Fit Communications

Forgot to mention in my last post that my next set of goals, after I drop the five pounds of avoirdupois, has to do with maintaining leanness while increasing muscle mass. Would like to see whether I can surpass the musculature of my late 20s.

OK, so I’m finally feeling a bit more motivated about dropping five more pounds of fat. It’s harder to be motivated because I’m pretty satisfied with where I am.

But I’ll be turning 49 in just short of three weeks, and it occurred to me, wouldn’t it be cool to turn 49 weighing the same as I did at 29? I know the potential logical flaw in the thinking. I was a gym rat then, and if I were a sedentary person now, I could weigh the same but still be much fatter because of lower lean body mass.

But thanks to my return to the gym two years ago, I’ve regained my former muscle (and dropped the 30-plus pounds of fat I added between 35 and 46).

Maybe a bit of public accountability will help my campaign.

To help me keep track of what works, I keep daily records. On an Excel spreadsheet I track calories (three days of reduced calories, one maintenance day, and so on), and on a paper chart I note the date, whether I did my 30-minute dog walk, whether I worked out with weights, whether I did cardio, how many calories I consumed, my weight that day (I weigh probably once or twice a week), a skinfold measurement (I measure about once a week), and my lean body mass and bodyfat in pounds.

Tomorrow’s a maintenance day–what fun. On maintenance day I don’t usually count calories; I just eat pretty much whatever I want as long as it’s healthy and in reasonable portions. If I want something unhealthy (e.g., something sweet), I have a smallish portion. But usually all I want to do on maintenance day is enjoy regular food in slightly greater quantities.

I’ll keep you posted. I’d really like to celebrate my birthday in super shape.

This MSNBC.com story has me shocked, shocked.

Doctor in trouble for calling patient obese
As doctors warn more patients that they should lose weight, the advice has backfired on one doctor, with a woman filing a complaint with the state, saying he was hurtful, not helpful.

A patient should complain if a doc says "You’re a fat pig" or something similarly disrespectful. But the term "obese" is factual, quantitative, objective. You reach a certain level of bodyweight and the excess is adipose tissue rather than muscle, and bingo: you’re obese, end of story.

Here’s what the doc says he said:

“I told a fat woman she was obese,” Bennett says. “I tried to get her
attention. I told her, ‘You need to get on a program, join a group of
like-minded people and peel off the weight that is going to kill you.’"

Are we a nation of sniveling ninnies who can’t face reality? Is there anything wrong with what this doctor said? If I show up at a doctor’s office, isn’t it his or her job to tell me what my physical problems are and how I’m responsible for dealing with them?

MSNBC.com’s cover story, a few minutes ago, was "Obesity rates climbing in nearly all states."

Here’s the blurb:

The percentage of Americans with bulging waistlines is growing in just about every state, with residents of Alabama joining the obesity ranks the fastest. Only Oregon failed to fatten, according to a report.

The situation is particularly bad in the Southeast, my good ol’ region.

The interesting part is discussion of whether the government should be involved or not. Free-market groups don’t think so. Like it or not, the government is involved in agricultural policy and in many other areas that influence what we eat, from crop subsidies to oversight of school-lunch programs.

I think it’s clear the government should have some role as long as we taxpayers shoulder such a huge burden to provide medical care for the poor and the elderly. The public-health costs of obesity are staggering and not just in sheer dollars.

A companion article, "Farm subsidies not in sync with food pyramid," is also worth reading. Here’s the blurb:

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and the government tells them they should eat better. But it doesn’t put its money where their mouths are.

The point is that subsidies for foods we ought to eat more of (fruits, vegetables) would influence (that is, increase) our consumption of those foods. One of the side effects of grain subsidies is the plethora of worthless junk food available. Read the labels and see how many junk foods are produced without corn and soy products. Not many.

Here’s a quote from the story:

“Here we are as a society, talking constantly about obesity and diets,
and yet our farm policies are not structured to encourage the kind of
diet that the food pyramid suggests we should adopt,” said Ralph
Grossi, president of American Farmland Trust, a group that advocates
conservation on the farm.

I had breakfast with a good friend this morning, and the conversation turned to weight loss and exercise: specifically, why do people who know what they need to do not do it–and how can they motivate themselves to do it?

Well, it was a long conversation, and I recommended Tom Venuto’s e-book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (see a description under the heading Books for the buff in the left frame), as I’ve so often done. My friend and I talked about the importance of setting goals, how to carve out gym time, how often to eat, the importance of protein, the necessity of healthy carbs for people who exercise, how to cultivate satiety (see Barbara Rolls’s book Volumetrics, also briefly described in my book list), and so on.

My friend knows more or less what she needs to do; she just needs a little help in getting started again.

When we talked about calories, I was horrified to hear what she thought a low-calorie daily intake should be: about 700 calories. That’s terrific if your goal is to reduce your metabolism, slow your weight loss, burn off muscle tissue, and guarantee that the rebound weight gain that follows leaves you fatter than ever, with less lean body mass (and thus a reduced ability to burn calories).

Never, never, never reduce calories more than 20 to 25 percent from normal unless you’re doing a medically supervised fast.

Okay, I’m off the soapbox now.

Yesterday was chest/triceps/shoulders day at the gym. These days I’m doing less cardio after my weight workout and more total sets during the workout. At the moment am more desirous of increasing lean body mass than losing the five pounds I could lose (if I could get a bit more worked up about it).

In any case, I’ve added upright rows with dumbbells to my repertoire. Years ago I found that upright rows with a bar stressed my right shoulder, but I have no problem with dbs.

So I’m in the middle of my first set–about in the middle of my workout (post bench, post first couple sets of dips)–and suddenly I’m aware that this movement is, well, pure pleasure. It just feels terrific, delightful, satisfying, good.  I enjoy most sets (on most days) to one degree or another, but this is the first time I remember thinking, literally, This is pure pleasure. Followed up with an immediate set of dips and had a foolish grin on my face . . . because it too felt so good.

Once upon a time, when I was a lass in my 20s, I used to run about 35 miles a week. Every now and then I’d experience "runner’s high"–fueled by a blast of endorphins, I suppose.

I don’t know if Friday’s experience was physiologically the same, but it felt the same psychologically–a "peak experience," one of those fleeting moments that arrives unbidden and lingers in memory.

Just got an e-mail blurb about the National Strength and Condioning Association’s latest Performance Training Journal. The focus this issue is core training. As in your midsection, fore and aft. (I’m old enough to remember the days before anyone spoke of the body’s "core." Instead, we discussed abdominals, the lower back, obliques, etc. Actually, wrapping it all up in a package makes sense.)

Online access to the journal is free, and if you subscribe to NSCA’s e-mail list, you’ll be notified when each new issue is published. As I’ve said before, this is research-based, solid information–unlike what you find in your average muscle magazine.

The list of articles for this issue is as follows:

VO₂max: The Golden Calf of Exercise Physiology

What is VO₂ max and is it the strongest predictor of athletic
performance? This article answers these questions, along with
discussing the elite level measurements and how you can improve your
own VO₂ max.

A New Look at Core Training

While basic core training methods may prove beneficial and helpful for
certain training goals, competitive athletes can benefit from training
that is more closely related to the demands of their sport, involving
the whole body and subsequently the core. This article discusses how the
core is involved in three traditional training methodologies.

Developing Hip Joint Adduction and Abduction Strength

Hip adduction and abduction are important movements when working on
lateral movement. This column describes three exercises to help you
develop the hip joint area and improve adduction and abduction
strength.

FitnessFrontlines

The latest news from the field on stability balls, stability ball
exercises, abdominal training devices, and trunk extensor machines.

Advanced Lumbar Stabilization Exercises

If you have been performing basic spinal stabilization exercises to
decrease your risk of injury, try to update your program with these
advanced exercises. If have not been performing any stabilization
exercises, the basic exercises are included in this article as well.

The Healthy Vegetarian Athlete (Part I)

Despite the lengthy list of benefits attributed to following a
vegetarian diet, there are various myths that still persist with
regards to its appropriateness for athletes. This first part of a
two-part column on vegetarian athletes will discuss some common myths
surrounding vegetarian athletes.  

Strategies to Manage Performance Pressure

In the last issue this column took a look at competitive pressure. This
follow-up article addresses strategies to help you manage competitive
pressure.

The Use of Unstable Training for Enhancing Sport Performance

Are you looking to add some core training exercises to your
conditioning program through instability training but not sure how to
create unstable environments? If so, take a look at this article, which describes five exercises that use various methods of
instability.

Core Flexibility: Static and Dynamic Stretches for the Core

Core training is one of the hottest training methods right now. But
before you begin to train those core muscles, you need to properly warm
up and stretch them. This article describes both dynamic and static
stretches you can use to stretch your core muscles.

Here’s an eye-opener: teenage girls gain weight when they stop exercising.

Read the article on msnbc.com:

Weight gain in girls blamed on drop in exercise
Adolescent girls in the United States are putting on weight because
they are doing less physical activity than they did as children,
according to a study.

So Atkins Nutritional is going belly up, and diet observers say the bloom is off the low-carb trend. I’m sure the sanity won’t last long.

Low-carb is fine for very short periods of time–when one is preparing for a bodybuilding or figure competition, for instance–but even then, a body needs at least a few decent carbs. Under normal circumstances, if you want vigorous workouts, you need to fuel with carbohydrates: whole grains, fruit, vegetables, and the sugars in milk products, as well as any discretionary calories you care to spend on dessert, French bread, etc.

Here’s what mystifies me. I read women’s fitness magazines (Oxygen, Shape, Fitness) and find articles therein about women who claim to work out six days a week and yet subsist on 1,400 calories a day. How is this possible? Yes, rate of metabolism varies from person to person. But if a woman is highly physically active and burning many calories at the gym, there’s no way she can sustain muscle mass (or sanity) on starvation rations. Do the editors think we’re stupid? Or are these women lying? Or do they have unnaturally slow metabolisms?

I’m pushing 49, work out with weights three days a week, use the elliptical trainer two to three days a week, and walk my dogs for 30 minutes about every day. So I’m active but not obsessive. I weigh 130 pounds and maintain that weight on somewhere around 2,300 to 2,400 calories a day. I lose weight at 1,800 to 1,900. I don’t get it.