Fit Communications

For anyone who’s interested, here’s a fairly detailed Arthritis Foundation article about COX-2 inhibitors and heart health.

I’m discovering that I need more fat in my diet.

I didn’t set out to do super-low-fat because I don’t believe that’s necessary or healthful. A reasonable goal would be 30 percent calories from fat, but I haven’t been getting that because I haven’t been eating much meat or much in the way of peanut butter, cheese, or eggs. Also, because I get in a rush, I’ve been tending to grab fruit rather than spend the time to make salad–and thus I haven’t been getting my olive oil either.

20 years ago when I had a brief fling with bodybuilding competition, most people thought the best way to drop fat pre-contest was to eat as close to zero fat as possible. That’s what I did–and I felt like I was starving all day long, although I was also eating literally all day long. The weight came off, but I was miserable.

These days I’m finding that my small, lowfat meals aren’t holding me very long. (After eating, say, 250 to 300 calories of something like soup and pita bread or oatmeal and yogurt, I’m ravenous again in 90 minutes.) So I’ve got to start eating more cottage cheese, eggs, olive oil, nuts, and meat.

I probably also need more protein for satiety. I haven’t been trying to reduce my protein intake (that would be dumb, as I’m lifting weights three times a week), but my new focus on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains has in effect reduced my protein consmption.

So I’ll make these tweaks to my reduced-calorie regimen and see what happens. Today is a maintenance day. What joy.

Let us begin with the penultimate stanza from "Jabberwocky":

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

Today I have cause for celebration, having met my three-month fat-loss goal (to lose six pounds of unsightly blubber, taking me to 140 pounds) one week early. Woo-hoo!

Jumped on the scale before the dog walk this morning and saw the numbers 139.8.

Met my friend at the gym at 8 a.m. to work legs and do cardio and was buoyed up by having met the goal. Celebrated later by buying two pairs of size 8 jeans. They’ll probably be a fraction tight for a little while, but the 10s are getting way baggy.

My planned splurge, though, is to choose something from the Nike catalog–something I normally wouldn’t buy because I’m allergic to Nike’s prices.

Now it’s time to set the next three-month goal. I will probably be more ambitious this time–now that I’ve figured out I need to count calories to stay on track.

10 pounds perhaps? 130 pounds (while maintaining lean body mass of 108-109) by, say, May 20? Exciting. Scary.

Yesterday was chest, back, and shoulder day again. I’m enjoying benching with 95 and got two sets of five plus one assisted rep per set.

I probably scared the crap out of my workout partner in the process. I was completing rep number five on the second set–albeit rather slowly–and I guess she thought I was in trouble. Her hands touched the bar, and I said "no!" Much louder than I meant to. I was in one of those intense moods and very psyched up.

Afterward I thanked her for being observant and wanting to help and clarified how she’ll know when I actually want a spot. It makes sense for us to explain to our spotter before the fact exactly what we hope to accomplish–how many reps, how she’ll know if we’re in trouble, what we’ll say if we’re in trouble and she hasn’t realized it.

Made me think about the philosophical differences inherent to our respective backgrounds. My partner is a former occupational therapist who is used to helping people with extreme limitations. Obviously the goal there is not to push clients to maximal efforts but to help them get closer to normal efforts without causing injury.

A lifter’s perspective is different. If you’re going for a maximal effort, you psych up, narrow your focus, and think only of tearing the roof off the sucker (or whatever metaphor you like). The last thing you want is not to reach your maximal effort, not to know where your limitations are. Unless you’re about to crash and burn, the last thing you want is for someone to help you, in other words.

Speaking of joint pain, I’m gonna be in a world of trouble if the FDA takes all the COX-2 inhibitors off the market. My (relatively low) daily dose of Celebrex makes all the difference between having an occasional tiny twinge in my extremely arthritic right ankle  and a constant, nagging pain that makes me limp.

Pain-free Mary on Celebrex lifts weights, walks dogs, uses the treadmill, and works like hell on the elliptical trainer. Mary without Celebrex . . . well, I don’t like thinking about it.

Here’s a Reuters article published on MSNBC.com this evening:

U.S. may pull painkillers, researchers say
Doctors who led three studies showing prescription painkillers called COX-2 inhibitors raise the risk of heart attacks and stroke said the whole class of drugs was in danger of being pulled from the market.

One of the sources quoted in the article praises acetaminophen as a good and safe drug. Sure. And for me, it may as well be a placebo.

Maybe it’s time for me to reconsider plain old aspirin.

When I first started lifting weights seriously in 1983, one of the things I noticed was how good my body felt. I remember telling someone I felt like I was "walking around on springs." I’ve started feeling that way again, nine months back into my regular appointments with the iron.

I don’t do as many sets as I used to, and I’m less wacked out if I end up altering my workout plan because time is short or I have pain somewhere or I just feel like doing something different. The main thing is just showing up and lifting. And my muscles have that great springy feeling again.

These days I have occasional joint problems to cope with, and it’s weird when I have a morning on which my lower back aches like a son of a gun (largely because I haven’t been doing my flexibility work) but the rest of me feels like a million bucks.

Joints or no joints, I feel about 10 years younger now than when I started back into the gym. Can’t remember who said it or where I read it–but someone made the statement that weight-training is the fountain of youth. It’s certainly the fountain of energy–and of firmness.

Received the latest issue of Muscle & Fitness Hers yesterday in the mail but couldn’t read it because I had my regular send-the-newspaper-to-press deadline to cope with first. Started reading it today while doing my time on the ellliptical trainer and was very impressed by the one-page bio I read of a 46-year-old complete fox who just took a silver medal in some worldwide kickboxing competition. She looked gorgeous and is obviously extremely fit. It’s great to see 40-plus muscular women.

Here’s one good thing about incorporating an occasional (say, once a week) cheat *meal* or a rare (say, once a month) cheat *day* into your fat-loss eating plan: it demonstrates unequivocally that eating unhealthy, fatty, refined foods isn’t as fabulous as you thought it was.

During the restricted-calorie diet, you begin to long for the fleshpots of Egypt. You remember the Burger King Whopper, the Mellow Mushroom pizza, the homemade chocolate cake. But what happens when you eat them now? Number one, they never taste as good as you remember them. Number two, they cause a stomach-ache or acid indigestion or a headache. Gee–d’ya suppose they’re really not very good for me and somehow my body can tell?

Yesterday was a designated cheat day for me. The funny part is that a few years ago I would’ve said it represented a normal day’s consumption. (I guess that’s how I managed to add 30 pounds of fat to my frame over a five-year period.) Okay, so tossing down the little meatballs was fun during the reception, and the little cheesecake square was just the right size to remind me what sweets are.

Today it feels both comfortable and desirable to return to "clean" eating. If today I should come across any cheesecake squares, I would behave as Pippin said he would after his encounter with the palantir and put both my hands in my pockets.

Here’s a curious piece from MSNBC.com’s health section:

Couch potato contentment
Americans know exercise is good for their health. Yet many are overweight, out-of-shape couch potatoes–and that seems to be just fine with a lot of them, suggests a new nationwide fitness survey.

The article summarized a study by the International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association, a trade association. The reporter also interviewed Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise:

“We’re just passively sitting back and letting this inactive lifestyle become the accepted way,” he says.

Part
of the problem, according to [sic] Bryant, is that Americans view physical
activity as an "event"–one game of tennis or one trip to the gym–rather than "the manner in which one lives."

I think that’s an astute observation. People think of dieting (short-term dietary modification) rather than making permanent improvements in their eating habits; they think of working out as a means to fit into a smaller dress for a high-school reunion rather than a lifelong pursuit. Working toward short-term goals is great and highly motivating–but the lifestyle changes have to be permanent.

Very brief post: I’m closing in on my three-month goal, set just before Thanksgiving. As I’ve mentioned before,  the goal was very modest–a six-pound fat loss. Note that I don’t say "weight loss": I’m interested in losing fat, not merely "weight," which could be lean body mass (muscle). I shudder to think.

In any case, I’m now more than 70 percent of the way there. Woo-hoo!

Would’ve gotten there a lot faster if I’d started counting calories sooner.

But that’s not a failure, as Tom Venuto would say: It’s a result. In other words, a "learning experience."