Lung Cancer

Lung cancer primarily involves two important aspects to address when thinking about prevention or remission.

1. Oxidative damage. The damage caused by years of smoking, partly due to the byproducts created from smoke itself reacting with your respitory system. Also partly due to the toxic ingredients added to modern cigarettes to make the brand more addictive, tend to be carcinogens on their own. Smoke in general, even in foods, tend to cause carcinogenic compounds such as heterocyclic amines and polycyclic hydrocarbons which are well documented carcinogens. Cigarette companies also add sugar to their product which when smoked can possibly create something known as "advanced glycation end products" which also seem to contribute to cancer and inflammation and are suspected to be a primary factor involved in heart disease. Quitting smoking will prevent further damage being done to your lungs but the damage can stay or continue to grow over time if the second part is not addressed

2. Antioxidant repair. Normally in healthy humans our body creates antioxidants from protein and vitamin compounds from the foods we eat which the body uses to repair oxidative damage such as what's caused from smoking and eating smoked or charred foods. Plant foods also contain special molecules that studies suggest might provide Antioxidant activity separate from our bodies own endogenous anti oxidant production. This includes vitamin c, vitamin e, catachins from tea,, glutathione, superoxide dismutase and a variety of other endogenous and exogenous antioxidants. 

Sugar and other high glycemic load carbohydrates as well as vegetable oils and other high omega 6 foods actually interfere with your bodies antioxidant system through multiple direct and indirect mechanisms. These foods also create oxidative damage which the body shuttles antioxidant resources towards repairing, which prevents those antioxidants from effectively repairing the oxidative damage caused by smoking in the respiratory system. Thereby allowing cancer cells to grow over time without being turned over (recycled into new healthy cells)

The thing is, if you stop smoking for 20 years, but you eat a high glycemic load diet or eat a diet high in omega 6, and low in protein and antioxidants, it's very possible to still get lung cancer even though you quit smoking 20 years ago.

However, if you smoke pure Tabacco and eat a low glycemic load diet low in omega 6 and high in healthy fats, high in protein and antinoxidants, then you could probably smoke twice a day for the rest of your life and never get lung cancer 

The key is having enough anti oxidants and not producing too much oxidative damage. Its a matter of overwhelming your antioxidant systems. If your body has high oxidative damage from smoking and a high sugar high omega 6 diet, it needs a ton of antioxidant support to neutralize the oxidation and reactive oxygen species.

I might have misspoke in this post, I wrote it all of the top of my head with zero checking first, so forgive my errors. Its been a long week of research, training and work but I want people to be healthy. Ask your questions and I'll be happy to answer

-Wolfgang Lizana

White Rice Pros & Cons and Healthy Asian Cultures

White Rice

A subscriber recently commented asking what my opinion is on white rice in regards to my healthy carb heirchy system. They mentioned Asian countries as an example of why white rice can be considered a healthy carb.

So overall my opinion is:

White Rice is extremely easy to digest and well tolerated by most people due to the hard to digest parts of the plant being removed. The refining process also removes almost all of its anti nutrient content so soaking is no longer necessary, compared to its whole grain counterpart brown rice which should always be soaked for 24 hour or more before cooking.

Along with the removal of the harmful compounds, the refining process also removes almost all of the grains nutrition except for tiny trace amounts. The government now requires conventional white rice to be fortified with b vitamins and iron to prevent deficiencies that eating large amounts of unfortified refined grains commonly cause. This fortification process while necessary to prevent deficiencies in malnourished individuals, also creates an entirely new set of problems. In particular, the fortification of supplemental iron in foods puts all consumers at extreme risk for iron overload. A very common issues with fortified foods that is almost always overlooked by doctors, due to complete lack of nutritional understanding or awareness. Iron overload can cause permanent damage to the heart, and all organs, and can cause symptoms rapidly in a dose dependant fashion depending on the frequency, volume and duration of fortified food consumption. However to my knowledge, white jasmine rice is not fortified with iron. As a side note, jasmine rice from Thailand is much lower in arsenic than American grown white rice, and hence is a better choice.

So white rice is devoid of nutrition, easy to digest and well tolerated. The carbohydrates in white rice are entirely used by the body to create glucose and refill glycogen. Essentially, white rice is simply a pure source of glucose. Very close to consuming dextrose powder, only difference being it requires chewing, a bit more digestive work and contains a small amount of incomplete protein and 1g of fiber per 36g of carbohydrates.

Since carbohydrates in general are not even an essential nutrient and consuming them in the diet are not at all essential for survival or health, consuming even nutrient dense carbohydrates are not necessary. Which means, any carbs you are eating to serve any benefit at all, should be as nutrient dense as possible. Otherwise it makes zero sense to eat them if your goal is to be healthy.

    For the average person wanting to be healthy, there is zero benefit to consuming white rice. For someone who desires fatloss, now white rice not only serves zero benefit but is actually serving a net negative as its just serving as a source of glucose with no nutrients. Someone just doing bodybuilding or weightlifting might benefit from 1 cup of cooked white rice 1 to 3 time per week, although factually gluconeogenesis can provide enough glycogen refill from conversion of fatty acids to fuel both hypertrophy and strength workouts.

If you really want to eat carbohydrates, jasmine white rice is a great easily digestable well tolerated source for athletes who do frequent high volume high intensity sport type training. If you're sedentary or only do bodybuilding or powerlifting, the more nutrient dense carb sources are the healthy option and white rice is likely not contributing any benefit what so ever.

--a note on healthy Asian populations who eat white rice as a staple. Generally the healthiest Asian cultures who eat white rice are either in poverty regions of Asia and dont suffer from diabetes or obesity due to caloric restriction as a direct result of poverty, or these people live in populations such as Japan who also have very high consumption of whole foods of both plant and animal sources. These populations tend to eat fish including raw fish, organ meats, fermented soy products and a wide variety of healthy whole foods as the biggest percentage of their diet. White rice is a very small side dish on the side of mostly whole foods in these people and some of these cultures such as Japanese people actually have portion control embedded in their eating rituals.

   It is also true that green and black tea have powerful blood sugar lowering compounds which ive actually found to cause low blood sugar for myself, which may also play a role in negating the effects of the white rice. These populations also tend to live in areas where walking is the main means of transportation further lowering glycemic negatives of carbohydrates. The vending machines and gas stations also tend to sell healthier whole food choices mostly, such as fish and natto, green tea and other healthy whole foods that wpuld be replaced by sugary sodas and candy bars in western convenience stores.

Furthermore, these populations have seen a sharp increase in diabetes and obesity over the last 20 years as fast foods and western culture has slowly been making its way across Asia. Creating the same problems of excess refined foods and high caloric low nutrient intake as seen in western populations.

My belief is that the overall diet and lifestyle of the healthy Asian populations negate the effects of the white rice. 

So in conclusion, I do not consider white rice a healthy or nourishing food. It should be seen as a quick easy digested source of glucose that does not contain the same compounds that contribute to auto immune or digestive problems that whole grains do. And unless you're an athlete, you have no reason to eat it for health purposes and should stick to more nourishing carb sources such as tier 1 and 2 fruits and tubers. As they provide an abundance of vitamins and minerals that many are deficient in and are well tolerated as well. If you do choose to eat white rice see it as a pleasure full food that you enjoy but do not fool yourself into believing its serving any nourishing purpose other than contributing towards energy requirements or fat gain.

Thank you for reading, I appreciate your focus

-Wolfgang Lizana

Heat Tolerance

A lot of pain and suffering comes from a lack of knowledge on basic health principles. One key example is heat intolerance. If you smoke, drink alcohol through out the day and don't eat enough salt and drink enough water, you are more likely to suffer from the uncomfortable effects of hot weather. Where as for myself, I seriously don't feel the 100 degree texas weather, even walking out in the sun for 1 to 2 hours at a time.

Also, the more you expose your body to the heat, the more adapted your body will become over time. This is called "hormesis" and is a driving principle behind all the best health practices. Essentially exposing your body to stress makes it more resilient to stress over time. Just like exercising muscles, you can exercise your heat and cold tolerance

When I'm out at a grocery store hearing people complaining because walking to their car with groceries is too intense for them especially because of "this heat", it really makes me realize how unhealthy most people are.

Healthy Carbohydrate Heirchy

I rank carbohydrates in tiers based on their overall net benefit. This takes into account nutrient density, bioavailability, anti nutrient content, digestibility & glycemic load.

Tier 1: Fruits. Berries, Citrus, Melons, Stone Fruit & all others. In that order. High in nutrients, low in glycemic load, and the most universally tolerated among most humans. Virtually no significant anti nutrients because they actually want to be eaten so humans can poop out their seeds.

Tier 2: Tubers, Bulbs & Root Vegetables. Carrots, onions, ginger, leaks, Potatoes, Yams, Etc. High nutrient density. Generally well digested among most humans. And when cooked, low in antinutrients. Only exception is "true" potatoes due to their solanine content which can contribute to pains in the joints and muscles, and are a primary trigger for arthritis. Sweet potatoes of all kinds and yams are NOT nightshades though and do not cause the same problems. So they are fine to eat.

Tier 3: Beans, nuts, seeds, legumes, lentils, quinoa, etc. High in nutrients, also high in antinutrients. Hard to digest for many people. Tend to cause auto immune symptoms. Soaking, sprouting, fermenting and cooking or roasting tends to neutralize the antinutrient content to some degree and makes them easier to digest. Many people tend to have trouble digesting these. Hence the beans fart song. Very low on glycemic load and highest in fiber. Can cause gut issues both short term and long term.

Tier 4: Whole Grains. Brown rice, oats, amaranth, barley, wheat, etc. Tend to trigger autoimmune symptoms for many people, especially gluten containing grains. Hard digestability and lowest nutrient availability out of all. Highest in antinutrients. High in glycemic load. Not even worth eating in my opinion. Soaking, sprouting, fermenting tends to decrease anti nutrients to a degree, but not enough to offset some of the gut issues these can cause. Gluten and gliadin containing grains are worst

Tier 5: Refined grains and isolated sugar in all forms. Probably don't need to even explain. The three worst problems with these are: Highest potential to create endogenous advanced glycation end products which contribute to cancer and heart disease. Highest glycemic load. Zero nutrients

Superhuman Fitness

So I started juijitsu back in April 2019, only did it for about 2 weeks at that time before quitting due to unsatisfactory with my teacher and the gym contract in general. Eventually started again in January 2020 for another 6 weeks until the covid19 lock down closed down gyms temporarily. On May 26th I joined ohana juijitsu mma and muay thai after they bought out ufc gym where I was going previously. 

I have now been going to ohana for approximately 6 weeks. 

I noticed in all juijitsu programs I've been to there are a large amount of juijitsu practitioners that seem extremely outbof shape. Even at the higher belt levels. Ive seen tons of blue and purple belts who get out of breath from the dang warmup for crying out loud. Then drilling comes along and they're terribly gassed and out of breath. 

I mentioned this to some of them and they claim its because they're at a higher skill so they go harder or they say they're just old or some excuse like that

However for one thing, greater skilled practitioners in juijitsu generally boast about how much more eggecient they are due to having higher skill and proficiency which allows less overall effort strength and exertion. Always they say "use less strength and more technique. Strength and cardio isn't overly important as long as you have good technique" and things along those lines. And so if this is true, then how come you use skill as an excuse for why they exert themselves more than me? It doesn't really make sense especially considering many of these people are out of breath after the simple warmup that everyone is about equally skilled at. In fact I'm far more skilled at the warmup exercises than they are due to being a strength and conditioning coach and I always push the warmup way harder. The drilling shouldn't make people out of breath no matter their skill level. In fact more skill should equal less effort for drilling. During sparring or rolling i can understand more skill means more ability to roll with more intensity. However as a white belt who also had years of experience in kickboxing and muay thai I am certain the amount of effort a beginner puts into trying to push a giant blue belt off you while you're on the bottom in full mount is way more exaughsting than having a graceful roll as a purple belt with another purple belt of equal skill even if you roll harder.

Then the age excuse. So common in all areas of life. Honestly I think the main problem here and real reason behind every excuse listed so fsr is that these people just don't do effective strength and conditioning work. Most martial artists in general for some reason assume proper strengtg and conditoning is a waste of time or isn't as effective compared to the bit of conditioning you might get from actually just practicing the sport.

The fact is I've been doing dedicated strength and conditoning consistently since 2016 and I've found it extremely easy to do 2 to 3 sessions usually back to back after max strength and conditioning sessions while not getting gassed or exaughsted during warmups, drilling or sparring. Even on days I go super hard. despite being a white belt who is almost always full mounted on bottom of higher belts i always have such an easier time enduring hard training compared to everyone else.

Everyone else is gassed the entire time complaining about being tired or being old or what ever. Where as I secretly smirk feeling proud and strong knowing I woke up and went straight to the gym for max effort powerlifting squats and desldifts then straight to juijitsu, now in my second bjj session directly after. Still not exaughsted. AND IM FASTED. Meanwhile these fellow men are complaining about how hard it is for their bodies to handle that simple one bjj session even though they probably binge on carbs most of the day

As much as I appreciate humanity I must say its incredibly challenging not to notice how much more physically healthy, fit and vigorous i seem to be compared to the rest of the world.