Bodybuilding is probably the last sport one would think of as a spiritual practice because of its ego-covered outer layer. Spiritual journeys are usually seen in the context of religion, and the discipline of yoga, with its emphasis on channeling the breath and meditation, most strongly connoting a spiritual exploration.
The 2011 IFBB Pro World Master Championships gears up Saturday December 10th in my adopted hometown of Miami Beach, FL; and by all accounts this show is loaded with quality. As a quick aside, the host hotel, Eden Roc, is truly off-the-charts with a perfect beachfront location and it screams "Relax! You're on a vacation." From the scuttlebutt I hear, the lineup is really going to surprise a lot of people.
She’s the hot gothic looking bikini chick from the board. Even if you only periodically visit the boards, I’m betting you have already noticed the RxGirl #1 badass, Stephanie “Wicked” Mulé.
17 years old, I had just begun training and I saw a legend walk in the doorway. There was George Chuvalo, the Champ, standing in my gym. This man had stood toe to toe with 93 opponents and beat 73 of them. He fought Muhammad Ali and lasted all 15 rounds. He went dancing with his wife afterwards and Ali went to the hospital. Anyway, I had lost total focus and started staring over where he was standing. He sat down at the shake bar and started drinking a protein shake. When this man grabbed the plastic cup with his colossal hands, I thought the cup had disappeared. I finished off my workout and I did something I never do, I asked for his autograph in my training log. He wrote “Hard work pays off – George Chuvalo.”
Male and female mice engineered to express the inflammatory enzyme IKKbeta in their fat tissue ate more but gained less weight. They burned sugar and fat more effectively than mice who were left unaltered. The research may shed light on how obesity and inflammation affect insulin resistance and sensitivity.
In a new study, scientists report that they substantially curbed weight gain, improved metabolism, and improved the efficacy of insulin in mice by engineering them to express a specific human enzyme in their fat tissue. Although the obesity prevention came at the significant cost of widespread inflammation, the research offers new clues about the connections among obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, and inflammation.
