminish” it, endorphins regulate immunity. They keep it running smoothly. Without endorphins, the immune system begins misbehaving. Sound familiar?

Low-dose naltrexone is a promising therapy for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. It works by increasing endorphin secretion, which in turn helps regulate the immune system’s misbehavior. I won’t posit that exercise is just as effective as LDN, but it’s certainly a piece of the puzzle.

This is the same relationship everyone has with exercise. Too much is bad, too little is bad, recovery is required, and intensity must be balanced with volume. The margin of error is just smaller when you have an autoimmune disease.

How should you exercise, then?

It depends on what type of autoimmune condition you have. Let’s explore some of the more common ones.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis hurts. It makes exercise a daunting prospect, which is why so many people with RA choose to stay inactive. Yet exercise consistently helps.

Exercise may improve sleep, reduce depression, and improve functionality in RA patients. Animal models of RA suggest that acute exercise inhibits the destruction of and even thickens cartilage.

What works:

Yoga works. A survey of RA patients found that many benefit from regular yoga practice. Another study found that it reduced pain, improved function, and increased general well-being in RA patients.

Light and very light intensity works. One study found that around 5 hours of “light and very light” intensity activity each day were often more effective at improving cardiovascular health in RA patients than 35 minutes of moderate intensity training each day. This isn’t necessarily unique to RA, as I think everyone’s better off walking and moving for 5 hours versus jogging for 30.

Working the afflicted joints works. For RA patients with hand and finger joint pain, a high-intensity exercise program centered on the hands improved functionality more than a low-intensity one.

High intensity works. 4 4-minute-long high intensity intervals on the bike at 85-95% of max HR increased muscle mass and cardio fitness while beginning to reduce inflammatory markers in women with RA. Notably, neither pain nor disease severity increased. In another study, RA patients were able to perform high-intensity resistance and aerobic training without issue.

Multiple Sclerosis

As with RA, people with multiple sclerosis really seem to benefit from exercise. They sleep better. If you start early, it may reduce the risk of developing MS. Exercise even drives brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is reduced in MS.

What works:

Tai chi works. Though the sample size was small, tai chi improved functional outcomes in patients with MS.

Both strength and endurance training work better than either alone. A 24-week lifting and endurance program has been used to increase BDNF in MS patients. A 12-week lifting and high-intensity interval program improved glucose tolerance in MS patients.

Lifting in the morning works. A recent study found that MS patients had more muscle fatigue and less muscle strength in the afternoon compared to the morning. Muscle oxidative capacity—the ability to burn fat during low level activity—did not differ between times.

Intense exercise works: The greater the intensity, the more BDNF you produce. That’s a general rule for everyone, and it’s no different for MS.

Crohn’s Disease

In Crohn’s, the body attacks the GI tract. It’s a bad one. Because Crohn’s can involve crippling GI pain, impaired digestion, fatigue, joint pain, and emergency diarrhea, patients often avoid exercise. They shouldn’t. If you can get past the mental roadblocks Crohn’s erects, exercise can really help.

What works:

Sprints and medium intensity both work, but sprints are less inflammatory. Both all-out cycling sprints (6 bouts of 4×15 second cycle sprints at 100% peak power output) and moderate cycling (30 minutes at 50% peak power) were well-tolerated by children with Crohn’s, but certain inflammatory markers were higher in the moderate group. Another inflammatory marker also stayed elevated for longer in the moderate group.

Resistance training and aerobic activity both work. Either alone or both in concert improve Crohn’s symptoms by modulating immune function.

Walking works. A low intensity walking program (just 3 times a week) improved quality of life in Crohn’s patients.

Type 1 Diabetes

People often forget about type 1 diabetes, but it’s an established autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the pancreas and reduces or abolishes its ability to produce insulin. For type 1 diabetics who wish to reduce the amount of insulin they inject, exercise is essential.

It up-regulates insulin independent glucose uptake by the muscles. That removes the pancreas from the equation altogether, and it reduces the amount of exogenous insulin needed to process glucose.

It’s also safe, as long as you have your insulin therapy under control.

However, as high-intensity exercise tends to increase blood glucose and easy aerobic exercise decreases it in type 1 diabetics, you really need to have your ducks in a row. The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal recently published their consensus guidelines for safe exercise with type 1 diabetes, with the main takeaway being that diabetics should monitor their glucose levels before, during, and after training to ensure the numbers don’t get away from them. One study found that quickly giving a dose of insulin following high-intensity training counteracted the rise in blood glucose.

What works:

Combining resistance training with aerobic training works. The combination lowered insulin requirements and improved basically every marker of fitness, along with general well-being.

Resistance training works. In one study, resistance training seemed to lower blood glucose regardless of intensity. However, in one I mentioned above, subjects needed a dose of insulin following high-intensity resistance training to keep glucose under control. “Lift, but watch your glucose” appears to be the safe path forward.

Those are four of the most common and well-studied autoimmune diseases. Others may not have the same rich body of literature, but exercise probably helps there, too.

In Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients with normal thyroid hormone levels, for example, 6 months of aerobic training improved endothelial function.

Be careful with Graves disease, though.

Graves is an autoimmune hyperthyroid condition. Instead of underactive thyroids, Graves patients have overactive thyroids. There aren’t many trials on exercise in Graves patients, but there are some case studies that suggest some dangers.

In 2012, a Graves patient ended up with rhabdomyolysis (a terrible condition where you break down and pee out muscle tissue) after a non-strenuous exercise session.

Again in 2012, another patient with Graves got rhabdomyolysis after a session.

Euthyroid Graves patients—people with normal thyroid levels—can exercise safely, however. It improves functional capacity and delays relapse.

Again, be careful with Graves.

Because they’re so trepidatious about it and inactivity numbers are higher than the general population, most autoimmune disease patients would be better served with more exercise, not less. Autoimmune disease patients who loyally read MDA and other ancestral health blogs, however, might be the type to engage in CrossFit WODs and train really hard and rather excessively. If so, you might need less exercise, not more.

As I read the literature, autoimmune disease patients should be exercising in accordance with Primal Blueprint Fitness, albeit even more strictly:

Lift heavy and go intense, but keep it really brief. Low-volume, high-intensity. Short sprints, 3-5 rep sets, that sorta thing. Intensity is relative, so don’t think you have to squat your own bodyweight right away.

Spend most of your training currency on long, slow movements. Hikes, walks, gardening, gentle movement routines are your best friends. Basically anyone with an autoimmune disease can do these activities, and they always help.

Mobility training is required, especially in autoimmune diseases that affect the joints and connective tissues. If your joints are compromised, your other tissues have to be that much more limber, loose, and mobile. Try for something like VitaMoves or MobilityWOD.

Having an autoimmune disease doesn’t make you fragile. You can still train, and evidence shows that you can probably go harder than you think—provided you allow for ample recovery and keep a lid on how much training volume you accumulate.

Anyway, that’s my take on all this. I don’t have an autoimmune disease, though, so I’m only going on what the literature says. I’d love to hear from people who deal with autoimmune disease on a personal level. How do you exercise? What works? What doesn’t? What have you learned along the way?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

[fishermariawo]

How to Exercise with An Autoimmune Condition

Autoimmune diseases really throw the body for a loop. You’re attacking your own tissues. Your inflammation is sky high. What’s usually good for you—like boosting the immune system—can make it worse. You’ll often restrict eating certain foods that, on paper, appear healthy and nutrient-dense. You take nothing for granted, measure and consider everything before eating or doing it. Sometimes it feels like almost everything has the potential to be a trigger.

Is it true for exercise, too? Must people with autoimmune diseases also change how they train?

First things first, exercise can help. You just have to do it right, or risk incurring the negative effects.

Don’t overtrain. Most autoimmune diseases are characterized by chronic inflammation. Anything that increases that inflammatory load, like too much exercise, will contribute. Overtraining—stressful exercise that you fail to recover from before exercising again—will increase your stress load and increase autoimmune symptoms.

Avoid exercise-induced leaky gut. Intense, protracted exercise—think 30-minute high-intensity metabolic workouts, long runs at race pace, 400 meter high intensity intervals—increases intestinal permeability. Elevated intestinal permeability has been linked to rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, and researchers think it may play a causative role in other autoimmune diseases too.

Yet not exercising might be even worse because exercise increases endorphins. Most think of endorphins purely as “feel-good” chemicals. They’re what the body pumps out to deal with pain, as a response to exercise, and it’s through the endorphin receptor system that exogenous opiates work. Endorphins also play an important role in immune function. Rather than “boost” or “diminish” it, endorphins regulate immunity. They keep it running smoothly. Without endorphins, the immune system begins misbehaving. Sound familiar?

Low-dose naltrexone is a promising therapy for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. It works by increasing endorphin secretion, which in turn helps regulate the immune system’s misbehavior. I won’t posit that exercise is just as effective as LDN, but it’s certainly a piece of the puzzle.

This is the same relationship everyone has with exercise. Too much is bad, too little is bad, recovery is required, and intensity must be balanced with volume. The margin of error is just smaller when you have an autoimmune disease.

How should you exercise, then?

It depends on what type of autoimmune condition you have. Let’s explore some of the more common ones.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis hurts. It makes exercise a daunting prospect, which is why so many people with RA choose to stay inactive. Yet exercise consistently helps.

Exercise may improve sleep, reduce depression, and improve functionality in RA patients. Animal models of RA suggest that acute exercise inhibits the destruction of and even thickens cartilage.

What works:

Yoga works. A survey of RA patients found that many benefit from regular yoga practice. Another study found that it reduced pain, improved function, and increased general well-being in RA patients.

Light and very light intensity works. One study found that around 5 hours of “light and very light” intensity activity each day were often more effective at improving cardiovascular health in RA patients than 35 minutes of moderate intensity training each day. This isn’t necessarily unique to RA, as I think everyone’s better off walking and moving for 5 hours versus jogging for 30.

Working the afflicted joints works. For RA patients with hand and finger joint pain, a high-intensity exercise program centered on the hands improved functionality more than a low-intensity one.

High intensity works. 4 4-minute-long high intensity intervals on the bike at 85-95% of max HR increased muscle mass and cardio fitness while beginning to reduce inflammatory markers in women with RA. Notably, neither pain nor disease severity increased. In another study, RA patients were able to perform high-intensity resistance and aerobic training without issue.

Multiple Sclerosis

As with RA, people with multiple sclerosis really seem to benefit from exercise. They sleep better. If you start early, it may reduce the risk of developing MS. Exercise even drives brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is reduced in MS.

What works:

Tai chi works. Though the sample size was small, tai chi improved functional outcomes in patients with MS.

Both strength and endurance training work better than either alone. A 24-week lifting and endurance program has been used to increase BDNF in MS patients. A 12-week lifting and high-intensity interval program improved glucose tolerance in MS patients.

Lifting in the morning works. A recent study found that MS patients had more muscle fatigue and less muscle strength in the afternoon compared to the morning. Muscle oxidative capacity—the ability to burn fat during low level activity—did not differ between times.

Intense exercise works: The greater the intensity, the more BDNF you produce. That’s a general rule for everyone, and it’s no different for MS.

Crohn’s Disease

In Crohn’s, the body attacks the GI tract. It’s a bad one. Because Crohn’s can involve crippling GI pain, impaired digestion, fatigue, joint pain, and emergency diarrhea, patients often avoid exercise. They shouldn’t. If you can get past the mental roadblocks Crohn’s erects, exercise can really help.

What works:

Sprints and medium intensity both work, but sprints are less inflammatory. Both all-out cycling sprints (6 bouts of 4×15 second cycle sprints at 100% peak power output) and moderate cycling (30 minutes at 50% peak power) were well-tolerated by children with Crohn’s, but certain inflammatory markers were higher in the moderate group. Another inflammatory marker also stayed elevated for longer in the moderate group.

Resistance training and aerobic activity both work. Either alone or both in concert improve Crohn’s symptoms by modulating immune function.

Walking works. A low intensity walking program (just 3 times a week) improved quality of life in Crohn’s patients.

Type 1 Diabetes

People often forget about type 1 diabetes, but it’s an established autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the pancreas and reduces or abolishes its ability to produce insulin. For type 1 diabetics who wish to reduce the amount of insulin they inject, exercise is essential.

It up-regulates insulin independent glucose uptake by the muscles. That removes the pancreas from the equation altogether, and it reduces the amount of exogenous insulin needed to process glucose.

It’s also safe, as long as you have your insulin therapy under control.

However, as high-intensity exercise tends to increase blood glucose and easy aerobic exercise decreases it in type 1 diabetics, you really need to have your ducks in a row. The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal recently published their consensus guidelines for safe exercise with type 1 diabetes, with the main takeaway being that diabetics should monitor their glucose levels before, during, and after training to ensure the numbers don’t get away from them. One study found that quickly giving a dose of insulin following high-intensity training counteracted the rise in blood glucose.

What works:

Combining resistance training with aerobic training works. The combination lowered insulin requirements and improved basically every marker of fitness, along with general well-being.

Resistance training works. In one study, resistance training seemed to lower blood glucose regardless of intensity. However, in one I mentioned above, subjects needed a dose of insulin following high-intensity resistance training to keep glucose under control. “Lift, but watch your glucose” appears to be the safe path forward.

Those are four of the most common and well-studied autoimmune diseases. Others may not have the same rich body of literature, but exercise probably helps there, too.

In Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients with normal thyroid hormone levels, for example, 6 months of aerobic training improved endothelial function.

Be careful with Graves disease, though.

Graves is an autoimmune hyperthyroid condition. Instead of underactive thyroids, Graves patients have overactive thyroids. There aren’t many trials on exercise in Graves patients, but there are some case studies that suggest some dangers.

In 2012, a Graves patient ended up with rhabdomyolysis (a terrible condition where you break down and pee out muscle tissue) after a non-strenuous exercise session.

Again in 2012, another patient with Graves got rhabdomyolysis after a session.

Euthyroid Graves patients—people with normal thyroid levels—can exercise safely, however. It improves functional capacity and delays relapse.

Again, be careful with Graves.

Because they’re so trepidatious about it and inactivity numbers are higher than the general population, most autoimmune disease patients would be better served with more exercise, not less. Autoimmune disease patients who loyally read MDA and other ancestral health blogs, however, might be the type to engage in CrossFit WODs and train really hard and rather excessively. If so, you might need less exercise, not more.

As I read the literature, autoimmune disease patients should be exercising in accordance with Primal Blueprint Fitness, albeit even more strictly:

Lift heavy and go intense, but keep it really brief. Low-volume, high-intensity. Short sprints, 3-5 rep sets, that sorta thing. Intensity is relative, so don’t think you have to squat your own bodyweight right away.

Spend most of your training currency on long, slow movements. Hikes, walks, gardening, gentle movement routines are your best friends. Basically anyone with an autoimmune disease can do these activities, and they always help.

Mobility training is required, especially in autoimmune diseases that affect the joints and connective tissues. If your joints are compromised, your other tissues have to be that much more limber, loose, and mobile. Try for something like VitaMoves or MobilityWOD.

Having an autoimmune disease doesn’t make you fragile. You can still train, and evidence shows that you can probably go harder than you think—provided you allow for ample recovery and keep a lid on how much training volume you accumulate.

Anyway, that’s my take on all this. I don’t have an autoimmune disease, though, so I’m only going on what the literature says. I’d love to hear from people who deal with autoimmune disease on a personal level. How do you exercise? What works? What doesn’t? What have you learned along the way?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!