Book Review: The Body by Bill Bryson

The Body by Bill Bryson is a great book. This is an informative, educational book. It is not a college textbook - meaning it is not trying to teach biology to students of the body. It is not meant for diagnosing medical conditions or to classify medical problems of the body. This is not a manual of the human body that one can read to fix or change the human body. It is merely a guidebook - just as the subtitle "A Guide for Occupants" proposes. However, what a great guidebook it is! I was enthralled and could not stop. Once again, this was one of the first few books I listened to on my brand new audible subscription. Hence, it is possible that my curiosity about the audible format played into me liking the book very much. Anyway, let me focus on the book.

This book is split into 23 chapters spread over 14 hours of audio. Most chapters deal with individual systems in the body such as the brain, nervous, reproduction, respiratory, immune - you get the idea. Within each chapter, though, Bill Bryson goes into interactions of these systems with each other and with human society of today. For example, here is a quote: "The heart is the most mysterious of our organs. For a start it looks nothing like the traditional symbol associated with Valentine's day and the lovers symbol carved into tree trunks and such.". Then, there are other chapters that deal with how we got here over the hundreds of thousands of years past, what are our current travails and how might the future look like. After listening to the entire book, I was left feeling very well informed and also with a lot of questions about ourselves. I mean, for all we know about ourselves, it appears we still don't understand everything that really matters. Cancer, aging, emotions such as love, hate, what happens when we sleep, brain function - there is so much we just don't know. Throughout this book, my mind drifted to sci-fi novels and movies in which humans have augmented their trivial knowledge of human body with abundant imagination of the human body.

Apart from being a good inward looking scientific narrative of the human body, Bill Bryson additionally related me (the reader) to many events in human history. This is key! When the book weaves in narratives from human history, it brings human body to life (sorry for the pun). Meaning, the book relates the human body to human condition. This really drives the book deeper into the mind. This is what turns the book from being a thick, opaque biology textbook to being a easily readable true story narrative.

My only complain is that I have already forgotten many parts of the book - I blame it partly on listening to the book on 1.65 times normal speed and for multi-tasking when listening. In that sense, this is not a life altering book that will leave a mark on your mind. It is merely a guide to the human body that you will want to read once and use as a ready reference.

Happy reading!

These Truths

These Truths is a great book by Harvard Historian Jill Lepore. It traces American Political History from it's discovery to 2016. This year, for the first time, I purchased an audible.com subscription and this book was the second audio book I ever listened to. The first being Hans Rosling's Factfulness. These Truths and Factfulness are both books recommended by Bill Gates on his blog gatesnotes.com.

These Truths was a great eye opener to me - especially so because I immigrated to the United States for work and started my life as an American citizen in 2015 without any formal training in her history. Until I read this book, I was equal parts amazed and consternated about how and why Americans made political decisions they did. Trump's election was the most perplexing phenomenon to me. That piqued my interest and aroused suspicion that I was naive, that there was something about her that I just didn't know. Reading Gates' review about the book, it was clear to me that I needed to read the book!

I was not ready for it! Not having had any formal American Education in the K-12 sense, These Truths was a tsunami of information for me. The book starts somewhere near the discovery of America, covers pre-constitution times, goes into details of how the constitution itself was written, the lives of individual founding fathers, then goes into details of civil war and the winning over of all states, of the years up to emancipation, then voting rights for blacks (and all other struggles), Jim Crowe, women's suffrage, the evolution of the three branches of government (supreme court was a toothless in the beginning), amendments, failures of amendments (ERA), civil rights, voter suppression and a 100 other things that I have already forgotten.

I found the book very interesting, well narrated (by Jill Lepore herself) and fast paced. The book has a confident style (meaning, it leaves no dispute in the mind of the reader) that comes across as a statement of facts (rather than a statements of opinion).

I learnt many things about America - some consequential and others not so much. For example, the word "polls" meaning elections comes from a past usage of the word "poll". "Polls" are the tops of the heads as seen by a person sitting on high ground watching a crowd of humans. An election (a "poll") was simply the process of counting heads in a room (and apportioning 3/5ths of white vote to black persons).

Through this book, it is evident to me that the founding fathers had no clue or any prescience about how the future would play out. Too many people in today's world apply way too much significance and weight to the constitution itself and have completely forgotten the times and events between 1776 (declaration of independence) and 2020 (today). This is convenient to many because at the very best, they can prolong the needless ambiguity of a 200 year old document into current and future days. At worst, they can cause considerable harm by halting the progress of our nation and its people. Without reading this book (or any other good history book), it feels like the constitution is a bible and we are all christians (or quran and muslim etc.). After having read the book, it is clear the facts are much more nuanced.

In case one does not know (as I did not know), the words "These Truths" come from the preamble to the declaration of independence. The complete sentence is: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I am glad I follow gatesnotes.com and I am glad I read this book. I highly recommend it.

healthcare for 27 year old "kids"

I am fed up of what is going on in the political arena with the 2012 elections coming up. What really irks me is that I am not seeing too many people talk anything good about Obamacare (aka Patient protection and affordable care act.). There are way too many sound bytes talking about what is not right about it, very few about what is right. NY Times covered a few points well in an Five Obamacare Myths, but we need more. Lots more! I feel like analysts and naysayers are missing the point. I read someplace that "kids who are healthy will be mandated to buy insurance, even though they don't need - just to pay for the older and sicker folks who need more healthcare than them". First of all the people whom that article called "kids" are really full blown 26 year old adults. I say this because, per this new law, "kids" under the age of 26 will be allowed to stay on their parents health insurance, which means they will not have to buy health insurance. About folks who are more than 26, if they don't buy insurance, they either have to be rich or crazy. Consider the case of the rich. Lets say that a rich 27 year old falls sick with a major illness or meets with an accident in which no liability can be proven. This person will have to pay for healthcare from their pocket. If they can project their  expenses to be much lesser than what they will pay for insurance over a few years, by all means they should go without it and stick with the mandated penalties. However, how many people (as a percentage) are actually so rich that they can pay for healthcare without feeling the pinch? Consider those who are too poor or too sick to buy health insurance. What will they do? They wait till they are deathly sick or are in need of emergency healthcare and then off load their entire burden of healthcare upon the taxpayers who in all probability purchasing insurance in the first place. So, as of today, in any case, the taxpayer ends up paying for themselves as well as these people who don't have any insurance. The new law mandates that those who don't have insurance should either buy it or pay penalty. In principle, the new law, actually disallows free rides. Now, there might be tax credits and rebates which allow the poor to get a better deal on insurance than the rich, however, its still better than a free ride. Additionally, I bet that having insurance (and the free preventive healthcare - by law) will lead to better overall health of citizens, which in turn lead to fewer people needing expensive healthcare. In effect, adults who are 27 and above will very likely be better off buying health insurance than not under the new law. I just don't see how they get the short end of the stick.

Where to put those dollars?

With the market and economy as it is, there are many sound bytes to catch on what should one do with savings. Nothing seems sure. Stocks seem to be the "falling knife", gold seems too be highly inflated beyond its true value, treasury is backed by a non AAA country (!!). So, why not add my two sound bytes to the noise?

I am old fashioned. I like stocks and the old world thought process on stocks. In times of slowdowns and recessions, I caught words of an old man who was talking on TV. He talked about Altria (NYSE:MO) - a stock that has been somewhat beaten along with the rest of the market. Its a profitable company and relies mostly on its subsidiary Philip Morris - the tobacco company. It has a consistent dividend history and at today's price its dividend yield is 5.91%. So, I used the stock screener on Zacks to look for more. My stock screener was simple. Look for stocks that have a market cap above 1.5 billion $, is currently profitable and has a dividend yield greater than 9%. I was happy to find a stock that I already own. Alliance Bernstein (NYSE:AB). Alliance Bernstein is an asset management firm owned by the french insurance group AXA. They also have funds that they sell to the public. Their earnings history is pretty consistent and did not buckle under the subprime crisis. They seem to be fairly insulated from the credit markets as well. They make most of their money by managing other people's money and providing investment advice. Their stock price has no reason to go up and down just because the general market goes up and down. Their net fund flows could change and that could impact earnings in volatile markets, but that does not seem to have happened. So, I feel, not only is it an undervalued stock, it also is a great dividend play. I am going to double down on my position next week. Another stock that caught my attention was NYSE:PT. That is a telecom company that services Portugal, parts of Brazil and Africa. This has a market cap of 7.8 billion $ and currently yields 11% on dividend. Its currently not profitable, but boasts a good current ratio and good D/E ratio. It is a utility, so is probably independent of consumer tastes. Only major changes in underlying technology can unseat its business. I think it will make a great dividend play to ride out the recession.

cardio or weights?

Joseph Rajadurai is a sweet mallu guy who asked me this:

In your experience, does weightlifting help with fat reduction in the body at all.. If say, I am 30 pounds overweight, do I focus more on cardio as opposed to strength training??

To which I responded with this:

Yo!! ty for that comment. Weights will help you with weight loss only in the long run. Short term, weights will not do much. Although lean muscle mass is a great metabolism factory, you need a lot of it to burn all food you eat and the 30 lbs that you don't need. Between cardio and weights, the "fat burn" type of cardio is pretty useful to lose pure body fat. This is the type that is low intensity but long duration type of running, swimming or any other endurance activity. The key difference between weights and endurance exercise is weights are anaerobic and endurance is aerobic. In some ways, you could imagine that, weights build your system to use food better on the long term while aerobics can stimulate the body into turning readily available food into energy to use instead of storing as fat. The best thing to have happen to you would be to have a good muscle mass which then is used for aerobics. Meaning that it would be cool to have large muscles and do cardio so that you burn more than the average guy doing cardio. Now, remember that cardio is absolutely no use if you dont do it for at least 30 minutes or so. In first 30 minutes of cardio, your body will burn up all available glucose/carbohydrates in the body then it will switch to fat burn. So, if you do 20 minutes of running, its possible that you only wasted time! Further, cardio will boost your metabolic rate for upto 36 hours after you work out and then your body will go back to your normal metabolism. Weights on the other hand will slowly, over the long term, raise your BMR (basal metabolic rate). So, if one day you eat a lot of cake and drink a lot, go run. However, if you want to live long with strong muscles, strong bones and immense strength, weights are your main exercise. Haha, as you can probably tell, I am a fan of weights. I dont do cardio! lol
Hope that answers your main question.
The bigger problem with weight loss programs is intake of food. Exercise is necessary, however, any exercise, is bound to make your brain release the hunger thought army. It is going to make you hungrier than ever and it is going to make you hungry for chocolate and cake because it knows thats where the glucose is. In my case, all my attempts at exercise failed for almost 5 years mainly because of this hunger reaction. First, I worked out then I pigged out! haha.
If you really want to lose weight and lose it fast and safe, I would highly recommend a low to zero carb diet such as the Atkins or South beach. I have no knowledge of South beach, but I am currently in Atkins's first phase and am loving it. Zero carb diets work really fast, because if you keep your food intake under 20 grams of net carbs, then your brain switches your body's metabolism from the regular one (i think its called glycolysis) to ketosis. Meaning that when your body does not have enough carbs to be turned to energy, the body begins to fall short for doing your daily activities and even vital functions such as heart, brain, lungs etc. To keep you alive and kicking, the brain tells the body to switch to Ketosis. In ketosis, your body actually burns excess body fat into energy. Literally that! The body literally burns your tires to produce energy. Once you lose a big chunk, you could slowly start adding the good carbs back to your diet. However, while you are switching over, you cant have any fruits, many veggies, any sugar, any alcohol to count the most dangerous items. You can add complex carbs and whole food carbs after you have arrived near your target weight. One side effect of Ketosis is that your sweat, breath and piss will stink like nothing has stunk before. But thats a very small price to pay.

Hope this helps you Joe.

deciding what to work out

So, I had lunch with Anoop (who writes here) recently and as usual, I was eating a lunch which many people don't find too interesting. On that day I was eating a low carb lunch. There was no bread or pasta. A chicken breast roasted with herbs and a roast beef tenderloin along with a salad (no pasta or dressing). Each of us is healthy but he is "handsomer" than I am. I am also older and I work out every day with weights while he bikes. However, the cool thing is that he gets the diet crap and he also was looking for Weight Lifting exercise tips. What better topic to get my conversation juices flowing than weight lifting? So, I shared my article with him. Its here:

Afterward, he emailed me asking a really good question which can come only from a person who is seriously considering and planning to start working out with weights. So, I decided to write the answer here on the blog instead of responding to his email.

Q: How to break your workout over a week? What day to do what exercise such as "curls, 8 sets, 30 lbs"?
A: So, again, very valid and also very important question. I'd say there are two to three phases your body goes through when working with weights. In each phase, your workout schedule and how you break your work out over days will differ. Here, I have tried to write about my experience and have tried to write what should happen in each phase so the reader can determine whats her/his best schedule.

Initially, when you are new to weights, your muscular system, joints and your cardio system is not fully ready. Even your brain is not fully ready to understand what is going on with all those weights. Lets look at that situation in a little more detail. Your body is as ready as it can ever be for any sort of reasonable exigencies. So, if a large refrigerator suddenly toppled on you while you were unawares, your body and brain might be able to summon enough energy and strength to push it back in place or at least avoid injury to your body. Reasonable exigency and positive response! If a truck were to skip the light and run over you, you'd die - Unreasonable exigency and total lack of bodily response! How this relates to body building is that, when you go do weight lifting for the first time, your brain and body will think this is some type of exigency and release many resources (including adrenalin) to respond to the challenge. This is not really an exigency, you are working out, but your brain does not know the difference when you do if for the first time. So, you are likely to push harder than what you are actually capable of. The least impact it will have is that you will have severe DOMS on the following two days and the worst is that you will pull or tear a muscle and injure yourself. (Severe DOMS is OK). Now imagine that you have already broken out your exercises by body parts by day. So, on the first day, you do arms for 27 sets and second day you do chest 27 sets. It is likely that you will have a constant bout of DOMS which will break your motivation to go back and leave a bad scar on your memory. (Really, it might). I would say that for new beginners, its best to spread out exercies all over the body for at least a month. Additionally, don't just do weights every day, spend a lot of time adding flexibility to the body. If you have not worked out for long and suddenly try to flex your muscles, you could hurt yourself pretty early in your game. Lastly, try to stay with dumbbells and machines for the first month. Barbells are good too, however, most barbell exercises need good balancing abilities. That ability is not readily available if you have not worked out for long. In terms of specifics, here is my set by set recommendation. You can pick any of these as long as you do around 27 sets (or as many as you can).

Do all of these with low or no weights and up to 20/24 repetitions.
1. 3 sets of push ups
2. 3 sets of sit ups
3. 3 sets of arm curls with dumbbells
4. 3 sets of tricep dumbbell raise
5. 3 sets of leg/thigh extensions/raise
6. 3 sets of hamstring
7. 3 sets of abdomen or back.
8. 3 sets of pull ups
9. 6 sets of shoulder front and back dumbbell raise
10. 3 sets of flies
11. 3 sets of peck deck

This itself is a pretty hard workout. Make sure you provide ample rest to your body, maybe work out only 4 days a week to begin with. Rest will make things easy to deal with and give the body enough time to recover.

Next, after you have been working out regularly for a month or more, you switch to the second phase. During this phase, your body has started accepting the muscle tear as a part of your daily regimen. Its no longer working on the emergency/exigency response system. Adrenalin is no longer driving your strength. Now is the time you should switch to doing maybe two or three small body parts or just one large part and also add barbells to your workout. Note that depending on your strength level you might want to just stay with machines for certain workouts instead of free weights because machines will take off some stress of balancing weights and smoothen out some of the motions on your workout. During this phase, the goal is to totally tear your muscles, but still keep the tear to a manageable level by spreading your workout over two or three body parts instead of just one. The only thing you may want to ensure is that when you choose your exercises, choose opposing muscles and not complementary muscles. What I mean is that on the day you do you do your chest, don't work out your shoulder or arms too. In most cases, when you use your chest muscles, your arms and shoulders chip in too. Pair your chest muscles with your back muscles. Its very unlikely that in any day to day use of your body, you will ever use the chest and the back at the same time. This pairing of opposing muscles might also help a little with your posture as you will have opposing stress after the workout and one muscle will not unduely hinder your posture. If you are doing one large body part, such as legs, you might want to potentially skip the rest of your body. Leg exercise can be tiring, just because it is used so often everyday and is also one of the largest muscle on your body. Further, during this phase, try to discover your body limits. Add weights to all your workouts until you find your repetition maximum weight. Repetition Maximum weight (RM) is the weight your muscle can push without you being able to do more than 8 to 10 repetitions. Lastly, for those of you who are not flexible enough, please get into a flexibility routine during this phase. Without flexibility, you are heading towards injury.My recommendation would be:

Day 1. Chest & Back
Day 2. Arms & Shoulder
Day 3. Legs
Day 4. Rest
Day 5. Abdomen & Flexibility
Day 6. Repeat Day 1 and onwards

Finally, after having been working out for 2 to 3 months, you are on your way to be whatever you want to be. During this stage, the focus is to grow specific parts your body. The aim is to work out one muscle a day as per your requirements. Avoid repeating the same muscle on consecutive days. There are no rules or concerns here provided you are sure that you are ready to enter this phase. How do you decide whether you are ready? If you feel like you have increased muscle mass, flexibility and weight lifting capability over the past 2 to 3 months, you are ready! In this phase, you should see good results from each day of your workout. Remember that if you are not seeing results, the only problem could be that you are not working out enough. Its very important to find your repetition maximum every day. Add weights until you fail to lift it on the 8th, 9th or 10th repetition. If you go beyond 10 repetitions, you are under working your muscles. (Take this with a pinch of salt, its not really that you are under working, but, you are definitely not micro tearing as many muscles as you would like to. The other thing you should be concerned about is flexibility. Flexibility is your friend who will prevent injury. You don't want to be injured. Injury can set you back, really back. During this phase, if you like to or need to, you may also start a diet rich in proteins. If you don't need to loose weight, you should load up on carbs before your workout and follow up with proteins after. Carbs provide immediate supply glucose (energy) that will allow you to push your workout limits. Protein after work out will help your muscles rebuild and recover. Really, this phase can be very creative. You should try different exercises to see what you like and what keeps you motivated. Just set your aim high and fire with a smile on your face!

Hope Anoop and other readers like this post.

blackcherry? mephone?

Recently, on a visit to India, I came across two new mobile phone brands. Blackcherry and mePhone. What? These names remind you of some other phone brand that is wildly popular? Hmm... wonder which ones!
There is even a "deal" to buy this phone. It is pretty inexpensive compared to the real and well known blackberry but I have no idea how it works. I think it is audacious that a trademark infringement of this kind is so easy to perpetrate.