Sports Nutrition
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Tapering for Nationals: a Metaphor for Life

Photo: An easy recovery hike during my ten day taper for the 2025 National Senior Games cycling championships. Hyland Park, Minnesota, July 2025 It is Sunday morning 7:30 am. The sun is partially obscured by mist, the morning air cool—thick with the smell of lush growth and humidity—Minnesota late July. No one is on the…
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Fasting: Critical for Weight Loss

Photo: Pronghorn Peak from Bonneville Pass 5 days into an 8 day through hike in the Wind River Range, WY. At age 65 made possible by strength training, interval training and intermittent fasting. Mark was frustrated. He was out of shape, thirty pounds overweight and pre-diabetic. He came to me for strength training and help…
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Keeping it Simple: Nutritional Supplements

Featured Photo: The author keeping it simple: no motor, no gas flying his paraglider a mile above the fields of Western Minnesota. The fifty plus year old man standing in front of us demands attention. We listen spellbound. With square jaw, close cropped grey hair, and bright eyes he is preaching the benefits of nutritional…
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Fat for Fuel

Photo: The ultimate fat burn—nine days, eighty miles off-trail alpine hiking. Bonneville Pass with Pronghorn Peak, Wind River Range, Wyoming 2017. Slipping off my pack, I slumped to the alpine tundra back resting against a granite boulder… exhausted. It was late afternoon, the sun tracking low in the sky above the mountain ridge to the…
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Gaining Fitness, Losing Weight and Slowing Aging with Interval Training

Photo: Doing what I love to do at age 65. Deep in the Escalante Grand Staircase wilderness, Utah; on a eight day, eighty mile off-trail through hike. May 2019. Photo Credit Paul Gardner In my previous What I Learned newsletter, https://crooked-thumb.com/2021/04/07/interval-training-live-longer-live-healthier/ I defined interval training, how it works and the benefits of incorporating interval training…
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Get Lean and Stay Lean: 7 Strategies for Losing Weight

Photo: Steve skiing untracked powder on Mavericks, a 3000 foot vertical backcountry ski run in Grand Teton National Park, January 30, 2021. Credit: Jack Henley Why is it so hard to lose weight? This is the subject of my previous What I learned newsletter article, https://crooked-thumb.com/2021/01/19/body-set-weight-why-its-so-hard-to-lose-weight/. As I wrote in that article, the brain sets…