Centralization of Power Is Not Small Government

Obama's recently announced intention to reorganize six trade offices is being reported as an effort to reduce the size of the federal government. I wonder how anyone could possibly believe that claim.

Condensing a number of federal departments will certainly cut short-term costs and eliminate ambiguities in governance. But establishing a cradle-to-grave subsidy system for American businesses analogues to the cradle-to-grave subsidy system that envelopes the general public can only spell greater government expenditures in the future, as the welfare system inevitably expands.

Socially, this sort of thing creates a general reliance on government. Slowly, as people become less familiar with the unhampered free market, they begin to view the subsidies they receive as a very real part of capitalism. (You can think of it as being along the lines of, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare.")

Economically, government market interference simply undermines the authority of consumers in the marketplace. Those products and services that would be most rewarded by consumer-generated profit in an unfettered market lose out to those products and services artificially supported by the taxpayer.

The result is fewer of the things we want (as measured by the things we choose to buy), and a greater number of the things we don't want (as measured by the things we do not choose to buy).

Mark today on your calendars as the day I predicted that this reorganization will further encroach on market freedoms and expand the prevalence of corporate welfare.

Making Money

I've been having my own, private Rich Dad, Poor Dad internal dialogue lately, thinking about how best to make a lot of money. Not being much of a mini-JP-Morgan, financial advice from me is probably not worth much. So, take this with a grain of salt, but here's how I see it...

The person at the end of the chain always fares worst. Think about land development:

• The farmer who sells his huge field to a land developer makes the most money for the least effort. All he has to do is sell it, and he makes a pile of cash.
• The developer makes the most money overall, but has to do a little work. He has to sub-divide the lot, which takes time and often involves politics with the zoning board.
• The construction company makes a good amount of money, but also does the most work. Measuring effort against gain, they only do okay. 
• The consumer who buys the house makes no money, over-pays for the lot, provides all of the ongoing repairs and maintenance, ends up with a lot much smaller than the farmer had, and only makes a profit years later, when the true ROI is difficult if not impossible to calculate.

Conclusion: You want to be the farmer, or at least the developer. There is no point to being the construction company because you can make the same amount of money with far less effort, and you basically never, ever want to be the end consumer unless you have to be. (If so, don't expect to make any money.)

You can apply the same principle to cars. The buyer of a used car pays all the costs and reaps none of the benefits. Buying a new car is at least one step better. You might be able to unload it for $3K-$5K once you've paid it off, which is a little better than $0.

You can also apply the same principle to personal banking. The reason investing is more lucrative than saving is because you're not the endpoint of the chain. You're somewhere in the middle. You won't make as much as a the bank, but you'll make a lot more than the humble penny-pincher with a savings account.

At least, that's my philosophy.

Bangla Word of the Day

পাঠানো  (verb) - To send, as in a letter.

Fitness Trade-Offs

The new trend in exercise is the embrace of "total body fitness." You can see examples of this in CrossFit, Hyperfitness, "Primal" fitness, P90X, and so on.

These fitness philosophies - along with many other similar theories - share some important common attributes that put them all in the same basic "category" of fitness philosophies. They all differ from traditional fitness plans in more or less the same ways.

Today, I'd like to discuss how these modern training philosophies differ from the classic approaches, and in particular the relative merits of each. You will soon see that neither the newer philosophies nor the classic theories represent the be-all, end-all panacea of training, and that the best approach of all involves your own personal goals and some realistic expectations about exercise.

Traditional Exercise
In the old days, choosing an exercise plan was relatively straight-forward. If you wanted to be a runner, you chose a running plan. If you wanted to bulk up, you chose a weight-lifting plan. For a long time, these two approaches developed more or less independently of one another.

During the 1960s and 1970s, however, exercise scientists and competitive athletes began to discover just how beneficial resistance training was for endurance athletes. Great runners adopted training philosophies that involved traditional weight lifting - modified, in that lower weight/more repetitions was viewed as optimal. Meanwhile, the muscle-building world of fitness continued to explore strategies to pack on more and more mass, favoring a higher load/fewer repetitions model.

To a certain extent, these two worlds were somewhat critical of each other, with the endurance world questioning the cardiovascular health of the muscle-building world, and the muscle-building world questioning the overall health of dedicated endurance athletes. Even the nutritional plans endorsed by these two groups differed widely from each other, one favoring low fat/high carbohydrate diets and the other favoring high protein diets.

Modern Developments
Nevertheless, the endurance training world continued to incorporate more and more information from the muscle-building world. The benefits of resistance training on joint strength, bone mass, and anaerobic output were just too good to ignore. Moreover, a massive amount of scientific research and experimentation went into developing muscle-building regimens (probably because the development of such regimens became and extremely lucrative commercial industry).

This went on for years, until we finally reached a point where many former endurance athletes began reducing their endurance training significantly and adopting a "total body" approach to fitness.

At the same time, many former body builders went the other way. After suffering a lot of muscle fatigue and injury pertaining to sudden blasts of weight lifting and an oscillating arm day/leg day plan, many people began to explore calisthenics, plyometrics, and "high intensity interval training" (HIIT) in order to get cosmetically appealing bodies without diving into complicated body building regimens.

These two groups were bound to meet in the middle somewhere. I couldn't tell you whose plan came first, but many were developed and today that "middle ground" of "total body fitness" can be observed in plans like P90X and CrossFit, where neither muscle-specific resistance training nor extended cardiovascular training is seen as positive.

Instead, these new methods emphasize combined strength training movements and plyometrics to build up complimentary muscle groups, creating a powerful new approach to training.

Some Criticism of the Modern Approach
Without a doubt, the fitness world has benefited from these new developments in exercise philosophy. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to view the classic approach as senseless and antiquated (as many people do). To understand why, we first have to understand some shortcomings to the modern theories.

Greatly Reduced Cardiovascular Activity
First, none of the new theories (except perhaps Hyperfitness) place any importance on cardiovascular activity. In some extreme cases, adherents to modern theories have suggested that they are getting a good cardiovascular workout because their heart rates become elevated during exercise. Of course, heart rates also become elevated during cardiac arrest, but that is hardly evidence of heart health!

The arguments against cardio typically revolve around either the belief that "cardio doesn't help you lose weight," or that cardiovascular training doesn't promote "total body" health. Mark Sisson takes things even further and even suggests that large amounts of endurance training promote "addiction" to carbohydrates and increase the risk of diabetes.

Of course, both of these claims are patently false and unsupported by scientific evidence. Modern science favors diet over exercise (of any kind) for the purposes of weight loss. No medical scientist in their right minid, however, would suggest that cardiovascular exercise is bad for you, or even that it is inferior to other forms of exercise with respect to overall health benefits.

Over-Consumption of Animal Proteins and Fats
Invariably, these modern fitness philosophies pair up with "primal," "paleo," or other "low-carb" dietary regimens. All of these diets place an emphasis on animal proteins - either by way of meat or dairy products - and monounsaturated fats. I have nothing against meat, dairy, or monounsaturated fat, however the philosophy is flawed.

Research suggests that the body can only absorb so much protein, in the neighborhood of 20% of your total caloric intake. If you eat more protein than that, your body will simply pass it through the other end. This is important because it demonstrates that low-carb diets often only achieve weight loss by replacing calories that your body can absorb (i.e. carbohydrates) with calories it cannot absorb (i.e. too much protein). The resulting weight loss comes not from a "superior diet," but rather from the fact that the body is unable to use many of the calories consumed. In the meantime, the excessive animal fat and protein intake puts a strain on the liver and kidneys, which causes other problems down the road.

Moreover, the animal fats being consumed are often saturated and actually bad for the body if consumed in excess.

Lack of Clear Specialization
Perhaps the most immediate problem with the modern approaches, however, is the fact that in pursuing a goal of "total body health," one never develops any particular fitness advantage. "Total body health" won't help you win a marathon faster, nor will it help you lift a sack of concrete and carry it up a spiral staircase. You need specialization to achieve those things.

CrossFit adherents would argue that lack of specialization is precisely the point. Rather than being particularly good at any one activity, they say, CrossFit athletes can run reasonably fast, lift reasonably heavy things, jump reasonably high, etc. No one aspect of health is diminished (except, as already noted, cardiovascular endureance).

But ask yourself: Would you rather be kind of okay at everything, or pretty good, actually at one or two things? Put another way, would you rather be a famous singer who can't dance, or someone who is okay at both singing and dancing, but not good enough at either to impress anyone?

Strengths of the Modern Approach
That being said, modern exercise philosophies have revived some long-forgotten training ideas that can make a huge difference in anyone's fitness plan.

Plyometrics
Perhaps the best thing about modern fitness approaches is the revival of plyometric exercise (mostly movements involving jumping). Plyometric exercise, if not over-done improves the body's ability to translate strength into speed. Therefore, engaging in regular plyometric exercise will help anyone jump higher and react faster. This improves agility and grace, and also strengthens the joints and tendons. Neither high-endurance nor muscle-building fitness approaches offer the same benefits that plyometric training does.

Core Strength and Stabilizers
Sport-specific training often ignores the peripheral "stabilizer" muscles that are involved in virtually every athletic movement. No amount of calf-raises or leg-presses, for example, will build the muscles required to simply stand on one foot. This is why runners and body-builders alike often lack so much balance and grace. By emphasizing combination movements that require a good amount of balance, modern training regimens typically offer greater development of the stabilizers than people would ordinarily get.

Classic strength training is also a relatively inefficient way to build core strength. Modern training might, for example, replace crunches with burpees. Crunches are muscle-specific, whereas burpees give multiple core muscle groups a simultaneous workout. As a result, the "core" muscle groups often fare better under modern exercise theories than they do under traditional ones.

Variety is the Spice of Life
No doubt about it, the wide variety of exercises employed in modern training regimens keep the athletes interested every single day. A months-long exercise regimen that doesn't offer a lot of variety can get drab, and that impacts motivation.

Punchline: The Trade-Off
The inescapable fact of working out is that we face limitations.

For one thing, there are only two kinds of muscle tissue: one is good for strength, and the other is good for endurance. Building one type of muscle tissue comes at the expense of the other. No matter how badly we would all love to be Arnold Schwartzeneggers who are also world-class marathoners, it is physiologically impossible to do this. We have to make a choice about how much of each kind of muscle tissue we want.

For another thing, there is only so much time in the day, and only so much exercise we can do without hurting our bodies. Once we have adequately stretched and worked-out, often two or three hours have gone by. We don't all have that much time to spare every day. As a result, we have to make another choice regarding how much time we can commit to exercise and what we can reasonably expect from that time. If you can only spare 30 minutes a day, you will almost certainly not have enough time for sport-specific training. If you have a great deal of time, and you fill it all up with non-specific CrossFit movements, you will peak in the middle somewhere, without ever having realized your full potential.

Finally, there is a high level of subjectivity involved in the word "fit." For some, "fit" means being able to lift anything and occasionally run around the block. For others, no matter how much they can lift, they will never consider themselves "fit" if their hearts race after climbing a couple of flights of stairs. For still others, winning a marathon is pointless if they don't like the visual appearance of their upper body muscles. What constitutes "fit" depends entirely on a person's own, individual goals, and the approach they take will therefore also differ.

The point is that we must learn to see fitness as a system of comparative strengths and weaknesses from which to choose. "Everything" simply isn't possible to attain.

Conclusion: My Approach
When I unveil my two-tiered fitness approach later this week, you will see that it offers a good framework from which to achieve moderate levels of muscle building and, if desired, a hefty amount of cardiovascular exercise.

I have adopted this approach first because the health benefits of cardiovascular exercise are many and indisputable. Hearth and lung health is perhaps the most important aspect of health for achieving longevity and a high quality of life well into old age. Without it, rich foods hurt the body more, energy levels deplete, brain chemicals change such that depression and stress start to mount, and so on.

At the same time, science has proven again and again that without regular strength training we all run the risk of injury. This can occur during exercise, or it can sneak up on you one day when you slip and fall at an old age and break a hip. These are serious problems that can only be addressed by improving muscle strength and preventing atrophy whenever possible.

If you choose to follow my approach, you will want to have a good idea about what your personal goals are. By offering a two-tiered approach, I am giving you the option of favoring muscle mass over cardio, or vice-versa. You should have all the information you need to achieve your own ideal blend of each.

But make no mistake, both are important aspects of physical fitness. No new-fangled fitness fad will ever replace the time-tested, scientifically validated benefits of cardiovascular health and low-fat nutrition plans.

Happy New You

You know, I just can't resist.

For me, health and fitness are a way of life. I am not the type of person who over-indulges during the holiday season, puts on weight, stops exercising, and then suddenly declares after New Year's Day that I am turning over a new leaf and reinventing my body. I adhere to a daily exercise regiment and maintain a proper diet every day. My occasional indulgences satisfy my cravings; I have no need to take things further than that. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle each and every day is its own reward for me.

What I am, on the other hand, is a person who loves any excuse to become highly motivated and ambitious. Undertaking a personal initiative is a lot of fun. Any excuse to do so is a good one.

Therefore, I just can't resist using the coming of a new year to gain some new motivation and recommit to maintaining my status as basically the healthiest person I know. It is precisely because I am committed to daily exercise and a healthy lifestyle that I like to avail myself of each and every excuse to go the extra mile.

It's Going To Be A Great Year For Everybody
So here we are in the year 2012. I just returned home from a trip to Bangladesh, I cut my hair, got over a cold, readjusted to a (healthy) Western diet, and now I'm ready to take on a new commitment to fitness. It's time for a new me, and it could be time for a new you, too. You might be like me - healthy, fit, and no particular reason for a drastic change. Or, you might be that other kind of person who over-indulged and now wants to reclaim your healthy lifestyle for the new year.

Put another way, you might be like me in that you enjoy endurance training, like to run races (or marathons), and are looking for a way to reach a new personal best. Or, you might be someone who wants to slip down, shape-up, and look great for that beach vacation this year, seeking maximum results for minimal effort.

Great News
Either way, Stationary Waves has you covered. Over the next couple of days, I'll be developing a two-tiered training regimen for anybody. This year we're building on the 18-Week training regimen I established last Summer, improving the methodology, and expanding.

Tier 1 consists of a quick, easy strength and toning regimen that anyone can do at home. All you need is thirty minutes a day (at the most!), a set of free weights or resistance bands, and an empty spot on the floor. You'll tone up, build some muscle mass, improve your posture, agility, and dexterity, and be more than ready for that trip to your exotic location of choice.

Tier 2 can be added for crazy fitness whack-jobs like myself, who haven't yet had their fill of road racing, marathoning, or whatever else you might be aiming for.

Of course, the combined regimen will help you achieve your true inner fitness potential.

So Stay Tuned
I'll be unveiling the new plan within the week. In the meantime, take the time to review the old plan, the philosophy behind it, and the tools required for what is sure to be a terrific challenge.

An Excellent Read from Allisstatus This Morning

Keith Hudson over at Allistatus has written an article that reflects two of my own strongly held beliefs. Typically, he blogs about current political events, but this morning he delves into more ethical territory, which is, of course, my bread and butter.

Writing about the arrest of a celebrity chef for petty larceny, Hudson writes:

Apart from “not knowing what came over me” and various other attempts at plausible explanations — that he may be suffering from early onset of Alzheimer’s, for example! — why didn’t he just say: “Sorry Guv, I was naughty and you found me out”? We’d all understand.

 My own previous bout of criminality convinced me that personal guilt is not about any internal sense of morality but of fear of being found out.

Left to their own devices, people will do pretty much anything as long as they can get away with it. I would further add that this is the most important justification for wearing one's ethics on one's sleeve. People have a tendency to "play dumb" and hope to get away with behaviors they very well know to be unethical. They only seem to cool it when you call them out.

So when you see someone being unethical, even in simple circumstances, I think it's important to tell them to cool it. Look them in the eye and tell them that you know what they're doing and you do not appreciate it.

You don't have to be confrontational and mean, of course. Often times a polite smile and a simple acknowledgement of their actions suffices to help them think twice about such things.

To that end, Hudson points out:

However, if there is any morality at all, it is the practicality that honesty pays — most of the time, and in most of our dealings. Without this strategy, usually acquired fairly early in childhood — and spontaneously from our peers quite as much as from fear of parental punishment — then society wouldn’t possibly be able to work for more than a day or two. In almost every transaction we carry out, even in business as well as socially, there are moments of time where we trust someone else’s word and they trust us before anything can be written down. Even in many billion dollar deals between rival businessmen (particularly Asian) there are still moments during a verbal understanding when one can renege on the other at profit. This seldom happens. If deception or exploitation is involved it’s usually over matters which don’t happen to be discussed (kept quiet by one of the parties!) and reveal themselves later.

Naturally, I wholeheartedly agree.

Debt and Subjective Value Preference

Enough has been said about the core issue of the blogosphere's recent debt discussion. I have left a few comments around, most notably at Robert Murphy's and Steven Landsburg's blogs. Other than that, I don't have much to say about the core issue.

However, something Steven Landsburg wrote got me thinking about a tangential issue, namely, whether or not a person can benefit from something to which they are morally opposed. Here is Landsburg talking about benefits:

Therefore nobody currently alive (or, in Bob Murphy’s Abraham-and-Isaac model, no member of the older generation) has any reason to object to deficit financing. Deficit financing expands your opportunity set, which you cannot be a bad thing (for you). [sic]

Really?

Here are a couple of scenarios:

1. Let's say someone offered to give you a million dollars. Great news, right? You'd take the money, right? 
2. What if the person making the offer was the kingpin of the local mafia? Would you still take the money? 

Now, subjective value preference implies that there are people who would definitely answer yes to both questions. There are also people who would definitely answer no to both questions. I would guess that the majority of people would answer yes to question #1 and no to question #2.

That majority of people demonstrate why Steven Landsburg is wrong when he says "Deficit financing expands your opportunity set, which [ ] cannot be a bad thing (for you)."

What I mean is, there are plenty of us who feel funny about getting a government handout or passing debt on to others for mere personal gain; just as there are plenty of us who feel funny about getting a free million-dollar prize from the mob.

Landsburg assumes that the "benefits" offered by deficit spending are unequivocal benefits to anyone in the country. Really, what he is assuming is that we all value these kinds of "benefits" exactly the same way he does.

But the truth is, many of us value such benefits differently. This is because we all value everything a little bit differently from everyone else. Not only is it possible for people to value certain "benefits" negatively, it is entirely expected (unless we are talking about "pleasure, as an abstract concept" or something).

Boudreaux on Public Debt

Apparently, in my absence, there has been some discussion about the ethics of public debt in the blogosphere. The major players seem to be Steven Landsburg and Paul Krugman. Both take the position that there is nothing particularly unethical about leaving huge government finance debts to future generations.

Don Boudreaux replies. His reply largely consists of an exposition on Buchanan's public debt ethics. It is a decent response to the core issue, but I feel it misses the most important point.

Mises' analysis of credit expansion teaches us not about having to pay the piper eventually, but rather about the severe market distortions that credit expansion causes. Government deficit spending is - make no mistake - an act of credit expansion. Credit expansion does - make no mistake - distort markets and sends society along a growth trajectory far lower than it would otherwise follow. This is the key point to the Austrian framework and the major moral of the Misesian story.

Government debt isn't unethical because future children have to pay it back instead of us. Government debt is unethical because it robs society of its most efficient use of scarce resources. It takes from us the satisfaction of our own most-urgent wants and presents us with piles upon piles of things we do not want, such as housing bubbles and war.

Today, rather than having a cure for diabetes or a machine that renders fossil fuels obsolete, we have war and social security. That we exist in a land of war and airport security instead of peace and economic plenty is the real curse of government debt.

That's why it's unethical.

New Domain

Tired of typing out that whole .blogspot.com section of the URL? Boy, are you in luck!

As of today you can surf directly to my blog by simply typing "www.stationarywaves.com" into your browser's location bar. And off you go.

Try it yourself. It really works.

Before I Go

Tomorrow, I take a trip to South Asia. It should be a wonderful experience once the jet lag subsides. I am very excited.

I have loaded my e-Reader (a Kobo) with a hefty dose of scholarly and not-so-scholarly literature from Mises.org. It is astounding how much expertise a person can acquire absolutely free of charge, when one is equipped with the right technology. I should return to Canada with my head full of Austrian visions and praxeological whimsy. Yes, I just used the phrase "praxeological whimsy." With luck, I will be able to churn out a greater number of articles for 2012.

I'll also be taking along my resistance bands and running shoes so that I can stay in shape and keep my blood sugar down throughout my trip. Preparedness is key.

A Look at What's Ahead
Now, will all my various apparatus charging in my laptop's various USB ports, I'd like to pause to reflect on what I hope to accomplish at Stationary Waves over the coming year. Take this list with a grain of salt; I am constrained by my many commitments. I will try to achieve these things. Certainly any of of them is possible, but of course achieving all of them may prove to be too challenging a goal. That said, let's take a look.

1. Complete the Ottawa Marathon. If I can get myself out into the cold winter air, I should have all the training required to complete the Ottawa Marathon for the second time. The course is different than it was in 2008, and of course the state of my body is very different indeed.
2. Finish and Publish My Blood Sugar Tracking Model. This one is a big one. There is not much to do, and it could be a great service to my diabetic readership. I am trying.
3. Post More Music. I have a lot of music "in the bank," still to be recorded, and I always get good feedback on the music I make available. I would like to provide more of this music in the future. Let's see how much I can provide.
4. Re-Design the Blog. This is a big one, too, but very do-able, and would greatly improve the Stationary Waves experience, bringing it in line with my over-arching vision for what I would like this website to be. 
5. Publish More Articles. It is not for lack of opportunities that I have not written more formal articles for mass consumption. It has simply been a time-crunch. Applying myself properly, though, would yield good results. For that matter, I have several book ideas I would also like to pursue.
6. Add a Consulting Feature. Some of you may not know, I am always on the lookout for freelance consulting opportunities. I have a knack for numbers, modelling, and analysis, and I rent out my services at an attractive rate. I would like the blog to also reflect this fact.

Of course, there should be many small gems (ha ha) given out along the way. For now, I will just have to stick to live-blogging the coming travel experience and working toward achieving the above stated goals, and many more.

Best Holiday Wishes to You and Good Luck Achieving Your Own Goals in the New Year!

Government Declares More Things That Didn't Happen

Today might be the first time in history a country has ended the same war twice. As The New York Tiimes reports, Barack Obama has officially declared an end to the war in Iraq, as George W. Bush did over eight years earlier. Not only was "mission" not "accomplished" then, it is also not accomplished now.

Furthermore, as Ron Paul rightly pointed out in the Yahoo/CBS GOP debate (a good link to this eludes me right now - please post one in the comments if you have one), the Iraq War is in no way over just because Obama says so. A true end to the war in Iraq would be withdrawing our troops and going home. Creating a permanent military presence that professes to be "peaceful" is the furthest thing from ending a war. Imagine if Iraqi troops were on patrol of the streets of Manhattan all day long. How would Americans feel about that?

The Iraq War is only the latest (again) example of the government simply proclaiming that something happened/is happening when it certainly did not and will not happen.

Remember when Obama closed the illegal prison at Guantanamo Bay? Didn't happen. Remember when Obama captured and killed Osama bin Laden and then mysteriously dumped his body in the sea and refused to provide any evidence that the event actually happened?

The jig is up. We have to stop believing these things. More to the point, does anyone still believe them?

Oh, well. When this all blows over, we can always end the Iraq War again...

Traveling, Re-"Visited" - Major Voyages

A little while ago, I presented some tips for exercising and diabetes management when you're travelling. On the verge of going on a much bigger and more extended bout of travelling, I thought I would revisit the topic here.

(Get it? Re-Visit? Do you get it?)

First, let's recall the tips I shared before:

• Stay on your own home's time zone, ignore the time zone changes.
• Avail yourself of the hotel gymnasium, where applicable.
• Buy your food in advance from a grocery store and keep it in your room for mealtimes.

That's all well and good, but next week I'm going on a much more significant journey, a longer distance over a longer period of time. To further throw a monkey into the works (yes, I do know that I have expressed this metaphor incorrectly), I will not be staying at a hotel, and will not have access to a home gym. In fact, I'll be experiencing a time zone difference of twelve hours and will have no real opportunity to get outside and exercise. This could be a real challenge.

Well, it's nothing I haven't tackled before, so I'd like to take some time to cover advanced travelling (for you experts out there). Rather than providing entirely new tips, I think it's better to simply expand on the rules we've already established.

So, here we go...

Don't Fight the Time Change

Ignoring the time change is important for small changes because it maintains your circadian rhythm with minimal interruption... up to a point. Naturally, there is only so far you can push this. When you find yourself with a twelve-hour time difference, you pretty much have to adapt to local time unless you plan on staying on everyone else's night shift.

Despite all the many pills and products that claim to make the transition easier on the body, the only sure-fire way to pull this off is to do the following:

1. Sleep for the entire duration of the plane ride;
2. Immediately behave as though local time is natural for you;
3. When you get up, immediately turn on the lights and make sure your face and eyes get thoroughly doused in bright light (preferably sunlight).

Of these, #3 is obviously the easiest to control. #1 is something you'll just have to do your best at. #2 is the real challenge, but if you're a faithful Stationary Waves reader, then I'm confident you have the right mindset to pull it off!

Exercise: Just Figure It Out

If you're like me, you may be going somewhere without a readily accessible gym. You might luck out and find yourself in a location where you can walk around all day long, every day, or go for a hike every day. Or, you might find yourself mostly stuck indoors without a gym and in a heavily urbanized place that isn't really set up for a daily run. What to do?

First of all, resistance bands are inexpensive, easy to pack, and provide the perfect alternative to free weights. Zip on over to your local department store and pick them up - they are well worth the investment! You'll be able to do pretty much anything you can do with free weights.

Next, consider taking a jump rope with you for an excellent indoor cardio workout. Failing that, stick to proven things that work. Running in place might be a little silly, but jumping jacks are one of the greatest plyometric/cardio motioons out there! You can do them in virtually any space that has a little elbow room.

Never surrender your workout. You will only ever be limited by your imagination. There are so many great kinds of workouts out there. Choose one that works for your new travel environment and go with it.

Make Simple Food Choices

Going somewhere exotic? You might not have the same kind of control over your diet that you're used to having otherwise. Especially for us diabetics, that can spell major trouble.

No matter where you happen to be going, though, you can always find some variation of cooked meat, cooked vegetables, and fresh bread. These also happen to be the most inexpensive things to eat throughout the world. The simpler, the better. 

Fried fish is a classic. Cooked at high temperatures until it is absolutely crispy, it should provide you with enough protein and monounsaturated fat to keep your muscles healthy with minimal risk of food-borne illness.

Every country has its own favorite vegetables. I recommend going for cooked vegetables. (The fresh ones can be problematic from a sanitary standpoint.) The longer they're cooked, the fewer the nutrients, but also the more you can guarantee that they won't make you sick. For a temporary stay, it is probably best to have them over-cooked. You can always bring along some vitamin supplements if you're worried about micronutrients.

Every country also has its own version of bread, whether it's Indian roti or Salvadorean pupusa. This will give you a bigger blood glucose hit, so make sure you're familiar with the area you plan on visiting, and keep a notebook of carbohydrate counts with you, so that you can plan your insulin boluses correctly.

Conclusion

Well, that's it. Get some sleep, get a good workout in, and stick to simple foods. Oh, yeah, and have some fun while you're at it!

You may notice some reduced blogging while I'm traveling, or I may keep it going. Liveblogging my experiences would be pretty cool, so I'll do my best.

When Thinking About Health, Sometimes Logic Trumps "Science"

According to The Wall Street Journal, a series of studies downplay the risk anti-ADHD drugs pose to patients' developing cardiovascular disease.

Considering optimal therapy regimens, this is probably true. On the other hand, applying some logic is absolutely necessary for situations like these.

Logic and ADHD Treatments
Stated simply, ADHD drugs tend to be variants of amphetamines and other such stimulants. Setting aside their therapeutic benefits, we all know the impact that amphetamines have on human health. Even in an acute state, they increase heart rate and cause constriction of blood vessels. They temporarily increase blood pressure and trigger some neurochemical stimulants that are typically associated with physical activity, stress, excitement, and so forth.

Considering all of that, it stands to reason that ADHD drugs are a bit harder on the cardiovascular system than the absence of ADHD drugs. We don't need a study to tell us this; we know it aprioristically. It is true because it must be true. It is true because many of these physiological responses are precisely the therapeutic benefit of the drugs in question.

Therapeutic Benefits and Trade-Offs
As I try to emphasize throughout Stationary Waves, the most important aspect of big decisions is not the particular course of action to take (in this case, should a person with ADHD take anti-ADHD medication?), but the trade-offs associated with each option.

Issues are not simple or binary. Few things in life boil down to a simple yes/no response. We must learn to stop thinking about things in terms of yes or no.

Instead, weigh the benefits according to your own needs and values. Considering not just the risk of anti-ADHD medication, but the physiologically necessary response to ingesting them, is taking the medication worth it?

The answer is: It depends entirely on your own, unique situation. I certainly don't have the answer. Neither does your doctor. You have it! You shouldn't make this decision based on a WSJ headline claiming that "there is nothing to fear." There isn't anything to fear, but that's not the issue.

The issue is how much cardiovascular health are you prepared to sacrifice for the sake of the therapeutic benefits. If you have a severe case of ADHD, medication even in large doses is certainly worth the trade-off. If you have an extremely mild case, you can probably self-treat using other methods. (May I suggest exercise?) If your case falls somewhere in between, you have to balance both aspects of your health, make an informed decision, and then monitor your choice carefully.

You may also have to "pick up the slack" by exercising more. Not because "you read so in a study," but because you know certain medications put you at greater risk for cardiovascular malaise and you simply wish to avoid avoidable consequences.

It's the same with diabetes. There is no "right answer," you have to make informed choices and consider your lifestyle and your own behavior. Furthermore, you have to be objective about who you are and how you actually behave.

I can trust myself to exercise once or twice a day, with very few exceptions, therefore I can get by with less insulin than other type 1 diabetics. Is this approach sensible for everyone? Absolutely not. Most people don't work out as much as I do. Many people who genuinely want to work out as much as I do can't spare the time or energy to do so. Such diabetics should consider using more insulin than I do, and managing their diet more carefully than I.

But in every case, we are talking about trade-offs associated with choices; we are not simply talking about a prescription of X minutes of exercise combined with Y units of insulin and food choices from a single, static menu.

It's Not the Industry, It's the Absence of Reflection
When people suggest that the pharmaceutical industry is "evil" because they "get us hooked on drugs we don't need," I think they are often perceiving therapeutic choices as simple yes/no scenarios. People are inclined to want a simple, definitive answer. It's natural; but it is also very naive.

The industry isn't hell-bent on getting you hooked. Instead, they are in the business of providing options based on what you're willing to trade. That doesn't mean all drugs are perfectly safe, that simply means that some people may wish to take dangerous drugs if the therapeutic benefits are great enough for that particular individual.

So when you make decisions about your health, don't just think about whether a drug is "safe," or "effective," or even "safe and effective." Consider what the product offers you and what you're willing to give up in order to gain that benefit.

Everything in life is a variable that we can control for our own benefit, so long as we understand the trade-offs.

Comparative Advantage and Charity

What is "action," anyway?

I know a man who never, ever gives money to the homeless. He doesn't give money to people on the street, and he doesn't financially contribute to homeless shelters or anti-poverty organizations. Despite all this, he considers homelessness and poverty to be terrible local problems that need to be addressed.

How can these two positions co-exist? How can a man both refuse financial contributions to the homeless and insist that homeless and poverty need our desperate attention and action?

Pretty simply, actually. This man I know spends a lot of his time teaching at-risk youth how to manage money. He sees this as his contribution to the problem.

From time to time, others do ask him why he doesn't give money to homeless people and support organizations. They seem to insinuate that this man is heartless or that he isn't giving enough unless he contributes financially. That this man has many success stories about how he was able to deeply impact the lives of specific youth does not seem to dent his critics. They believe he should pay up.

He believes that he has a unique skill set that makes him particularly well-suited to teaching at-risk youth good financial practices that will enable them to save for their educations, manage their expenses, and pull themselves out of poverty.

I suggest that both approaches are useful and appropriate. There is certainly no "one right way" to fix a social ill. If there were, we would have identified it long ago, and the problem would have been eradicated. Remember, human beings have been around for more than 10,000 years. That's a long time to think through problems and propose solutions. For 10,000 there has been human need. We haven't solved these problems; the best we can do is try according to our unique skill-sets.

The Money Myth
If there is one thing we should have learned by now, though, it's that problems with social causes cannot be solved by simply throwing money at the problem. The reason people are poor or at-risk or etc. is not because there is a lack of funding for anti-poor, anti-at-risk, or anti-etc. activities.

Instead, these problems are complex, come from a variety of causes, and require many different methods of addressing them. We cannot simply spend money or buttress existing organizations if we hope to solve them.

In fact, it might be safe to say that social ills like "poverty" can probably never be solved. There will always be people among us who require special effort and attention. There are as many of these situations as there are potential solutions.

Helping Out
Therefore, I think it's important to keep one's skill-set in mind when wishes to address tough problems.  Some of us are fabulously wealthy and can easily provide money to well-run organizations designed to deal with these problems.

Others (most of us) don't have a lot of money, but might be able to contribute time. And of those of us who choose to contribute time, we have to pick our battles. We cannot possibly give enough time to every conceivable social ill that we wish to address. We choose the most important issues to us, and focus our efforts there.

Out of those of us who contribute time, some of us have the kinds of personalities and backgrounds that enable us to function well as counselors, peers, mentors, etc. Like the man I know who teaches at-risk youth. But what about those of us who are, because of our natures, particularly ill-suited to serve as mentors? Are we just bad people?

No, I don't think so. I think some people can't stand the sight of tears just like some people can't stand the sight of blood. It takes a certain quality to act as peer support, and not all of us have it. Those of us who don't will probably do more harm acting as counselors than if we stayed out of the way.

On the other hand, it doesn't mean we don't have useful skills. Some of us are great at writing, or managing, or providing technical support. Some of us are great at strategizing or fund-raising. The list goes on.

Capitalism and Charity
So that great feature of the market economy - comparative advantage and specialization of trade - is also a boon to the world of not-for-profit activities. Not everyone can donate blood or write huge checks for charities. Not everyone has enough hours in the day to spend serving up hot meals at the shelter.

So we all contribute in our own way, and so long as there is positive impact, we've done a good deed.

Or so it seems to me.