TMA Stances compared with snapshots from MMA

[Buka]

And stay away from cigars, you kids.

 

[JowGaWolf]

The article doesn't say sugar was uncommon in the diet before the 1600s, it says almost two thousand years prior, sugar (and of course candy) was already a Silk Road mainstay. Sugar candies were common in China a long time ago.

Candy back then is not the same as the candy that we have today. Candy back then had far less sugar than modern sugar, and was mostly made of natural sugars such as honey. Natural Sugar is more healthier for you than refined sugar. For example, you can eat honey and use honey to treat wounds. Even to this day I will use unfiltered honey on certain cuts and wounds to help speed up healing and to keep it from getting infected. The same can not be done with refined sugar. Honey (unfiltered honey) also doesn't come with the same health risks as sugar and it also doesn't give you the energy crash that refined Sugar does. The reason I mention unfiltered honey because even today's honey is refined to make it sweeter. There is a huge difference between the two.

Another example is chocolate. Pure chocolate is sweet, but not like modern chocolate, far from it. Pure chocolate is also healthier as well and is actually good with managing blood sugar and the heart. It's a candy. Candies and Sweets like this would have been normal during the days before refined sugar became affordable. It's sugar, but it's not refined sugar. There are many plants that naturally have sugar in them, but again this is not the harmful sugar. Unrefined Cane Sugar is sweet, but it's far less sugar than refined sugar and has none of the negative effects that refined sugar has.

Here is an example of Ancient Egyptian Candy "some experts give the ancient Egyptians credit for inventing candy. The ancient Egyptians used honey to make candy by combining it with nuts, figs, dates, and spices. They used these candies as part of early religious services." source: When Was Candy Invented?

Same source as above "Other ancient civilizations, including the ancient Romans, Greeks, and Chinese, also enjoyed candies. In addition to honey, these civilizations used barley sugar mixed with sesame seeds, fruits, and other ingredients."

so when you talk about ancient candied you have to put it into the context of what they considered as candy and not place it as an equal of what we consider candy today.

Refined sugar is the "Bad Sugar." Sugar in the 1600's would be the period around the industrialization of Sugar (refined sugar). The first candy cane was said to be made in 1670 which is right around the time of the industrialization of refined sugar.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Refined sugar is not the only unhealthy sugar. All sugars can be damaging when consumed in unhealthy quantities or at the wrong times, such as before or after training.

You would have to eat enormous amounts of a natural food to get the same negative effects from refined sugar. Eating an apple is not the same sugar as refined sugar. This is way dietitians tell you to eat a lot of fruit but they don't say eat a lot of refined sugar.

Our body processes natural sugars differently than it does refined sugar. Refined sugar is 100% sugar. It's sugar concentrate. The natural sugar in foods is not sugar concentrate.

If you don't believe that, try eating nothing but watermelon or cotton candy grapes. It's healthier, but not by much.

The fact that your example requires that I ONLY EAT WATERMELON OR COTTON CANDY GRAPES. Proves my point of just how much you would have to eat in order to create the negative effects of refined sugar. Because of the high water content of these foods, you'll most likely have diarrhea before you even get to "ONLY EAT WATERMELON"
Here's the nutritional value of watermelon "Watermelons are mostly water — about 92 percent — but this refreshing fruit is soaked with nutrients. Each juicy bite has significant levels of vitamins A, B6 and C, lots of lycopene, antioxidants and amino acids." ,,"Lycopene has been linked with heart health, bone health and prostate cancer prevention."Source: Watermelon: Health Benefits, Risks & Nutrition Facts | Live Science

Watermelon has anti-inflammatory properties.

Here are the some of the risks to eating watermelon from the same source as above "The consumption of more than 30 mg of lycopene daily could potentially cause nausea, diarrhea, indigestion and bloating, according to the American Cancer Society." Which support my claim that you'll probably get diarrhea before you can "ONLY EAT WATERMELON" You can eat half of one and you'll most likely spend the rest of the day on the Toilet. Thanks to all of the water and fiber. A average cereal bowl is all that my stomach can take so to me "ONLY EAT WATERMELON" proves nothing to me in terms of sugar.

"How the body metabolizes the sugar in fruit and milk differs from how it metabolizes the refined sugar added to processed foods. The body breaks down refined sugar rapidly, causing insulin and blood sugar levels to skyrocket." Source:Cancer Treatment Centers of America

 

[JowGaWolf]

So I'm just intensely curious, one Jow Ga student to another, how it came to be that you questioned their existence.

The only thing I question is a diet specifically for Stances.

Athletes and Soilders have always had a dietary requirements that's different from the average person. There's nothing new about that. But there's no "jump higher diet" or "punch harder diet".

 

[JowGaWolf]

I hold to my point: sugar was rare until historically recently, and kung fu masters of thousands of years ago, would not have had a high sugar diet to recognize its detrimental effects.

My research showed that.

1. Natural Sugar was the norm in the diet during those times
2. Refined sugar was only for the rich it was not easily accessible to the poor
3. Candy back then is not the same as the candy that we eat. Modern candy didn't come about until after the industrialization of sugar refinement in the mid 1600's
4. It was so rare in Europe in the middle ages that a 6 pound bag of refined sugar represented all of the Sugar in Europe.
5. Even after the refinement of Sugar Many Chinese still used natural sugar like honey and sugar cane. My guess is that it wasn't by choice, they just couldn't afford the refined sugar.

I didn't bother to try to research Kung Fu and Sugar because many kung fu practioners wouldn't be able to afford it. So from that perspective they wouldn't be eating it, not because they knew it was bad for them, but because they couldn't afford it. We can't eat what we don't have access to.

 

[Oily Dragon]

You did say that they knew about the bad effects of a high sugar diet thousands of years ago, not centuries ago. You did say centuries later in that same sentence. I’ve posted and bolded and underlined the appropriate portion.

Yes, "they" did.

The article that you posted to stated that throughout the Middle Ages sugar was a rare and expensive spice, and not a mainstay in the diet.

In the European sense, maybe. Not worldwide. They conquered nations to steal other nations' sugar. Sad, but true.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I just realized you stated the same thing again in this recent post. Once again I’ve bolded and underlined the relevant portion. You state that kung fu masters knew this thousands of years ago.

No, you are just misreading what I typed, a second time.

If you need me to hold your hand, just ask, but I clearly said that hundreds of years ago, kung fu masters knew of thousand year old dietary concerns, especially when it comes to stancework in kung fu.

A lot of this material is part and parcel of Chinese kung fu medicine, at a basic level no less.

 

[Oily Dragon]

You would have to eat enormous amounts of a natural food to get the same negative effects from refined sugar.

According to whom? Blood sugar is blood sugar, Jow Ga.

I can't wait until we get past the proper nutrition for Jow Ga Kuen stancework.

I have Jow Lung's entire story and even people like Ron Wheeler behind me.

 

[Oily Dragon]

The only thing I question is a diet specifically for Stances.

Athletes and Soilders have always had a dietary requirements that's different from the average person. There's nothing new about that. But there's no "jump higher diet" or "punch harder diet".

There is a specific diet, in southern China, for southern Chinese kung fu training and most especially stancework. It involves avoiding a lot of sugars and other inflammatory things.

Here I am talking about stance health and you're all jump and punch!

 

[Flying Crane]

No, you are just misreading what I typed, a second time.

If you need me to hold your hand, just ask, but I clearly said that hundreds of years ago, kung fu masters knew of thousand year old dietary concerns, especially when it comes to stancework in kung fu.

A lot of this material is part and parcel of Chinese kung fu medicine, at a basic level no less.

Ok, I can accept that, now that you have taken the opportunity to clarify your message. I can agree that your statement was unclear as to your message. Now that I understand your intended message, I will say that I am doubtful. Once again, I do not buy the notion that there was so much sugar, refined or otherwise, in anybody’s diet thousands of years ago, to be able to specifically evaluate its negative effects. Understanding that you are saying that the kung fu masters of centuries ago were looking at records from thousands of years ago.

But if you can point to some academic articles in archaeology or nutritional history, or authenticated documents from Chinese history for example, I would be interested in taking a look.

 

[Flying Crane]

There is a specific diet, in southern China, for southern Chinese kung fu training and most especially stancework. It involves avoiding a lot of sugars and other inflammatory things.

Here I am talking about stance health and you're all jump and punch!

There may be people who hold the belief that the specific diet of the people who developed a physical skillset is the proper diet for anyone who wishes to practice that skillset. I find that position to be unsupportable.

There are many diets from every culture around the globe that are high quality diets and are appropriate for physical and athletic endeavors of any kind. These diets typically include lots of vegetables, fruits, limited meat especially red meat, limited carbs and sweets/refined sugars. And we can acknowledge that there are lots of low quality food items including highly processed foods, candy, etc., things that ought to be avoided in the diet. None of that is a mystery.

I don’t need to eat a specific Chinese or Cantonese diet to maximize my kung fu training.

 

[Buka]

Last night's training diet -


Northern Italian Peasant Shrimp and pasta for punching...


And Eggplant Parm....just for kicks.

 

[Steve]

Last night's training diet -

View attachment 23018
Northern Italian Peasant Shrimp and pasta for punching...

View attachment 23019
And Eggplant Parm....just for kicks.

Yum.

 

[JowGaWolf]

According to whom? Blood sugar is blood sugar, Jow Ga.

Do the math.
Every 100 grams (half a cup. With a cup being single serving size) of watermelon contains approximately 7 grams of sugar. or 1.68 teaspoons of sugar
If I eat same weight 100 grams of refined sugar then I would be consuming 24 teaspoons of sugar

In order for me to get the same amount of sugar as 100 grams of refined sugar, I would have to eat 1290 grams of watermelon. Which is significantly larger than 100 grams of sugar. Lets say I double my helping of water melon and eat 200 grams. Which means I'm eating 3.36 teaspoons of natural sugar. Now let me double the refined sugar to 200 grams which means that I would then be consuming 48 teaspoons of refined sugar.

Lets say I'm just freaking greedy and eat 4 cups of watermelon. Which puts me at 800 grams of natural sugar (13.44 teaspoons of natural sugar). Now lets look at 800 grams of refined sugar which is the same as consuming (192 teaspoons of refine sugar)

 

[JowGaWolf]

I can't wait until we get past the proper nutrition for Jow Ga Kuen stancework.

I have Jow Lung's entire story and even people like Ron Wheeler behind me.

I just did the watermelon math. So I guess I have science behind me in terms of watermelon.

 

[JowGaWolf]

There is a specific diet, in southern China, for southern Chinese kung fu training and most especially stancework. It involves avoiding a lot of sugars and other inflammatory things.

The thing that we are trying to get you to understand is that people in the past were getting far less sugar than they are now and it wasn't by choice. It was because of scarcity and the fact that Sugar was expensive. Refined sugar doesn't have the same effects on the body as natural sugar. Natural sugar absorbs into the body and blood more slowly. Refined sugar is like concentrated sugar so you are getting more sugar per teaspoon than you would with natural sugar. Refined sugar also goes directly into the blood stream and causes trouble. These are things that you cannot possible understand unless you had to be ability to measure blood sugar. Testing of blood sugar didn't occur until mid 1800's and it was done by doctors. The first commercialized blood sugar test was in 1908. So doctors weren't able to test blood sugar levels before 1900. Blood glucose testing didn't come until 1970

 

[JowGaWolf]

But if you can point to some academic articles in archaeology or nutritional history, or authenticated documents from Chinese history for example, I would be interested in taking a look.

We shall see what comes of this request. I research the dietary data of what was eaten around that time and when it came to refined sugar, It was always the same for every culture around the globe. Refined sugar was expensive and only the wealthy could afford it and it wasn't until refined sugar was industrialized that it became more affordable. I have yet to see anything other than this. From historians, to dieticians , to nutritionists, and to doctors.

Straight from UCLA. "When sugar was first used in ancient Greece and Rome it was regarded mainly as a medicine, but it was used in food by the very rich. Venice in the 10th century started building its fortunes by importing sugar along with spices and silks from the Orient. The Arabs introduced crystallized sugar as qandi (which gives us our word candy) and various products of sugar such as syrups and caramel. Apothecaries made pleasing medicines with imaginative use of these products. By the 16th century, there was an increasing availability of sugar from ports in the New World as well as Asia, and it became familiar in the diet, especially as a sweetener of the new spices, coffee and chocolate, and subsequently tea." Source: Medicinal Spices Exhibit - UCLA Biomedical Library: History & Special Collections

Diabetes seems to have been known of for thousands of years, in which it was referred to the Greeks as "honey urine" because the ants were attracted to it. They understood that "honey urine" was a bad sign that could lead to death but they didn't know what was the cause of it. Now keep in mind all of this is just sugar and not "The effects of sugar on the joints" And even with "honey urine"

The closest you are going to get with an association of stance training and Joint vs Sugar is that Sugar was also used as a medicine thousands of years ago. Then one day a doctor tried to treat arthritis with a refined sugar drink and learned by observing the patient that the Sugar didn't improve the Arthritis but made it worse. But even in this scenario it is still not the same as understanding dietary sugar as Oily Dragon has stated. At best the doctor would guess that sugar makes arthritis joint pain worse only after seeing an patient suffer more after drinking a drink of refined sugar. It would be impossible to get avoid sugar because it's found in all plants. beets, onions, green peas, squash, carrots, mushrooms, etc. all have sugar. Would the doctor have prohibited this as well? But if you make a drink out of refined sugar and tried to use it as medicine then that's the only possible route. This is the only way that seem realistic, and not that everyone was eating too much sugar.

The founder of Jow Ga Kung Fu was born in 1891. Hung Ga Kung Fu was created some where in the 1600 - 1700. The industrialization of refined sugar started in the 1600's which would have made refined sugar more available. So at the most we are looking at 200 years (1600 to 1800 when blood glucose was discovered) and not thousands of years. While Chinese medicine got some things right, They got a lot of things wrong. Starting with Arsenic and Mercury to prolong life. Which doctors in the middle ages knew that arsenic was deadly, so sugar was going to be best guess easily.

Thousands of years ago doctors who treated the rich probably had a lot of patients who had diseased related to them eating to much of a lot of stuff.

 

[JowGaWolf]

There are many diets from every culture around the globe that are high quality diets and are appropriate for physical and athletic endeavors of any kind.

This is actually recorded in history. It wasn't based on joint pain. It was based on creating the best athlete and best soldier. They would know of foods that increase energy as well as foods that would make a person sluggish. I'll use myself as an example, before I got into nutrition.

When I was 14 I already knew about the sugar crash and experienced it first hand. It was no secret. Parents knew of it and spoke of it. When I was in high school running cross country I thought I could beat the sugar crash that some with eating refined sugars. One day we were traveling to a race and on the way to the race I ate a lot of candy, thinking that I would be able to beat the sugar crash. By the time we arrived to the race I was well into my sugar crash, I felt sluggish and had poor performance. That's what I experienced first hand. Since then, I never ate candy on the day of a race or game (played multiple sports) I also never at candy before working out because of what I experienced. Stuff like that isn't going to require any sort of wisdom to know what messed you up. 2 or 3 times at the most before someone figures that the sugar was cause. Being that kung fu is active and kung fu training is active, they would have easily discovered this. No secret there.

Now the same highschool. My cross country coach used to fill us up on carbohydrates the night before, light lunch, and if anyone had the munches a few hours before the race we were told to eat an orange, which also has sugar but doesn't cause a sugar crash.

Running Hack: Why You Should Eat an Orange Before Running
Source: Running Hack: Why You Should Eat an Orange Before Running

 

[Oily Dragon]

There may be people who hold the belief that the specific diet of the people who developed a physical skillset is the proper diet for anyone who wishes to practice that skillset. I find that position to be unsupportable.

There are many diets from every culture around the globe that are high quality diets and are appropriate for physical and athletic endeavors of any kind. These diets typically include lots of vegetables, fruits, limited meat especially red meat, limited carbs and sweets/refined sugars. And we can acknowledge that there are lots of low quality food items including highly processed foods, candy, etc., things that ought to be avoided in the diet. None of that is a mystery.

I don’t need to eat a specific Chinese or Cantonese diet to maximize my kung fu training.

Or as the Chinese call it, "food". And yes, you do.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say a low sugar, low carb Paleolithic diet rich in fish oils and dark green plants, low in inflammatory chemicals and especially sweets, are important for the most strenuous physical endeavor known to man (surviving the Paleolithic age, especially in central Asia), is superior to most diets, especially vegetarian diets.

The Shaolin monks themselves weren't even strict vegetarians, that's a huge myth.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Do the math.
Every 100 grams (half a cup. With a cup being single serving size) of watermelon contains approximately 7 grams of sugar. or 1.68 teaspoons of sugar
If I eat same weight 100 grams of refined sugar then I would be consuming 24 teaspoons of sugar

In order for me to get the same amount of sugar as 100 grams of refined sugar, I would have to eat 1290 grams of watermelon. Which is significantly larger than 100 grams of sugar. Lets say I double my helping of water melon and eat 200 grams. Which means I'm eating 3.36 teaspoons of natural sugar. Now let me double the refined sugar to 200 grams which means that I would then be consuming 48 teaspoons of refined sugar.

Lets say I'm just freaking greedy and eat 4 cups of watermelon. Which puts me at 800 grams of natural sugar (13.44 teaspoons of natural sugar). Now lets look at 800 grams of refined sugar which is the same as consuming (192 teaspoons of refine sugar)

A single watermelon is about 10 kilograms.

Who here hasn't eaten and entire watermelon all by themselves?

Maybe I'm preaching kung fu science to the wrong crowd.