New potential A.G.E. breakers?

Besides Fisetin, there may be new potential A.G.E. breakers:

-NDGA
-rosmarinic acid
-curcumin

Protein Folding and Aggregation into Amyloid: The Interference by Natural Phenolic Compounds

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3709793/

Coach K on strategy in Iraq

Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski says President Obama is using wrong game plan against ISIS
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2014/11/04/duke-coach-mike-krzyzewski-says-president-obama-is-using-wrong-game-plan-against-isis/


There are hundreds of life lessons that you learn from playing sports at a high level. As Coach K has pointed out, Obama has telegraphed his troop draw-downs and "no boots on the ground" unnecessarily on multiple occasions which gives the enemy reason for encouragement. In addition, on first taking office he pulled out troops just when the "glue" of the Iraqi state was beginning to dry. See PBS Frontline "Losing Iraq."

PBS Frontline "Losing Iraq"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/

Great article on natural causes of what we call ADD

Great article on natural causes of what we call ADD. Asks the question that always comes up, is ADD really a disorder?

See also Dr. Amen's 7 types of ADD

A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D.
by Richard Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/opinion/sunday/a-natural-fix-for-adhd.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Notes from Food Day with Joel Salatin

Notes from Food Day with Joel Salatin
At NOVA the community college where I teach, the Loudoun Campus held Food Day yesterday and somehow managed to get Joel Salatin to come. Amazingly, the audtitorium of 250 or so was only 2/3 full due to insufficient advertising, and half of those people were local DC area residents rather than NOVA students. But the morning speech and question and answer session by Salatin and the afternoon discussion panel were extremely informative, he was at his usual best.

A boggling amount of big ideas were thrown around, here are a few. Salatin said he was asked to focus on the economic aspects of food systems rather than the nature of farming itself, but as always he hit on a little bit of everything.

From Salatin:
-What do you pay for when you pay more for local food?
Intelligent farmers
Better land stewardship and preservation - many more eyes on the land

-Small local farms are very hard to get into big supermarkets because of all the bureaucracy and regulations involved. His farm and many others do not have vaccinated pigs and other measures required by supermarkets. There should not be "10 layers of bureaucracy" between a producer and transaction.

-Much discussion about how we do not include environmental and health costs in the cost of food and investments. Can you imagine going to a bank for a farm loan and the banker says that first he has to know what the effect on earthworms will be? Point was, we do not take into account the true effects of ways of farming including health, long term effects, effects on soil.

-Said an author says should spend a year walking a landscape and making notes before starting to farm there. Know the lanscape, eyes on the land.

-US has 2X more prisoners than farmers

-Private property should not deplete the commons.

-Much discussion on building vibrant, living soil and soil health is a key goal of farming. Contrasted with industrial farming which tends to create dead soil through chemical pesticides and overuse. Key word is "massage" soil and nature rather than pound it with chemicals. Want soil to be alive, tons of interesting living processes going on in the soil.

-GDP only counts cost of things we produce, not true value of them. Said Wendell Berry says GDP measures more about what's wrong than what's right. GDP not a measure of well-being.

-Mentioned Wendell Berry multiple times, midwestern poet.

-Know your farmer. If you visit a farmer at a farmer's market three times and he doesn't ask you to come visit, rule of thumb is there's a problem.

-Along same lines, local farmers can use GMOs and do not always produce grass-fed products. Have to ask if they are grain fed and use GMO.

-Costco does not accept a truck smaller than an 18-wheeler which excludes most small farmers.

-Pigs love acorns and do well on them, can live in forest easily. Plenty of biomass to feed animals all over the place, going wasted.

-Along same lines, use silviculture i.e. forestry to harvest biomass.

-"What's worth doing is worth doing poorly." In reference to starting new habits like cooking at home and buying from local farmers. Gave analogy of a toddler in a diaper trying to stand up. Even if they can't do it perfectly, it is worth doing, keeping at it. Should encourage it.

-Fundamentally a good food system has to be home-centered. Has to be based in cooking your own food.

-Great exchange when a lady raised her hand and complained that cooking at home is hard "who has 2 hours every night with kids? and that local/organic food was too expensive and about having been poor and had only pennies and was forced to eat Spaghetti-Os. Salatin did not give it second thought, he must have heard this 1000 times: "Have you every bought a 50 pound bag of oats? You can live a long time on a 50 pound bag of oats." In sum he said he doesn't believe in "I can't."

Considering that Spaghetti Os are just basically cans of flour, oats is easily a substitute, healthier because it has more fiber and much cheaper in bulk. Also mentioned a Crock Pot, how easy it is to throw stuff in and have it ready at night with minimal effort. To me, this lady simply didn't have any idea how to cook or buy food or know anything about nurtition. If it takes you at least 2 hours to cook, you don't belong in a kitchen.

-Asked if there is any country whose food system is not broken and can serve as a model. At first he said he didn't know of any but then mentioned some things below going on in other countries.

-In Zimbabwe he mentioned Allan Savory from TED Talks said they have an innovative tax system for farmers: farm taxes start out very high but you can lower them in three ways which include reducing erosion, creating more biodiversity, lowering toxicity. Each one lowers tax, if you do all three, you pay no tax. Pretty cool. Said they have a monitoring box that goes in the ground to check soil runoff and pesticide.

-Mentioned he was in mountainous New Zealand and said that while it is famous for being one of the "greenest" countries in the world, he said it was not a good example of a good food system. Said he saw heavy superphosphate use as fertilizer for sheep and dairy farms and major hillside erosion dumping phosphates into rivers.

-Mentioned that he was in the Netherlands and saw a vending machine that dispenses raw milk. I found this article:
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/03/americans-envy-europes-raw-milk-vending-machines/

-Got into politics somewhat. Emphasized that federal government needs to be shrunk while local needs to be strengthened. Mentioned Jeffersonian ideals, the Gentleman Farmer. Said that strengthening local government encourages a culture of innovation. (see Tocqueville and also the principle of subsidiarity).

-Mentioned he is half Spanish. I knew he lived in Venezuela as a kid but did not know he had Spanish heritage.

-Emphasized that there is tons of extra money around for the "extra" cost of good food.

-Emphasized all the wasted time among young people on video games, TV, and partying on Friday nights. Said if they could harness that energy could do great things.

-For young aspiring farmers, suggested finding a farmer and going to work for him, not necessarily as apprentice just doing stuff for him like digging fence posts. For some sort of relationship.

-Asked if going to college for agriculture degree was worth it, like Virginia Tech? No.

-Mentioned that many synthetics are not the same as the real thing. Example: CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) one of the key good fats in red meat. You can buy a synthetic version in the Vitamin Shoppe but it has one neutron difference from the real thing - "nobody knows the importance of that one neutron."

-Emphasized that current laws against raw milk are leftovers of the early industrial era when toxins abounded in cities, horse poop was all over the streets in major cities. Said the laws are long outdated and no reason why raw milk should not be sold among consenting adults.

-Gave example of innovative food sovereignty law in Sedgewick, Maine. 1/2 page law would allow citizens to buy and sell whatever they want, including raw milk. I found this article
http://www.naturalnews.com/039633_sedgwick_food_freedom_federal_laws.html

-Polyface does not deliver over 4 hours. Believes it is good to be local.

-Emphasized that "organic" does not mean healthy and that many unhealthy things can pass as organic.

-176 synthetics allowed in "organic" food.

-"Free range" actually just means chickens can leave cage in a small three foot space, does not mean they roam freely

-Emphasized the problem with organic labels is they are not comprehensive. Since different standards apply to each food, should not be graded on a "pass/fail" basis. Should be scored on multiple categories and sliding scales.

-New Virginia law proposed: buy food of choice from farmer of choice. 2 year process, will be on ballot in future. Citizens could sue state for denying food sovereignty.

-Emphasized that the reason food choice is not in the Bill of Rights is because it is so fundamental the Founding Fathers could not imagine not having the right to buy and sell food.

-Genetic Trespass could outlaw GMOs - meaning non GMO farmers could sue GMO farmers for having their seeds trespass into their field by wind, water, etc.

-Encourage multi-speciated, stacking, regenerative, productive, enterprising, mosaic

-Wheat normally ferments in the harvesting process as it is stored in bails bunched up. With modern harvesting, however, wheat is not stored, instantly gathered so no time to ferment. This changes its properities especially digestibility.

-Chicken manure 11 to 1 fertilizer strength vs. cow manure

-Mentioned Sweden is opening up land in north expecting warmer climate with climate change, hopes to add population and agriculture

-Values matter

-Europe has fewere GMOs

-Different GMOs are allowed for animal feed vs. feeding people


Other speakers:Biotechnology speaker gave example of a good use of GMOs, saving American chestnut trees from extinction.

Roundup phosphate has created resistance and superweeds

Glyphosate in wheat sprayed to keep from bunching up, could be link to disease. Other panelist said glyphosate breaks down quickly.

Audience member said in India cotton growers used at BT genetically modified cotton and had diseases, likely from the pesticides and fertilizers. Had a lot of cotton but not worth it.

-Hawaii - GMO papayas - getting infections

Great diagram of stages of atherosclerosis/cardiovascular disease

Great diagram of stages of atherosclerosis/cardiovascular disease.

 

 

Great page on ACTN3 Gene aka the speed gene

The ACTN3 is sometimes called the "speed gene" but really it is not the only gene involved in speed. R is the "speed" allele while X is the "endurance" allele. However, the site below makes it pretty clear that few endurance champions have this gene whereas lots of sprinting champions do.

Having said that, there have been some (though very few) Olympic power sport champions who have no working copies of the gene.

Other genes involved include the APOE gene.

Great page on ACTN3 Gene aka the speed gene
http://kohlmanngen677s13.weebly.com/

Great explanation of the function of sirtuin proteins -- the skinny gene proteins

"Sirtuin proteins (SIRTs) are created when the body recognizes a caloric deficit, they do three things we are concerned with:

1) they run around the body cleaning up old, dead cells; and the innards of cells that are sickly. They send the detritus to be burned as fuel. And, in the process of cleaning up they can make great improvements in our health.

2) they support fat burning, in fact they appear to be critical to making the body burn fat and preserve muscle

3) for some of us, they reduce feelings of hunger 

Sounds great, doesn't it? It is. The trick is that the body only generates them for a fairly short time. After an average of 40 hours, if the body is still in a calorie deficit, it stops producing SIRTs and changes over to burning fat and muscle.

By eating very low one day, we invoke the SIRTs and burn fat (and get a nice internal dusting and cleaning). By eating high the next day, we turn off the calorie deficit and prevent muscle being used for fuel. That is the magic to the rotation. 

Gradually, over time, we accumulate enough SIRTs that they hang around and keep working on UD. At that point, weight loss usually speeds up a bit...even if it does not speed up, it becomes very stable and predictable.

When we have a - ahem - body-full of SIRTs, it takes about two weeks to burn them all away. That is why going on vacation for a week or so may cause a bounce, but returning to the rotation and losing the bounce is usually very easy.

I hope that helps."
-------------------------------
Taken from this blog
http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/juddd/794318-magical-gene-what.html

about halfway down

2 ways that grains actually can be "good for you"

I hesitate to use the phrase "good for you" about foods because usually foods have both good, bad, and neutral aspects to them nutritionally that depend on *you* specifically, your body, you metabolism, your allergies, your digestion, etc. So you have to weigh all of the above.

Grains are being knocked these days for having "no nutritional value" and even for having "anti-nutrients." But actually this is not true. Grains are often compared to vegetable sources of carbs and found to lack the same variety of vitamins and phytonutrients, but they have advantages of their own. I'm certainly not advocating chowing down on grains and bread all day as the SAD diet suggests (Standard American Diet). But here are two ways that whole grains (only whole grains) help reduce heart disease:

-Whole grains (ex. brown rice, whole wheat) have something called DMG which converts to something else called TMG in the body. Straight TMG is highly-valued in nutrition and found in greens like spinach. It is a key to preventing heart disease because it breaks down destructive homocysteine that comes from eating lots of protein. Homocysteine is one of the key markers of heart disease, it literally shreds your arteries in a way analogous to tiny bits of broken glass.

-Further, phytic acid is often called an "anti-nutrient" because it strips away iron from the blood stream by chelating it (binding to it). However, if you are trying to avoid iron overload, this may be just what you need. The "anti-nutrient" label comes mostly from people thinking about iron deficiency, but there are loads of people (more guys than women) with excess iron that they need to reduce. So one man's anti-nutrient is another man's nutrient. In fact, for people with real iron overload problems, rather than giving blood frequently which has been the only solution until recently, you can simply get something called IP6 which contains phytic acid and your iron will come down extremely fast without all the fatigue of having to lose blood. (see previous post)

So whole grains definitely have their good side. Imagine if you eat a side a brown rice with a steak: the phytic acid reduces the iron form the steak, which can be good because it prevents that iron from banging around in your arteries creating nicks, while the DMG reduces the homocysteine from the steak. So it is worth noting these big benefits to grains, while remembering to eat whole grains and to eat them in moderation, according to your own personal nutritional type.

Encouragement for llama milk! How about a "milk zoo"?

In the article below the United Nations is encouraging developing countries to use more milk from underutilized (basically non-cow) sources--and there are a lot of them! I couldn't agree more; it baffles me that with all the great sources of milk we basically use one for over 99% of the market. They mention llama, donkey, yak, camel, sheep, goat, buffalo, reindeer, alpaca, moose, and mithun milk*. Great advice! That's a milk trip around the world. I would love to taste all of the above, as I currently drink about a 1/2 gallon of goat milk a day.

Here's an idea: start a "milk zoo" (or "dairy zoo") i.e. dairy farm that has as wide assortment of these animals from all over the world--and you get to hang out with the animals and buy all kinds of products made from their milk!

I visited Bolivia and Chile and one of my hopes was to drink llama or alpaca milk... but to no avail. No one seemed to know where to buy it. But it is out there, I was told it can be found more in some of the rural areas of the Altiplano like Oruro that I did not get to.

I did however get camel milk both in Dubai and Kenya. It is just recently has begun to be sold pretty commonly in major supermarkets, though in relatively small containers like pints. Vital Camel Milk is the big Kenyan brand (actually run by a German guy), they have their own little refrigerator in each location of Nakumatt the big supermarket chain in Kenya. Camel milk tastes good, it also has extra insulin in it which is good for diabetics but can also make you tired from low blood sugar. Kenya also has a big brand of goat milk products Togg's which also has their own refrigerators in Nakumatt supermarkets, with yogurt etc. http://www.toggskenya.com/

Glass of llama milk? UN agency urges greater access to non-traditional dairy products

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46594

*Had to look up mithun, apparently it's also known as the gayal and is a sort of wild ox native to Bangladesh, India, and other areas of S and SE Asia.

Every other day diet aka Alternate day fasting

This seems like a good approach in that you get long fasts and also don't have big "feast" blowout every day. I am currently trying something like the "Every other day diet" aka JUDDD diet except I don't eat "whatever you want" on the "up" or high calorie day but do eat carbs. Seems to be working. The idea is to switch on the SIRT1 gene also known as the "skinny gene." I have tried the Warrior Diet for several years on and off with a 20 hour fast and 4 hour eating window but it did not really work--and I was kind of baffled given the reasoning behind the diet. But the reason it did not work, as I am reading elsewhere, was the opposite of what I might have guessed: likley the problem was not that I fasted too long, for 20 hours, but that I did not fast long enough. The "every other day" diet has longer fasts, more along the lines of 36 hours with one small, solid meal thrown in.

Currently I am doing one day of full-on eating, then fasting all night and the next complete day except for a solid but small dinner. As the diet mentions, while you are definitely hungry, you don't want to just chow down on the eating day despite what you might think. And maybe best of all you feel like you are off the roller-coaster of constant eating and frequent meals, however "healthy" the food in those meals may be. You get off the up-down blood sugar loop, hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia, caused by excessive insulin output by too-frequent eating.

Overall the idea is that while you can't just starve yourself all week, some people may really need to stretching out fasting times longer than 20 hours to give their body the "signal" for the SIRT1 gene to kick in. In a "hard loser" like myself, that may be what it takes!

Every other day diet
http://www.eoddiet.com/
Alternate day fasting
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/08/alternate-day-fasting.aspx

Here's a good FAQ
http://juddd.livejournal.com/44295.html

Good summary of different fasting strategies

Good summary of different fasting strategies

by Mark Sisson author of the Primal Blueprint

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/why-fast-part-six-choosing-a-method/#axzz37ZHxd8FZ

ALEs - key indicator of heart disease, maybe a key to reversing it

ALEs are basically degraded fats. They are lipids that have degraded due to oxidation, hence the term Advanced Lipid Peroxidation End Products. They cause damage in the body, much like their cousins AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products).

MDA (Malondialdehyde)-modified LDL is a key ALE.

Upshot: catechins (found in certain teas) and rosemary extract have been found to reduce ALEs.

Ingestion of a tea rich in catechins leads to a reduction in body fat and malondialdehyde-modified LDL in men

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/81/1/122.abstract

Circulating malondialdehyde modified LDL is a biochemical risk marker for coronary artery disease

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1768480/


The Effects of Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) Leaves Powder on Glucose Level, Lipid Profile and Lipid Perodoxation
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=44285#.U8Pl2haWdFQ

Get into seeds

Simple way to vastly improve your diet: get into seeds.

Get hold of these three seeds and have them in your kitchen to sprinkle on just about anything:

-Chia (Omega 3)
-Pumpkin (Omega 6 & 3)
-Poppy (Omega 9)

It's better to keep chia and pumpkin seeds in the fridge because Omega 3s tend to go rancid fast unless refrigerated.

All seeds are very dense in phytonutrients, the plant nutrients that don't show up on "vitamins and minerals" lists and are most missing from the modern diet. Seeds help make you feel full so don't feel the need to eat as much, and give that crunchy feel to food. They also have hard-to-find vitamins like B17 which has been linked to curing cancer. You don't need a lot, even a sprinkle or half teaspoon makes a big difference.

In all cases, drink a lot of water with seeds because the insoluble fiber needs to soak up a lot of water to stay fluid.
Other seeds
-Sesame seeds are high in lignans and antioxidants
-Sunflower seeds are not my favorite because they are sky-high in Omega 6s which we usually get too much of anyway.

-Flax seed has special benefits for women, but otherwise for Omega 3s I would go with Chia seeds which taste way better

-Hemp seeds have many benefits including Omega 6 and 3 but for me they cause an allergic reaction, I have tried them several times

Special note: Apricot seeds/kernels are sky-high in B17 which is considered by some a cure for cancer.

Benefits
-Seeds are like little insoluble fiber bombs. Insoluble fiber can be hard to come by usually found in the skins of fruits and vegetables and in nuts. Seeds make it simple to get insoluble fiber.

-Chia seeds in particular are the best source of ALA Omega 3s (different from the Omega 3s in fish oil; ALA is the precursor to EPA and DHA in fish oil and some of the ALA from Chia will convert to EPA and DHA. You need both.)

Egg coffee

Here's a new one: throw three or four egg yolks in your coffee. Gives you around 12-15 g protein, good clean fats, and great clean cholesterol (clean cholesterol is good for you see my older post).

Primal egg coffee: the best part of waking up
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-egg-coffee/

lighter weights may = longer gap post-workout before muscle building starts

This Poliquin article toward the end makes an important hypothesis, that a lighter weight load workout may result in the onset of muscle building around 4 hours post-workout as opposed to a heavy weight load workout which triggers muscle building in just one hour.

This makes total sense with my experience. I have noticed that more endurance-oriented lifting tends not to cause the strong craving for protein right after the workout but rather down the stretch so to speak hours later.

However, my exprience is also that the "carb window" doesn't change the same way i.e. the GLUT-4 window seems to be the same time frame regardless of the load of the workout. I personally have a GLUT-4 window roughly 30-90 minutes post-workout. During those times you can eat lots of carbs. I use waxy maize, milk, cookies etc.

In any case, this article also strongly advises that *volume* is the key to muscle building, whether lifting a lighter or heavier load.

Tip 357: Train With A High Volume To Build Muscle and Get Lean For Summer

http://www.poliquingroup.com/Tips/tabid/130/EntryId/1237/Tip-357-Train-With-A-High-Volume-To-Build-Muscle-and-Get-Lean-For-Summer.aspx

No internet week

Light and screens increase dopamine.

http://www.nointernetweek.co

The protein game: how much protein do you really need?

There was a time when most of my daily protein came from endless protein bars, purchased by the boxload, and whey protein out of a tub. The main course was a footlong Subway sandwich, double meat with all the veggies--which is actually pretty healthy, except that now I'm gluten-free so can't eat at Subway anymore.

But in reality mountains of protein supplements are not necessary, for me at least. I retain lots of muscle even without all that supplemental protein. It could be genetics, because there are definitely "hard gainers" who can't hold onto muscle well. I'm the opposite, a "hard loser," who can't lost weight easily--but can keep muscle pretty well.

The biggest problem I have faced is the insulin that protein releases, which prevents you from losing any weight. (You can't lose fat while insulin is elevated). Which has brought me to experiments with Intermittent Fasting (IF), going 6-8 hours with no food. Part of the reason is that for me, just about any carbs or protein will cause an insulin rise. So zero food during longer periods is really the only way for me to keep insulin down so I can lose fat.

Often you hear that your muscles will disappear if you don't feed them protein every few hours during these fasting periods, but this article gives insights into how the body prevents that.

In particular, the section by Dr. Eades has insights into the body's "amino acid pool" that is fed by the recycling of "junk proteins" as the body cleans out cells during fasting. So the body can add amino acids to the circulating pool even when you don't eat protein.

While some say to eat a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, I have found that less, maybe 1.4 grams per pound works fine for me. The rest will just cause larger insulin spikes.

How much protein?
http://www.theiflife.com/how-much-protein-per-day-build-muscle/

Glucosepane: the key to future efforts to break up sticky AGE molecules

AGE or Advanced Glycation End Products, the sticky particles that accumulate in our bodies as a result of excess sugar, are thought to be behind a myriad of diseases and complications from heart disease to diabetes complications.

Now it is known that one AGE in particular, glucosepane, is the main AGE found in humans.

"Glucosepane is present in human tissues at levels 10 to 1000 times higher than any other cross-linking AGE, and is currently considered to be the most important cross-linking AGE."

The problem is that AGEs are difficult to remove because they are cross-linked to each other. Hence researchers are now seeking ways to break up the cross links in glucosepane.

When they do find a solution, this will be a massive breakthrough that could reverse heart disease and diabetes complications.

Iron overload/Hemochromatosis: wrecks the body but easy to fix

Iron overload/Hemochromatosis: wrecks the body but easy to fixProblem: Iron overload/HemochromotosisI have the gene for hemochromatosis which means I absorb way too much iron each time I eat iron-rich foods like red meat. This excess iron floating around in the bloodstream wreaks havoc on the body: it nicks arteries in the bloodstream leading to heart disease and also is linked to cancer along with other problems. Also, over time excess iron rusts i.e. oxidizes, which is linked to cancer, and also overloads the liver where iron is stored. Some people have extreme iron overload in which their liver is literally "full" of iron and can't hold any more so that any iron they eat just swirls around and around in the blood stream.

This is a problem that is easy to fix thanks to new discoveries. It used to be that people had to give blood in order to reduce their iron, often giving blood every month to keep from having iron overload.

Solution: IP6
But now a supplement called IP6 easily and painlessly reduces iron. Actually, the active ingredient in IP6 is phytic acid which is very commonly found in grains like brown rice, wheat, even chocolate. But with IP6 you can get the phytic acid without having to eat all the grains, and you can easily get a lot of it to quickly bring down your iron.

Improved chart of purine levels in foods for gout

This guy subtracted out certain types of purines that he says do not affect gout from the totals.

Improved chart of purine levels in foods for gout
http://www.goutpal.com/gout-diet/purine-rich-foods/

Walking benefits not to be confused with low-intensity cardio

Walking has tremendous benefits but is not to be confused with low-intensity cardio. They are very different.

Key point: If your body isn't designed for low-intensity cardio (long runs, marathons, endurance cycling, etc.), you should not simply throw out the idea of walking as if walking is just another form of endurance cardio. It is not.

Walking is walking. It is not really "cardio" at all, it's just walking--and that's OK. True "cardio" is exercise that raises your heart rate significantly. Walking does not. (unless you are "power walking" which is a different topic). Low-intensity cardio, on the other hand, is basically the long, slow running of the type that marathon runners do, what we might call slow jogging.

So yes, walking is low-intensity, but no, it is not cardio.

Walking is vital despite not being cardio
Walking has tremendous benefits but they are not really due to the raising of heart rate. The benefits of walking include a wide range:
-simply not being sedentary i.e. sitting/lying
-triggers anti-inflammatory shifts in the body
-triggers the body's "motion sensors" to sense it is on the move and hence needs to shed weight
-circulation
-highest
and the list goes on -- see Top 10 benefits of walking
http://www.sharecare.com/health/walking/article/walking-benefits

Low-intensity cardio results in problems that walking does not
Low intensity cardio...
-depletes glycogen (sugar) stores fast; walking does not
-puts a pounding on joints and feet; walking does not
-is not really an option for athletes with mostly fast-twitch muscle; they are just not built for it and their muscles will hit a wall pretty quick.

If your body is designed for marathon running, sure go for it. Those who are designed for endurance tend to have stronger tendons and simply have much more endurance muscle.

But for those who aren't, the idea is that they can still do lots of walking without getting into long running.

So should fast-twitch people do cardio?
Of course. Again, cardio is just any exercise that raises your heart rate. You you probably already do this. If you do a set of pushups and end up panting at the end, that is cardio. If you lift many sets in succession and are breathing heavily throughout, that is cardio--intense cardio.

Some people seem to be designed for high-intensity cardio, others for low-intensity cardio. That's fine, figure out what you are designed to do and do it.

But in either case, walking is still vital.

Walking *a lot* is key

Just today I was thinking ath

I personally have a sort of human odometer inside. My body senses when I am not moving i.e. sitting around all day. I have to walk literally around 4+ hours a day (ideally 5+) and be on my feet another 2 hours to feel right.

I had just had this thought, to try to walk 4 hours a day and stand another 2, then I looked up "walk four hours a day" and found an article saying the exact same thing.

Long, slow walks may beat shorter, high intensity runs
http://www.today.com/health/long-slow-walks-may-beat-shorter-higher-intensity-runs-1C8364882