Obesity Economics - The Cost of a Calorie

It might surprise some of you that economics contributes to
obesity and its accompanying diseases – cardiovascular
disease, diabetes and hypertension. Aside from the fact
that costs of treating these chronic conditions exceed $500
billion annually (surely, that's macro-economic, right?),
there is a different, micro-economic problem taking place
in your wallet.

Economists typically, and wrongly, assume that consumers
are rational. Most of you know that this is not the case.
If we were, a lot of companies (cough) TrimSpa would be out
of business. Especially when it comes to our bodies, we are
filled with insecurities and deceit. We want to believe
certain things, and we do. Somehow, many of us spend
hundreds on diet plans and then turn around and eat a Big
Mac. So…the question becomes…are we psychologically
irrational but rational spenders?

Certainly, you're getting more bang for your buck with a
Big Mac. At the end of the day, from a financial
perspective, consumers should shoot for maximum satiation
for minimum cash, or the lowest cents per calorie for every
bite of enjoyable food (whether or not it's enjoyable is
based on your own utility curve).

A plate full of broccoli and a spoonful of peanut butter
would both roughly be about 200 calories - if I could show
you a graphical representation, the point would really hit
home. Clearly, you have a choice to make. Maximize the
dietary economics or maximize your waistline. 99 cent menus
are the best example of how far we've come.Could it be that
consumers are maximizing their utility and naturally
gravitating toward getting the best bang for their buck
while forgetting or perhaps not knowing that these
decisions will probably result in thousands of dollars in
treatment costs five, 10, maybe 25 years down the road? In
the long run, it's almost always a bad economic decision.
But consumers do not think in the long run, especially in
the U.S. That's why we have one of the lowest savings rates
in the industrialized world while sporting the highest
obesity rate.Obesity has been attributed to many things,
and is a very complex issue – if we make it one.
Multi-variate analysis is tricky. It messes with our minds.
It's hard to separate the noise from what's real. On the
bond trading floor, I'd see the bond prices move all over
the place all day long. 0.01% down, 0.05% up, 0.8% down,
back and forth all day long. What was moving them? What was
the cause? Nothing. Noise. A bunch of irrational traders
reacting to the latest headline on CNBC. Some of my
colleagues would speculate over the small movements; it
happened because of this, it happened because of that.
Great, if I look hard enough, I guarantee that I can find
symptoms of cancer (we all can) - but that doesn't mean
that I have it.

So when I see a 2% move in the price of those bonds, I know
there is a real cause and I don't feel like an idiot for
looking for it because I know that the probability of a 2%
move being attributed to noise is extremely low – is has
significance. In the same way, there are tons of things we
could attribute to causing a rise in obesity in America.
Among them:

Ubran sprawl

Demographics (aging population)

Globalization

Sociological factors

Genetics

Psychology

Longer work hours

Increased stress

Even the higher price of gas

But none of them, in my mind, have enough significance to
explain the shift. They're noise. Things pundits and
politicians point to when trying to make a case for
earmarked funds or research projects.

I think it comes down to this:

The cost of a calorie has declined significantly while the
cost of exercise (as in opportunity cost at the expense of
work or other wage earning activities) has dramatically
risen, making consumers gravitate toward eating crap foods
while remaining more sedentary.

Is it harder for you to go to the gym these days because
you feel like you're missing out on important work? I know
it is for me. That is the heart of the matter – my time,
our time, is more expensive. Thus, working out, or any
physical activity for that matter, may be more expensive.

Unless, of course, your name is David Beckham.

----------------------------------------------------
Luke Arthur is a Founder and Managing Director of Fit Fuel,
http://www.FitFuel.com , the web's fastest growing
natural/organic foods site. Luke is a proponent of the
strenuous but balanced lifestyle and does not advocate
evaluating economic theory when ordering off the menu at
restaurants.

Muscle Growth: Use this Muscle Building Routine for a Better V-Shape

Some guys possess really cool structural genetics for
bodybuilding. They seem to have these shoulder clavicles
that jut outward a foot on each side and a waistline that
can shrink down to 28 inches on a simple diet. All they
have to do are some military presses, some sloppy lat
pull-downs, and get their body fat below ten percent and
they've got a killer V-shape. Huh – must be nice.

As you might have guessed, I'm not one of those guys. My
shoulders started out with average width and my waist-level
internal organs seem to be of the extra-large variety. I
know – that's a little more information than you needed.
"Why is he talking about his internal organs?" you might be
asking. What I'm trying to say is that even when my body
fat is well below ten percent, I still don't possess a
super-small waistline. It's a genetic thing.

This means I've had a particularly challenging time
creating a V-shape on my body. With a genetically large
waistline even while holding a body fat level low enough to
show abdominals, I have to work extra hard at widening my
shoulders and lats to create a 'V' illusion. But I'm
getting more V-like all the time. And I attribute this
progress to some simple techniques that you can add to your
shoulder and lat routines for the same effect. If you
happen to be blessed with a waistline that would make a
female supermodel green with envy and shoulder clavicles as
wide as a door, then following these tips will enhance the
gifts your genes have provided you.

I've actually been complimented many times for my lats.
They're well developed, even if they don't appear so at
first glance because of my strangely "un-shrinkable" waist
area. I attribute much of my nice lat development to advice
from an article I read way back in 1988 by the legendary
bodybuilder, Rich Gaspari. I perused that article several
times, really taking to heart the seemingly unorthodox tips
that he dispensed.

What were the tips? Here's the gist of it since I have to
paraphrase in the absence of that old Muscle and Fitness
magazine article. Mr. Gaspari said that when you perform
lat exercises, imagine your arms are only an extension of
the bar you're holding. In other words, quit using momentum
and stop using your biceps to pull the weight down or
toward you. A real lat workout requires slow and
concentrated movement. If you think of your arms only as
pieces of equipment that are attaching your lats to the
weight stack, you will pull slowly from your back. If you
then squeeze your shoulder blades together at the peak of
the movement, you just might feel your lat muscles really
working for the first time.

Using the technique described above, it's imperative that
you perform just enough exercise to stimulate upper back
growth and don't over train. Personally, I only do four
exercises for my lats. Let me tell you; they've been
growing like crazy from those four movements. I've found
that if the lats are worked with intense concentration from
each major angle, exercise redundancy usually results in
over training and lack of progress. So here are the four
lat exercises:

1. Close-Grip Pull-downs

2. Seated Pulley Rows

3. Wide-Grip Pull-downs (top half)

4. Wide-Grip Pull-downs (bottom half)

I'm sure you've noticed the "top half/bottom half"
designations on lat pull-downs and are wondering what I
mean by that. I've found that splitting this particular
exercise in half provides better results. On the top half
exercise, I pull the bar until my upper arms are only about
parallel with the floor. In other words; I just do the
first half of a lat pull-down. Obviously, on exercise
number four, I pull from the midway point to having the bar
all the way to the top of my chest. If you split the
movement into two exercises like this, you might find (as I
do) that you can use a lot more weight for the "top half"
pull downs that the "bottom half" ones.

Close-grip pull-downs are also performed in a very specific
manner. Contrary to how most people perform these, with
their body upright through the entire motion, you should
move your torso to a forty-five degree angle from the
vertical position as you slowly bring the weight to your
chest. Begin pulling the close-grip bar downward with a
yanking motion that comes very deliberately from those huge
muscles below your shoulder blades. As you bring the bar
toward your sternum, keep thinking of your arms as merely
extensions of the bar and pull strictly from your back.
Imagine you could touch your shoulder blades together
behind you as you lean back to a forty-five degree angle
while bringing the bar to your chest. Moving the upper body
backward to forty-five degrees during the movement like
this will make the exercise into both a lat widening and
thickening movement.

Seated pulley rows should likewise be done very slowly and
strictly. They should be done without using momentum and by
squeezing the shoulder blades together after focusing on
pulling slowly from the back – leaving the arms only as
"attaching devices".

Here's all I've been doing to turn my shoulders into
cannonballs:

1. Shoulder Presses

2. Cable Front Raises

3. Side Lateral Raises (machine)

4. Rear Lateral Raises (machine)

I've actually been doing every one of these exercises on
machines and getting terrific results. Sometimes I switch
to free weights, but I've found that I can really plow
forward with the heaviest weights possible for six reps
using the safety element of Cybex machines. This has been
especially so with the shoulder presses.

Doing front raises with a cable and single-hand bar puts
continuous tension on the front deltoids – as opposed to
dumbells which decrease the tension as the weight is
brought to shoulder level. Remember – never go above
shoulder level on front or side lateral movements.

On side laterals, I've been getting the best results from
reducing my range of motion to about half of what it used
to be. I raise the weight until the handles are shoulder
level, then I lower my arms until they're still about
twelve inches from being at my sides. This turns the
movement into "partial repetitions", but it puts incredible
continuous tension on those middle delts where there's a
lot of potential for building width.

My suggestion is to perform no more than six reps per set
and do four to six sets per exercise. Push for higher
volumes during each workout and don't work a body part more
than once a week.

Following this basic routine and advice, you can get that
coveted "V-shape", even if, like me, you aren't working
with the most ideal foundation for creating it.

----------------------------------------------------
Scott Abbett is the author of HardBody Success: 28
Principles to Create Your Ultimate Body and Shape Your Mind
for Incredible Success. He is a certified fitness trainer
and a Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP. To see his
personal transformation, visit http://
http://www.hardbodysuccess.com

Maca Herb

Maca is a root that resembles a radish and is grown in the
high Andean plateaus in Peru at heights nearing 14,000
feet. The root is generally dried and can be preserved for
long periods. This herb has been used by local tribes for
over two thousand years as a herb for its nutritive value
and curative properties. While Maca herb is known to
improve sexual prowess, it is much more than just an
aphrodisiac. Popularly known as "Peruvian Ginseng", Maca
has anti-fatigue and stimulant properties. It also improves
vitality, and has been in use traditionally to treat
menstrual disorders in women. The herb has also been found
useful in the treatment of tuberculosis. Interestingly,
Maca herb has also been found to improve memory.

The herb was "discovered" by the Spanish who found the
reproduction of their animals suffered in the highlands. On
the recommendation of the locals, they used Maca and found
that the fertility of the animals increased after eating
Maca herb, and used it to increase the production of
livestock. Maca herb has recently received worldwide
attention as a herb used to increase male endurance during
sex.

Apart from improving fertility, Maca herb also seems to
possess properties that stimulate the production of
hormones by the body. This makes it useful in treating
hormone deficiencies, as it is a better alternative to
injecting external hormones in the body.

Men using Maca herb have reported stronger and more
frequent erections that also last longer, increasing the
desire for sex and improving sexual pleasure. In Peru, both
men and women use Maca to improve their sexual lives. The
herb is growing in popularity all over the world,
particularly in the US, Europe and Japan as a vitality
enhancing dietary supplement. The growing popularity of
this herb worldwide is reflected in increasing areas of
farmlands being dedicated to its growth in Peru.

All that might be very convincing and may be enticing too,
but how does one go about getting Maca herb. Fortunately,
you don't have to go to Peru and pick up the herb from the
cultivators there, as there are many commercial
preparations available in easy and ready to use forms. You
need to be a bit cautious before getting one of these
though. The purity of the herbs used in the preparation,
and the dosage can affect the efficacy of the herb. In
fact, if you are not careful about these you could end up
with even some harmful effects. Thankfully, there are a few
genuine manufacturers who provide you with the pure herb.

----------------------------------------------------
Patricia McDougall B.Sc. is a Chartered Herbalist and
graduate of the Dominion Herbal College, British Columbia,
Canada. Originally from Peru, Patricia is the Director of
Research and Development for Amazon Botanicals LLC of
Newark Delaware.
http://www.amazon-botanicals.com/Maca_herb_s/87.htm