Just about anytime on Saturday or Sunday is a great time to visit my gym. Very few people are there–predominantly the serious muscle-heads–so you can get time on any bench or machine you desire. I don’t know any of the other clients I saw today, but I felt at home, just quietly going about my business while they went about theirs.

Today was leg day, so I concentrated on leg presses and also did some ab work and back extensions. I watched a guy doing front-squats, somewhat enviously . . . I can’t squat with a barbell anymore because of disc issues. I could probably do dumbbell squats, but they couldn’t be very heavy. On the leg press I can heave some substantial weight without straining my lower back.

I won’t say my depressed mood has disappeared, but I do feel lighter today.

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Another day, another workout

I know that resuming my exercise program will help lift my spirits and my energy . . . but knowing that doesn’t always translate into driving over to the gym.

Today I succeeded in getting in a workout. It certainly wasn’t the most vigorous one I’ve ever had, but I worked chest and back with bench presses, pull-ups, dumbbell pullovers, Arnold presses, and dips, plus a few sets of ab work.

Near the end of my training session, I felt the lovely pump . . . and that was an encouragement.

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Back in the gym

Talk about push-ups . . . and pull-ups . . . these guys rule.

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Strong men

Shortly before my mom died July 13, I had decided to undertake the "100 push-ups" challenge that I’ve been reading about on other blogs.

Nothing is normal after a death, as you know. So although I made it to the gym a few times in the last two weeks, it was only a few times. I didn’t throw my food plan out the window entirely, but I missed a lot of meals (something that I can assure you never happens when my appetite is normal) and ate many more carbs than is usual for me.

I love carbs, and for me they’re absolutely necessary to sustain weight and cardio workouts. But typically I eat about 40 to 50 percent carbs, 30 percent protein, and 20 to 30 percent fat.

In the last couple of weeks I was probably consuming 60 to 70 percent carbs. For some reason, that’s all that appealed to me. Comfort food, maybe? Note that with a few exceptions I wasn’t eating sugar–but I couldn’t get enough bread.

In any case, yesterday I began counting calories and tracking activity again.

And then my friend Toni threw down the gauntlet on her blog, Living al Dente:

I must confess that until today I was not able to follow through with the push up challenge I wrote about a while back. Let’s just say I got distracted and we’ll leave it at that.

I decided today that I could not put it off any longer and immediately got down on the floor to see what I could accomplish. I am more than pleased to announce that I was able to do two. That is 2, people, as in more than one.

Mary, you’re on. Let’s hear how you’re doing. Can you beat that? (Yes, my body building friend, I’ll bet you can.)

And now that I’m pumped with excitement over my achievement, I will proceed to ye olde treadmill and begin my workout for the day.

When her post popped up in my RSS feed, I immediately dropped to the floor to see how many I could get. I was at work, but it was about 6 o’clock, and most people had gone home for the day. Besides, people at my workplace expect the unexpected to occur in my office.

Was it wrong of me to brag a little in my response to Toni’s post?

Probably so. Here’s some of what I said in response, in a comment on her blog:

My tally also begins with the number 2.

But it ends in zero.

Yup, I got 20. Full-length push-ups, of course–not the weenie kind.

It just about killed me, but I did it.

Toni, hope you have a nice day.

Mary

I should add that I was able to get 20 only because I’ve recently been bench-pressing in earnest. And it will take extreme effort to get to 100. But I have begun.

Now I guess I’d better read the training program and see where I need to go from here.

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One hundred push-ups

It’s been two weeks and two days since my mom died suddenly–two weeks and two days since I posted.

As you might expect, life has not been normal. I took a week off from work and spent most of it sleeping. Just one of many ways to deal with grief and shock.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom. She was 78 years old when she died, and for most of her life she was a vibrant, curious, creative, active person. When my dad died four years ago, she had already started physically to go downhill. She’d had spinal stenosis for years but was afraid to have surgery. The result was numbness and tingling in her hands and feet that made it difficult to do the cooking, needlecrafts, long walks, and stationary biking she had formerly enjoyed.

She had a knee replaced a year after my dad died, and although the surgery was necessary because the joint was causing extreme pain, she didn’t respond especially well. Once the officially prescribed regimen of physical therapy had ended, she just stopped moving. When we went out to restaurants, she insisted on using her wheelchair rather than her walker. She spent each day in her room, reading, not even coming down the hall to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

I’ve read enough about inactivity to know what bed rest does to muscles and bones. It isn’t pretty. The less you move, the more you lose, and the sad result is that even standing up and walking across the room become difficult. The falls that plague seniors are one obvious consequence of the loss of muscular strength and sense of balance.

I don’t write this to dis my mom, whom I loved and still love. I suppose I am trying to galvanize myself to make sure I don’t let this happen to myself, my husband, and others I love.

Yesterday I visited the Apple store in a local mall and on the way saw an elderly man obviously walking for exercise. His pace was somewhat slow, and his posture was bent. But he was out there, doing the necessary. Sir, whoever you are, please keep on walking.

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Please stay active–the alternative is grim

About midday I got the sad and completely unexpected news that my mother had died in her sleep this morning.

The family is busy making arrangements, and I’m feeling very woolly-minded as the grief kicks in.

I’ll be back–but will take a little hiatus from posting.

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A brief hiatus

Don’t you love it when your views are vindicated by an objective third party?

I’m feeling smugly content because sciencedaily.com (love that site–because I’m all about scientific verification) posted a report today confirming that people who keep track of their food intake lose twice as much "weight" than those who don’t. (By "weight," I’m presuming the researchers mean "fat." That’s the only weight we want to lose.)

Here’s the blurb:

ScienceDaily (2008-07-08) — Study of nearly 1,700 participants shows that keeping a food diary can double a person’s weight loss. The study found that the best predictors of weight loss were how frequently food diaries were kept and how many support sessions the participants attended. Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records.

This sounds like quite a well-crafted study. I recommend you read the full article.

The scientific report will be published in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

I suspect the full report will mention that we humans are notoriously bad at 1. remembering what we’ve eaten, 2. estimating proper portion size, and 3. estimating the number of calories in a given portion.

People have a tremendous amount of resistance to the idea of keeping a food journal and/or counting calories. I hope that research like this will help overcome that resistance. I strongly recommend counting calories and keeping a food and activity journal–because these are strategies that really, truly work.

So here’s my challenge for you: are you getting the results you want from your nutrition program? If the answer is no, are you counting calories/keeping a journal? Are you willing to give it a try and see improved results?

You can make it easy on yourself by keeping track with a google or zoho spreadsheet.

Talk to me. What’s your experience?

Leave a comment if you’d like me to e-mail information on getting started with google and zoho spreadsheets. Both are free services.

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Why you must keep a food journal

Arnold once famously said that the pump–that lovely sensation caused when the muscles you’ve been training are engorged with blood–was better than a certain activity that begins with S and ends with X.

That was classic Arnold–hyperbole, for sure, but great publicity.

Yes, I know that achieving a pump has little or nothing to do with whether a particular workout has helped to advance one’s strength or fitness. We don’t train in order to feel a pump. But the pump is not insignificant because it is an intrinsic reward of the workout. We’re more likely to continue activities that make us feel good. This is just one of the ways that training enhances life.

But why does the pump feel so good? Does it spur the release of endorphins, maybe?

All I know, since I haven’t done the research yet, is that it feels wonderful. And when I descend the stairs at the gym and head for the bench (and the pull-up machine and the dumbbells and so on), more often than not, I have a smile on my face.

What do you think? What does the pump do for you?

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Why does a muscle pump feel so good?

If you like keeping up with research on nutrition and fitness, you’ll appreciate ScienceDaily. I subscribe via my RSS feed so I don’t miss anything posted to SD’s Health & Medicine section.

Here’s a blurb for an article published today:

ScienceDaily (2008-07-02)–The nationally known commercial weight loss program, Weight Watchers, was compared to gym membership programs to find out which method wins in the game of good health. Researchers examined the real-life experiences of participants to determine which program helps people lose pounds, reduce body fat and gain health benefits.

OK, I’m in. So I read the article . . . 

And paragraphs two and three are enough to make my blood run cold:

Participants who attended Weight Watchers for 12 weeks lost an average of 5 percent of their body weight, or about nine pounds. However, Steve Ball, assistant professor of exercise physiology in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences, found that a large percentage of the lost weight was lean tissue and not fat.

“Participants’ body fat percentage did not improve at all because they lost a much higher percentage than expected of lean tissue,” [emphasis added] said Ball, MU Extension state fitness specialist. “It is advantageous to keep lean tissue because it is correlated with higher metabolism. Losing lean tissue often slows metabolism. What your body is made of is more important than what you weigh.”

You tell ‘em, Steve Ball.

Our quest is not to lose weight but fat. People who lose muscle during the course of a diet may weigh less–but they’re actually becoming fatter.

The article goes on to describe two more significant findings:

• those who began working out in a gym shed intra-abdominal fat (the dangerous lard that surrounds internal organs) but didn’t lose much scale weight, and
• many of those who began a gym program ended up dropping out.

This second finding is especially unsurprising. The percentage of people who stick to a fitness program is notoriously low. (More about this later.)

My recommendations:

• When reducing calories, go for a modest deficit–15 to 20 percent of total intake. You’re much more likely to preserve muscle mass.
• Work out with weights three times a week, and eat plenty of protein (25 to 30 percent of caloric intake). The combination will reshape your body, burn calories, and preserve your lean tissue.

If you only reduce calories, you’re likely to lose muscle. If you only work out, you’ll become fitter and better-looking but not lose a significant amount of fat. You need both for the results you want.

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Weight Watchers or the gym?

It’s curious that after about a thousand years’ worth of “myth-busting” articles that proclaim there is no spot-reducing, people still believe that the way to eliminate, say, stomach flab, is to do crunches out the wazoo. Within the last week, two friends have asked me whether doing X (exercise that targets a specific muscle group) would accomplish Y (reduce fat atop that area of the body).

Nope, sorry. It would be nice to think so.

Here’s the way it goes. When you create a calorie deficit–through exercising or eating less or both–stored fat is burned. But you can’t control the source of that fat–its location on your body. If you spend 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer and torch several hundred calories, the muscles of your lower body certainly benefit. But the fat you burn may be from your stomach or upper body or even your face.

The areas where we store fat are determined by our genetics and also our gender. Generally, as you’ve noticed, men store fat at the waistline. Women tend to store it on the butt and thighs, although individuals vary.

Here’s exercise physiologist Dr. Cedric Bryant’s summary (from the American Council on Exercise website) of a couple of studies conducted to examine the concept of spot reducing:

In one study, for example, the circumferences and fat deposits in the arms of high-level tennis players were compared. The investigators proposed that if spot reduction worked, the playing arm of a tennis player should have considerably less fat than the inactive arm. This prediction, however, was not the case. Despite the fact that circumference measures in the playing arms of the athletes were greater due to more muscular development, skinfold thickness measures revealed no difference in fat deposition between the two arms.

Arguably the most compelling evidence refuting the myth of spot reduction comes from a study conducted at the University of Massachusetts in the mid-1980s. In this investigation, 13 male subjects participated in a vigorous abdominal exercise training program for 27 days. Each participant in the study was required to perform a total of 5,000 sit-ups over the course of the research project. Fat biopsies were obtained from the subjects’ abdomens, buttocks and upper backs before and after the exercise program. Contrary to what spot-reducing proponents would have you believe, the results of the study revealed that fat decreased similarly at all three sites—not just in the abdominal region. These findings may help explain one reason why spot reducing sometimes appears to work. If the caloric expenditure is sufficient enough, it will cause fat from the entire body to be reduced, including a particular target area. Although fat is lost or gained throughout the entire body, it appears that the last areas to become lean tend to be those areas where an individual tends to gain fat first. In most men (and some women), the abdominal region is the most difficult area to trim, while the hips, buttocks and thighs tend to be the trouble spots for most women (and some men).

So how do you get rid of that fat on your waistline, upper arms, or around the knees? Keep working out; stick with your reduced-calorie food plan. As your body fat drops, all of your fat deposits will shrink, although genetics determine which problem areas will be the last to go.

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Will kick-backs get rid of my upper-arm flab?