I have a new favorite way for cooking beans (magic food with high-quality protein)…known as the Parson’s Method:

You DO NOT HAVE TO SOAK* the beans or watch them cook for hours.
Preheat oven to 350. Put 1 lb of dry beans and about 8 cups of water in a large saucepan. If you use ½ lb of beans use 5 cups of water (or they may dry out).

Bring them to a boil on the stovetop. Cover them with the lid and place them in the oven for 1 -2 hours. Most beans take about 2 hours. Lentils will take about 30 min. When you first try this method check the beans every 30 min and add water if necessary. Different ovens and pots may affect your timing.

I also add some Kombu (seaweed that can be found at Whole Foods, New Seasons, other stores) when I cook beans to prevent gas.

The texture of the beans is fabulous. Ranchogordo.com is a great website for getting heirloom beans if and when you get tired of the usual white, black, and pintos. I highly recommend their cookbook, Heirloom Beans.

*Chickpeas are the only bean that must be soaked overnight.

Enjoy the magical benefits of beans!

Amy

I’ve had some musings lately about how protien sources affect health and performance.  I’ve come up with a few ideas that I think are pretty interesting and that I’m sure I’ll be expounding on for a while.  The crux of my observation is that there is a balance between health and performance if you consider a couple of variables that are realistic for the mainstream American diet. 

1. In order to increase performance output when considering sport or exercise, protien must be kept at levels around 1 gram/lb of bodyweight/day (this falls directly in the center of regulary cited exercise science recommendations). 

2. This amount of protien is really hard to get for most non-athletes.  This is because they have a hard time eating that much animal protien, or plant protien.  So that leaves supplements, which while they’re great, aren’t “naturally occuring” in most people’s diets.  Eating meat is the easiest, plus there is just something about meat protien that seems to give you energy (I came across the actual reason for this and I’ll post once I remember it).

3.  Eating the amount of meat it takes to maximize performance appears through the studies cited in Dr. Furhman’s work, Eat to Live, to be a leading cause of cancer.  We already know from our parents generation that it causes heart disease. 

So I think that this model demonstrates a spectrum of health and performance.  I call it the longevity model because the little dot is the sweet spot for longevity.  You may not be the most kickass athlete ever, but you’ll more than likely be thin, able bodied, and never get cancer.  Doesn’t sound too bad now does it?

Longevity model

The side swing, functional fitness at it's finest.

Functional training is the cornerstone of our programming here at Fulcrum.  Unfortunately however, the meaning of that term has been lost in recent years due to its increasing popularity and overuse in mainstream media.  Fitness magazines regularly boast its fat burning and muscle building effects, but rarely are they talking about the same training protocols.

  Any strength or cardio program can make you feel stronger or improve your endurance, but few exercise systems are successful at hitting on all 10 aspects of well-rounded fitness: balance, flexibility, speed, agility, power, strength, stamina, endurance, accuracy and coordination – together, all of which equate to good, solid “functional training”.  Machines don’t get it done, no matter what your age or physical limitations are.  Bodyweight and free weight exercises are king when it comes to increasing GPP (general physical preparedness) because they place many complex demands on your nervous system and your muscles at the same time.  This, in turn, speeds up the rate of favorable adaptations to our bodies… in other words: quicker results and less wasted time.  We believe that your training routine should help you excel at your life, in all ways.  That’s why we’re constantly improving on a fitness where… 1) you’re less susceptible to injuries (ie. prehabilitation), 2) you’re better able to handle the day-to-day physical and mental demands of life, and 3) you’re more able to do the things in your life that you enjoy.       

- Trevor Hollingsworth, Cpt

interesting piece I got in email from one of the CST bodyweight coaches.

“I’m sitting in the Newark airport waiting for a connecting flight
to take me down to Tampa. I’ll be spending a couple days sharing
ideas with Craig Ballantyne and a few other world class fitness
pros.

It was through just such a melding of minds that I became good
friends with Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat. And it’s him that
gave me the idea to “travel fast.” No, I’m not referring to your
speed of travel. I’m talking about using intermittent fasting as a
nutrition strategy for when you’re on the road.

I’m a bit peckish right now, but I chose to fast from breakfast
this morning until tomorrow morning. And the advantages far
outweigh the slight tickle of hunger.

-Heck of a lot cheaper than buying airport food
-Don’t have to drag food around with me
-Don’t feel that greasy, heavy, bloated feeling from eating junk

And aside from the fringe benefits of travel fasting, there are a
whole slew of beneficial effects associated with regular
intermittent fasting. Some of them are…

-Increased growth hormone production
-Caloric restriction (if you do it right)
-A well earned break for your digestive system
-Facilitated lipolysis (release of fatty acids for fuel in your body)
-Detox (your body stores toxins in fat…)

Those are just a few of the reasons I regularly use IF. But if you
want more in-depth discussion on why it’s so great, you should turn
to the guy who introduced me to it and check out Brad’s book

***
FASTING TIP: There’s much more psychological friction than actual
physical discomfort when you decide to stop eating for 24 hours.
We’re conditioned to expect food at very specific intervals.

And we’ve been trained to think that we’re in big trouble if we
miss a meal. But there is NO scientific evidence that short term
fasting has any negative effects on metabolism.

So when you get a bit panicked about being hungry, just take a
mental step back and realize that you have no idea what REAL hunger
is. All you’re feeling is that pre-conditioned idea that you need
to eat–now.

Take a deep breath, exhale and let your body relax. Just releasing
the stress of wanting to eat will help the hunger pangs disappear.
Oh, and stay busy. Idle hands make hungry tummies…

People always ask why we give a damn about pullups at Fulcrum. Does it matter if you can’t do one?  Well, the quick answer is, that depends on what you care about in terms of working out.  In any case, whether you can do none or 50, it’s always a fun to add another pullup to your PR.   Here’s a little piece of the Fulcrum Foundations exercise guide on the pullup for your enjoyment.  It may sound a little severe, but it’s true.

The pull-up is a fundamental human movement.  Current information points to evidence that our most recent ancestors were at least part time arboreal.  This means that whether you’re male or female, difficult as it may be to surmise, the strength to control our own bodyweight in a pulling fashion, and to surmount obstacles and hang from things, is part of the human adaptation.  In other words, whether you can or you can’t, you’re supposed to be able to.  Based on that tidbit, imagine the implications this movement has for your body’s balance and alignment.  Moreover, picture this scenario:  You’re on a hike, by yourself, at say Eagle Creek.  You’re taking in the scenery when you lose footing and slip off one of the many straight drop-offs.  You happen to catch yourself on the edge.  If you can’t do a pull-up, and you can’t get some type of footing, you might die here. 

So basically, everyone at Fulcrum does some form of a pullup, and we always encourage eachother to do more. 

The next question is, to kip or to deadhang pullup?  Stay tuned.

To kip or deadhang, that is the question