Archive for the ‘Exercise possibilities’ Category

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So what should I weigh?

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

I've been reading some of the background material  from one of the articles that appeared in The Wall Street Journal 4-27-2010, in the "Personal Journal" section which today featured Health and Wellness. There were several controversies in other articles: I scanned two: chocolate as a potential antidepressant vs. chocolate being consumed more by those who are depressed; sun-lovers and benefits from sun exposure vs. shade-seekers and harmful effects from excess sun exposure.

The one I was most interested in was titled "A Case for Those Extra 10 Pounds." This one seemed aimed at those who are carrying a little extra in the hips and thighs, rather than the belly. It quoted lots of medical data suggesting there might even be some benefit to a "few extra pounds," an increase in estrogen production  and an accompanying decrease in osteoporosis risk; a Dermatology article was quoted as saying that women who are overweight appear younger than those who are of normal weight or underweight.

So let's go back to basics. One third of all adult Americans are frankly obese, not just a few pounds overweight. They clearly have a higher risk of a number of serious diseases. Many of those in the middle ground between normal weight and obesity, i.e., those who are termed "overweight," carry excess belly fat as well as extra poundage in the thighs and buttocks. I see this all the time in the men's locker room at our gym; my wife says she also notes the same in women. Those folk are also at risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and, according to some sources, even some types of cancer.

On the other hand, in general, it's not healthy to be underweight People who are underweight may be so because of underlying diseases such as cancer. I should, of course, note that some people who are very slender may be perfectly healthy and are thin because of lifelong exercise (long distance runners come to mind).

We all tend to look for excuses and to rationalize our issues away. So if you're lean around the midsection and carry a little extra elsewhere, perhaps you are okay. But I'd suggest you should take a good hard look at your waistline before concluding that you're one of the folk who can safely carry some excess pounds or not.

Posted in Dieting, Exercise possibilities, Life Expectancy, medically-oriented background info | No Comments »

Subtle messages

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

I was leafing through The Wall Street Journal this morning, quickly, as I got up late, will read a book for my men's book club most of the morning and then go to Loveland, eight miles south, to lunch at a restaurant I've never eaten at before. I'm going there to meet a writer friend whose book I've been proofreading.  I saw the headlines in the front section of the paper and will return to them later, but was struck by an article in the last section, the one called "Personal Journal."

The article's title was "What Your TV is Telling You to Do." That caught my attention so I read the whole thing. It's about NBC's use of the technique of "behavior placement." Instead of trying to sell you a specific product by having the star of a show drink, eat or use it, this idea is to show you a kind of behavior you may then decide, consciously or unconsciously, to emulate.

The thing that's different here is that some NBC's shows are now sending you messages, or rather signals, to recycle, exercise and eat right. Presumably they're not just doing this because it's the right thing, but, in part in least, because it will help them sell ads. TV has enormous power to get huge numbers of viewers to do something, because their favorite character does it.

In this case the stars of various shows will be exercising or eating healthy food choices. I'm going to wait and see what the outcome is and maintain a goodly amount of skepticism, but the overall concept is one I love.

For years we've been sold, via ads (which I mute and many who use Tivo skip), products that by no stretch of the imagination could be termed healthy choices. Now, finally, someone is going to try to influence us to make better choices. I'm all for it.

Posted in Dieting, Exercise possibilities, Healthly lifestyle, Healthy eating | 3 Comments »

Finally, I'm back home with a lesson learned

Friday, March 26th, 2010

We've been on the road for thirteen days, driving to Phoenix and back for my wife's Integrative Mental Health meeting. The trip covered nearly 2,000 miles and we got a chance to visit six sets of old friends. I weighed myself this morning, expecting to be way up, but I'm only at the top of my acceptable limit, three pounds over my current goal weight. That didn't make sense at first as we've eaten out a lot and had home-cooked meals in three places; those were delicious, but not what I've been eating while I'm dieting. I had also spent four days in the car and several more with friends who didn't exercise regularly.

Then I realized I still got a fair amount of exercise along the way, snowshoeing in Angel Fire and walking four miles a day in Phoenix while Lynnette was in her meeting.

My central focus in losing weight has been eating less, but when we're home I'm in the gym six or seven days a week. I've said before the vast majority of people have to modify their intake of calories to lose weight, but I don't think you can keep it off without exercising.

So I pulled out an article I picked up at a hotel we stayed at on the trip (we spent three nights there and two more on Air Force bases). This on was from USA Today and focused on "older women." It came at the issue from a different slant, that of normal-weight women who want to avoid weight gain as they age. A group of Harvard researchers followed a large group (34,000 participants)of women over an extended time frame (13 years). These women were healthy, didn't need to lose weight initially and eat a normal diet.

The conclusions fit with my premise; the relatively small cohort (13%) who never gained more than five pounds during the entire length of the study regularly did an hour a day of moderate-intensity exercise. The researchers didn't extend their findings to men or younger women (or kids), but I firmly believe the way to keep weight off for all of us is through some kind of exertion. Whether you chose to walk for an hour (at least five days a week) or do something more strenuous for shorter time periods, get off your couch and find a form of exercise that fits with your age, health condition and inclinations. Even shorter periods or exercise will convey at least some health benefits. You'll be ahead of most of your fellow countrymen and women if you do so.

Posted in Exercise possibilities, Healthly lifestyle, Holiday/travel eating, Life Expectancy | No Comments »

And Back Down Again

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

We got home from our East Coast trip last Friday. We made it to three of our four planned stops (the oncoming snowstorm heading toward the DC area truncated the trip). I ate far more than I have been for the past eight months and gained 4.8 pounds.

But I had pre-dieted and left at 149.4, well under my current goal weight. And when I got home I went back on the stricter version of my diet and the weight melted off. I also snowshoed for an hour on Sunday and worked hard at the gym yesterday

We even went to a party last night, a fund-raiser for the Symphony Guild. It was titled "My Curry Valentine," and featured four curries: beef, lamb, chicken and shrimp, three kinds of rice, pappadums (Indian flat bread), a variety of topping for the curries, salad, a variety of wines (or Fat Tire beer, a local favorite) and cookies plus three choices of sorbet for dessert.

I drank a lot of water, took small helpings of each curry, didn't have seconds (that's not quite true; I did have several pappadums), some salad, a few of the toppings, ate one cookie, had one small helping of one of the three sorbets, and one half-glass of Reisling.

Today I weigh 149.6 pounds, only two tenths up from my pre-trip weight and well under what I've been terming my final goal weight. I'm thinking of re-setting that to 149 as I've recently gotten lots of compliments on how I've slimmed down; nobody has said, "You're too thin).

So overall I had a short and temporary hiatus from my diet, but had prepared well for our trip and went back to dieting as soon as we returned. I didn't let the short-term weight gain throw me off my overall plan. Concentration on my long-term goal helped a lot as did the exercise and the past eight months experience with a successful approach to eating sensibly.

Posted in Dieting, Exercise possibilities, Healthly lifestyle, Healthy eating, Holiday/travel eating | No Comments »

How to exercise when you can't really exercise

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

We just spent a long weekend at the YMCA camp at Estes Park; it was a working vacation for me as I was away from the phone and email, but had a major project that would take lots of time. I had hoped to snowshoe each day, but we found out there was no nearby snow to speak of and Lynnette came down with a cold and didn't want to do anything strenuous.

So that was last Friday through Monday and today I had to drive to an appointment in Denver and then had a Symphony Board meeting. In any case I wasn't going to be able to get in my usual two plus hours at the gym.

We all have this kind of time, one where our best intentions are to get some good exercise in, but work or meetings or other scheduled events get in the way. We can either shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, I'll wait for another day," or we can do something else.

Each of our days in the mountains, we took a walk for thirty to sixty minutes a day. Today, between my drive back and forth to Denver and my two-hour board meeting,  I got in twenty minutes on the recumbent bike at our gym. I didn't get as much exercise as usual or as much as I would have liked to, but I at least got some.

In the case of the YMCA trip, I was able to break up time in front of my laptop with some quality time in the outdoors and to spend time in a shared activity with my wife. Today, I really had to squeeze in the gym time, but I felt refreshed afterwards and ready to cope with a board meeting.

Tomorrow I only have two meetings to attend, one between four and five PM and the other in the evening. I'll get up and go to the gym early and get back in my usual pattern.

I'm happy that I found some way to burn a few calories, spend quality time with Lynnette and break up what otherwise have felt like days of straight toil, with no time for fun. Exercise for me has become a tonic; afterwards I always feel energized and uplifted.

Try to find some time in your own day to get away from your desk or your computer or whatever occupies your time. be creative and look for new ideas on how you can take even short periods for exercise. I think you'll feel better and those small amounts of calories burned add up in the long run. If you're trying to lose weight, fifty calories a day translates into five pounds a year.

Posted in Exercise possibilities, Healthly lifestyle, Uncategorized | No Comments »

What kind of calorie-burning do you do?

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

I've mentioned that we exercise regularly. I had a total knee replacement nine years ago and was told I should not: run, play volleyball, do any downhill skiing or play basketball. I could walk, ride an street bike or a recumbent bike, dance or snowshoe. And, of course, walk up and down stairs to a reasonable extent. We had been to a "Try Snowshoeing" event in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and loved the sport. So we got snowshoes from friends who ran a new and used sports-equipment shop and tried a variety of snow conditions with them.

I found breaking a path, especially uphill, in deep snow, was not my favorite way to exercise. But I loved going on trails that had already been trod upon. We rode a lift up to the top of a ski area where friends live and tried a cross-country trail. That was a thrill, especially when we realized, that we got great upper-body exercise by using the ski poles we had also purchased.

Now we've gone on one-day or multi-day trips to one of Colorado's established snowshoe trails . This year we've taken a cabin at the YMCA camp near Estes Park and snowshoed in RMNP on two occasions. This weekend will be the third. We took a friend there for an one-day excursion ten days ago; she's about fifteen years younger than we are and had cross-country skied a fair amount, but this was only her second time on snowshoes.

We found our way to Sprague Lake, and set off on a three-mile, mostly level path with light snow drifting down and a wonderful view of the mountains. As usual, I started with heavy gloves and a number of layers of clothing and had to switch to lighter gloves and unzip my jacket as we got a ways up the first leg of the trail. Lynnette and our friend Mary were perfectly content with the relatively flat trail, but fairly tired by the time we finished. We immediately headed for a favorite restaurant and ate hardily; we had certainly earned our calories.

I'll probably try some steeper slopes with my summer trail guide in the  next few months; snowshoeing is a great exercise and offers a variety of challenges and I think I'm ready for the next one.

Posted in Exercise possibilities, Healthly lifestyle | 2 Comments »

It's time for Exercise

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

We're 68+ years old and exercise daily...in some fashion. We started doing this as a couple when we were assigned to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS (1991-1993) and I  commanded the Air Force medical center there. I had lost a considerable amount of weight as I got more into senior positions, but here I'd be one of a very small group of unit commanders and really had to set an example.

Lynnette and I decided to meet for "non-lunch." We'd come to the running track that was near my hospital and not far from her Family Support Center, bring a sack lunch and do much more exercising than eating. It worked well for both of us; I got down to two pounds over my high school weight.

Since then we've exercised regularly; Lynnette goes to a Pilates class at our health club twice a week and attends a Strong Women, Strong Bones class twice a week (lifting relatively light weight and taking them slowly through a range of motion (ROM) pattern). She also does daily stretches and goes to the gym two to four times a week with me. I go to the gym at least six days a week and ride a recumbent bike, do a series of stretches and use six weight machines. I've gradually built up my ride so now I burn ~650 Kcal. and ride >20 miles in 65 minutes on days when I'm feeling up to it.

But, we're both sensible. My right total knee replacement (done nine years ago) limits how much weight I should use on several machines; my tendency toward developing tendinitis means I limit ROM on two other machines. If I've done a lot on the bike the day before and my legs are tired, I go slower and add minutes to reach my calorie and mile goals.

We also vary our exercise: we dance, walk stairs, snow shoe (more about this later) and ride street bikes.

I tell people who see me ride and comment I must be in great shape that it took me seven years before I got to this point. I think "couch potatoes" should start by walking, a relatively short distance and most people at my age should see their doc before attempting anything strenuous. I also think there are lots of ways to burn a few extra calories; parking a long ways out from the store and walking back and forth to your car is a simple one. One friend said he hid his TV remote so he had to get up to change channels or turn the set on and off.

I don't think exercising is the way to lose weight, but it's a great adjunct and is clearly important in keeping weight off once you've lost some.

Posted in Exercise possibilities, Healthly lifestyle, Life Expectancy | No Comments »

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