Cranky Fitness

In Which Jo Gets Extremely Crabby.

2009-11-20T04:16:00.002-05:00

I'm not a big follower of Fat Acceptance or Health At Every Size. Pretty much all I've read is Kate Harding's Shapely Prose and Melissa McEwan's blogs on the subject, although I did snag a few copies of the original "FAT! SO?" back when it was a 'zine. (Doesn't that bring back memories of the 1990's? Imagine, children: we used to have to self-publish things on paper before Blogger!)

Part of this is because I'm not "really" fat. I'm what's usually called a "tweener"--sometimes wearing a 12, sometimes a 14, sometimes a 16 if it's a top and it's fitted. People looking at me wouldn't automatically call me "obese", though that's what my BMI says I am. I feel sort of like I'd be co-opting a valuable movement if I horned in on Fat Rights without really having experienced any discrimination in, say, insurance coverage or hiring on account of my weight.

Another part of it is because the hospital where I work, which I call Sunnydale General (shout-out to Buffy!) does a lot of complex bariatric surgery. I'm talking super-bariatrics, the sort of surgeries done on people who weigh 500 pounds or more, or who weigh 300 pounds and have so many co-morbidities that nobody else will touch them. I've seen the health effects of super-obesity up close, and that makes me (probably unwarrantedly) skeptical about some branches of the FA movement. "Health At Every Size" is a fantastic idea, and it's reality for a lot of fat folks, but it's *not* reality for the people I run across.

That said, I think I might have to get more active. I had a little run-in with my doctor the other day, and am now looking for a primary-care physician.

I went in with a week-long history of right upper quadrant pain that started after I ate one of my bimonthly cheeseburgers (nom nom nom nom). I came in hypertensive, as I always am when I visit the doctor, and fifteen pounds lighter than the last time I visited him.

He did not focus on the hypertension. I got the usual quick lecture about cardiomyopathy and aneurysms before reminding him that my own trending of my blood pressure (at work, away from anything that could cause white-coat syndrome, and yes, I'm aware of how ironic that is) showed that I have perfectly fine, not-concerning blood pressure. My worry was the possibility of a gallbladder problem, and I said as much.

"Well," he returned, "You do have the five risk factors for gallbladder disease." Then, because I am a nurse and he likes to quiz nurses, he asked, "Can you name the five risk factors?"

"Fair, fertile, forty, female, and fat" I returned.

"Yes, especially fat" he replied. "You are far, far too fat."

I am five-foot-two and weigh 173.8 lbs. My body fat is somewhere between okay and too-high, though it's improved since I weighed 188 lbs. I work out three times a week with Atilla and have an active job. I eat mostly whole grains, lean proteins, vegetables (in fact, I have a mostly-vegetarian diet), and stay away from sweets. My two big vices are caffeine and beer. I can outlift, out-cross-train, and outlast nearly everybody else I know. The one thing I can't do is run long distances, though I can maintain an aerobic heartrate for two to three hours at a time without falling over.

I told him all this. I pointed out that my muscle mass is approximately half again what you'd expect for a forty-year-old woman, that my bone density is the shizznit, that all my trends are positive.

Yet he came back again to the same point: "You are far too fat. You must lose more weight."

Dude. I know I'm fat. Why do you think I joined Weight Watchers? Do you think I don't own a mirror? The *point* here is that, although I might be producing and storing more estrogen than is normal (because of that added body fat), I am a healthy individual, aside from some right-upper-quadrant pain and some white-coat hypertension.

The last medical person who expressed concern about my weight fell silent when she removed the drape from my upper body and saw my back. "Never mind," she said, "I see you carry....some muscle."

Not my doctor. He kept harping and haranguing, and I left his office feeling, quite frankly, like shit. I have a training routine that makes even personal trainers turn pale, I eat well, I've lost and kept off more weight than most people can ever manage to do, and yet I felt like shit.

The one good point of the visit was when he took a look at my upper legs as part of the full physical. I have some bruises-turned-scars there (that's the "fair" part), and he asked what they were from.

"Oh," I said, airily, "those are from when I put my neighbor's washing machine into his truck for him."

"Washing machine?" he asked.

"Yep," I replied, "he couldn't get it into the truck bed by himself, so I grabbed the strap and lifted it up there for him."

There was dead silence in the room for a moment. Then he said, "You still need to lose weight. You are far too fat."

I am looking for a new physician once this possible-gallbladder, maybe-it's-a-toomah crisis is resolved. And I might just have to go buy Health At Every Size, just so I have better comebacks for doctors like him.

Want Fries With That Mood?

2009-11-19T05:12:00.004-05:00

(Photo: PerantauSepiLodge)

Spaghetti with tomato loss. Big Mac with a large order of sighs. A balonely and cheese sandwich on rye - extra mayo. Chicken bored 'n bleu. Stir cry. Fish and Dips. Angers and mash (UK and Python fans only).

Are you finding that you're using food for something more than nutrition lately? Or maybe it's not really a new phenomenon with you. Maybe you were rewarded/comforted/bribed/motivated with food as a kid and it has morphed into your current diet and mindset. Maybe it's not so much of a stretch for you to equate food with love and comfort. So it shouldn't come as a big surprise that sometimes we find ourselves using food as a coping device for emotions we're not ready to handle and have gotten into a bad habit of suppressing with food. Welcome to the world of emotional eating - population: big and getting bigger.

So how can you tell if your hunger is emotional and not physical? There are some signs that can help make the distinction for you.

- Emotional hunger comes on very suddenly whereas physical hunger is a more gradual build.

- When it's an emotional craving, it is generally for a very specific food. With physical hunger, your range of options is broader - you're just looking to quell the hunger but are not so specific with what.

- Emotional hunger feels like it needs to be sated immediately. It stands in front of the microwave and screams, "HURRY UP!!" Physical hunger says, "Ummm..yeah, I could eat" and then proceeds in an orderly fashion to fix something up.

- Feeling full is never a sign to stop when eating emotionally. You will just barrel right through that stop sign and keep punching that gas pedal. If you're physically hungry, you'll come to a full and complete stop when full.

- Emotional hunger starts from the "neck up" - it's your mouth and mind that are dictating what you eat. Physical hunger relies on the stomach to tell you when to eat.

- Eating emotionally is tied in with, well, an emotion - your boss was a real jerk today, you fought with your spouse, your neighbor's dog is barking non-stop. Physical hunger is tied in with a physical need to nourish the body.

- Automatic, compulsive eating is emotional. If you're eating without thinking, your emotions are running the show. Physical feeding is more deliberate and thoughtful.

- And when all is said and done (or eaten and drunk), there will be guilt and shame after having eaten emotionally. Sure, there's that itch that's been scratched right away but then we experience real negative emotions for having overdone it - again. Physical hunger recognizes that you're eating to survive and as such, there are no feelings of shame or guilt. Eating is as necessary as sleeping and breathing.

Even the most psychologically evolved of us can lapse into eating emotionally once in a while but if eating turns out to be your main coping device, you could be headed for trouble; especially when the foods tend to be more of the unhealthy variety. I can personally attest to never having overeaten carrots or kale. In addition, eating when it is non-physically necessary can also add up to a lot of excess calories consumed which in turn lead to...anyone? Anyone? Bueller?...becoming overweight.

The good news is that you can do something about curbing this feeling feeding frenzy. I used to visit a nutritionist until my health insurance changed and it wasn't covered anymore. Apparently this insurance company's take was that it was better for me (and more cost effective to them) to continue on cholesterol reducing statins rather than pursuing a preventive solution to my problem, but I digress. The nutritionist suggested that when the impulse to eat arose suddenly (a sign of emotion-driven hunger) I should ask myself whether or not I physically felt hungry. Was my stomach growling? Had it been hours since my last meal? If the answer was no, she told me to avoid food for ten minutes, to "sit with the emotions" and try to identify what was really driving this hunger. She also advised that the emotions may not be readily available right away, which I found to be true, but that they were there. It took a lot of sitting still and really thinking about things until the emotions slowly came to the surface. Once I could recognize the underlying emotions, I was better able to short-circuit the unnecessary grazing to help soothe those emotions and learn to deal with them head-on.

She also suggested that once I recognized the onset of emotional hunger, I should try to distract myself with another activity like reading, knitting, talking on the phone, etc. (Cooking or baking is not recommended, Forrest.) Another idea was to keep a journal to record my hunger and the related emotions to figure out what, or who, was behind this urge. Identifying and avoiding emotional triggers can be very helpful in defeating emotional eating.

Stop letting the clock dictate when you're hungry was another smart tip from my nutritionist. If the clock says noon but you're not hungry yet, don't force the issue. Eat when you start to get a little hungry - whether that's before or after The Stated Meal Time. She cautioned against letting the hunger get too far ahead of me, though, in which case I might start tearing apart the kitchen like a ravenous dog, consuming vast quantities of food and Alpo. Planning meals ahead of time can help diffuse the stress of being hungry and clueless.

There's also a terrific author by the name of Geneen Roth who has written extensively about emotional eating with a real "been there, done that" approach should you want to explore the emotional connection to food more extensively. She also writes a monthly column for Good Housekeeping magazine.

How much of the time do you think your hunger is being driven by emotion? And what, if anything, are you doing to correct that?

Marathon Envy?

2009-11-18T10:18:00.001-05:00

Oh gosh that looks so fun.
Photo:Martineric

I've never seriously considered training for a marathon. I understand you have to run 26 miles... all in a row! On the same day! Here in Slackerville, that just ain't gonna happen.

Yet every now and then, from the depths of my subconcious, a sinister voice pipes up. "Go for it," the voice says, sounding all sexy and seductive. "It would be so cool to run a whole marathon and cross that finish line and feel so proud of yourself!"

"Shut up, sinister voice," I'll say, (or lets pretend I would, as I'm not actually schizophrenic). "Don't be stupid! Training for a marathon is hard! Not to mention the whole getting up early thing, and the lines for the porta potties..."

"But you'd get to brag to all your friends that you ran a marathon! Plus think how many cupcakes you could eat if you were running all those miles!

"Wait... Cupcakes?"

But I've never taken Sinister Voice too seriously. Given my lifestyle (lazy) and my fitness goals (modest) and my time management skills (nonexistent) and my knees (crappy), a marathon would just be a doofy waste of already-hard-to-come-by motivation.

And yet, Sinister Voice would always return another day to nag me again.

It seems like if you run at all, the idea of a marathon is always sort of hanging out there, poking and prodding at you. Of course in the old days, it was this freakishly hard-core thing to do, and it was easier to dismiss. Then it got to be a much more mainstream goal. Heck, even spoiled celebrities run marathons now, and if they can drag their over-scheduled, undernourished butts 26 miles to the finish line ... why shouldn't I give it a go?

Because I don't want to?

Actually, I'm still mad at the stupid Greek guy, Phidippides, who started this whole "marathon" business 2500 or so years ago. Why couldn't he have dropped dead after, say 5 miles? Or not dropped dead at all? Then they'd never come up with this arbitrary measure of fitness that I keep trying to pretend I don't care about.

However, after years of bickering with the Voice, I've noticed a curious thing lately... Silence.

That persistent sense that I should be aspiring to run a marathon? It seems to finally be slipping away. Hooray!

Now this is not to say that running a marathon (or a bunch of them or whatever) is not a great goal for plenty of runners. If you train properly, and pay attention to injuries, and have the spare time so that it's not gonna mess up the rest of your life... I say go for it!

But if you, like me, have been looking for reasons to say "screw it" to the whole marathon temptation, here are few suggestions for talking yourself down.

1. Consider your immune system. As Charlotte pointed out in a recent post over at The Great Fitness Experiment, intense endurance exercises actually makes you more vulnerable to bugs than moderate exercise, not less.

2. Watch out for heart trouble. Fitsugar recently discussed the issue, and there's a good rundown of some of the risks in this Men's Health article. Bottom line: they're not sure if it's permanent or temporary damage that marathon running does to your heart, but your at far less risk of ticker trouble if you're running at least 45 miles a week before competing in a marathon.

3. Jenn at Fit Bottomed Girls is not letting the stupid scale get in the way of her marathoning goals. But I gotta say: I'm more shallow than she is. If I found, as she has, that marathon training was increasing hunger significantly, and it was leading to weight gain? I'd want to be damn sure it was extra muscle or I'd say the heck with the extra running.

4. Running a marathon does not necessarily lead to long-term fitness. This Wall Street Journal article discusses the all-too-frequent phenomenon of eager runners working up to completing a marathon and then, due to burn-out, deciding to hang up their sneakers for good.

5. Fitness is not just about endurance, and "more" isn't necessarily better when it comes to cardio. If you hang out at Mark's Daily Apple at all, Mark is pretty darn convincing about the futility of trying to meet all your fitness goals by overdosing on cardio. Sure, some is good, but more isn't necessarily better! And it's not just the Primal people--more and more we seem to be getting the message that there's a crapload of different stuff you need to do to be fit and healthy. Are you going to be able to keep up on your strength training and balance training and High Intensity Intervals and flexibility and functional fitness and breathing and core etc, etc, etc, if you're doing marathon training?

6. All that pounding can exacerbate injuries. For me, it's my knees; I know I'd be risking my ability to run at all if I insisted on putting in the kind of miles it takes for marathon training. Now plenty of people run marathons while dealing with chronic injuries, and have no problems at all. But others put race deadlines ahead of common sense and end up trashing their knees, hips, feet, back, or whatever because they couldn't chill and take the necessary recuperation time.

What about you guys? Training for a marathon? Tempted? Or No Way in Hell?

This Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You, or: Attila's three most torturous moves

2009-11-17T05:31:00.002-05:00

I don't call her Attila for nothing.

Three times a week (give or take), this pleasant, charming, fit young woman invades my house with a variety of weird things packed into a rolling scuba bag and proceeds to make me do exercises that are almost always guaranteed to make me cry.

Herein, the best of the bunch. You can do them with fitness balls and barbells if you have such things, or with a cat and some soup cans (if your cat is patient), or with nothing at all. Ready?

(Disclaimer: be sure to check with your inner Slacker before attempting any of the following exercises. Those with back, hip, lung, bicep, head, or fourth-toe problems should see a doctor before beginning this program. Offer subject to local and state taxes and licensing. Do not use while bathing. Never point at your own or another person's face.)

Exercise One: The Frog-Hop

Grab a ball. The ball we use is a seven-pound, sand-filled thing, but I suppose you could use any old ball (except maybe one of those super-bounce ones). Or you could use a shoe. Or your purse. Just make it something that you can toss that'll stay (mostly) where it lands.

Start at one end of the room. Assume the squat position.

Toss the ball forward a foot and a half or so. Easy, right?

Now hop, without coming out of the squat, so that your feet are just ahead of the ball. Reach back through your legs (don't break that squat!) and grab the ball/purse/shoe/patient cat you've just tossed. Toss it ahead of you again.

Hop forward. Grab ball. Toss. Hop. Grab. Toss. Hop. Grab.

About four reps into this, your butt will begin to burn. It will continue to burn for a couple days afterward as well. We (who's this "we"? I mean *I*) do six laps up and down the room with about eight hops per length.

Exercise Two: Ball *#$&* Passes

For this, Attila brings out my big fitness ball. I hate that thing.

Lie down on your back on a relatively padded surface. (We use a foam step, but you could double up a towel.) Place the Hated Fitness Ball between your ankles. Kinda big, ain't it?

Stretch your hands above your head.

Now bring your body up into a V-shape and pass the ball from your ankles to your hands. Make another V-shape and pass it back to your ankles. Repeat. Nineteen more times.

For this one, I do three sets of twenty, though by about the ninth rep on any given set, it looks more like I'm imitating a dying frog than a graceful Pilates babe.

Exercise Three: Combo Curl Thingies

Grab a pair of barbells or a couple of soup cans. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Curl your weights up, just like you're doing a regular barbell curl.

Now press straight up into a shoulder press.

Lather and rinse nineteen more times. Do three sets. Realize, about fifteen reps into your first set, that although this seems like a simple, easy exercise, it in fact shreds your shoulder muscles more efficiently than almost any other move.

For extra added frustration and whining, combine this move with a simple squat. Curl up as you squat down, then stand up as you do the shoulder press.

If you want to get *really* fancy, you can do it on one foot, or while standing on a balance board, or while surfing. I have tried none of those things, but they seem kinda cool-sounding in my uncaffeinated state.

Putting this all into context: it's rare that Attila makes me attempt all three of these moves in one session. Normally I do a heavy leg workout one day a week, and the rest of the week is combined core and upper body. Frog-hops fall into the "heavy leg workout" routine, and I might do either one or both of the other two on any core/uppers day.

Have fun with those, if you end up trying them. And pray Attila doesn't read this blog. She'd probably make up new stuff to punish me for giving away her secrets.

Secrets of Preventing Cancer and Building Your Bones

2009-11-16T10:14:00.003-05:00

Does the title of this post lead you to think that there's one simple thing you can do to prevent cancer and keep your bones strong as you grow old?

Sorry about that. It's actually two different "secrets"--the reason they're crammed together in one post is that I was reading the New York Times health section, and these two articles about preventing cancer and building healthy bones both caught my attention.

Note: whenever I discuss health articles from the New York Times, sensitive readers should be warned--there will likely be cursing involved.

@#%$&!!

Because while the New York Times is a great source for news, I hate their health section. They're the ones, remember, who said exercise won't keep you healthy. And their writers seem to revel in casting doubt on my long-held beliefs about the rewards of proper nutrition and plenty of exercise.

If the New York Times were my only news source, I'd be on a cupcake, cheeseburger, and champagne diet by now, and the only exercise I'd get would be scratching my head over their crossword puzzles. Sometimes the studies they cite are convincing; other times they seem to ignore tons of contrary research in order to take a controversial stand and get people riled up. Either way, I find it annoying to have to rethink things all the time. I have a tiny brain and it gets tired easily.

So wanna know what surprises they had in store about preventing cancer and building bones?

Preventing Cancer: Forget Healthy Living

Yep--they say that eating less fat and lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grain fiber, losing weight, and getting lots of exercise won't really do much to prevent cancer. In terms of healthy living, the only lifestyle choice things they had good things to say about were quitting smoking and, if you're a woman, steering clear of estrogen after menopause. (Well, I imagine if you're a guy you should steer clear of it too).

The fruits and vegetable thing took me by surprise, and elicited the most cursing. I'm certain I've read a number of studies saying that whole grain fiber and fruits and vegetables help prevent cancer. The fiber clears out your digestive system, and the produce is full of all those nifty little antioxidants that will clean up evil free radicals that contribute to cancer. Right?

Well, turns out it's not just the New York Times--everyone seems to be backing down on the diet and cancer connection. As to the ability of antioxidants in fruit and vegetables to prevent cancer--the clinical results now look "inconclusive," according to The National Cancer Institute. Likewise, the Harvard School of Public Health says you should eat your fruits and veggies, but mainly because they're good for heart disease, blood pressure, vision, and gastrointestinal problems like constipation or irritable bowel. As to cancer, "data from cohort studies have not consistently shown that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables prevents cancer in general."

Well, phooey.

What can prevent certain kinds of cancer? Medicines!

According to the article, a generic drug, finasteride, costing about $2 a day, could prevent as many as 50,000 cases of prostate cancer a year. A related drug, dutasteride, (about $3.50 a day), has the same effect.

Likewise, according to the Times, studies have found that taking tamoxifen or raloxifene could cut breast cancer by 50% among high-risk women. Most side effects of the drugs, like hot flashes, were temporary. There was a very slightly increased risk of blood clots and uterine cancer with tamoxifen, but with raloxifene there was no excess uterine cancer, and the clotting risk was 30 percent less than tamoxifen.

Even better, women did not have to take the drug for a lifetime — just five years. And they said the cost for tamoxifen runs about 30 cents a day; raloxifene is $3.30 a day.

So why would doctors and high-risk patients not be jumping all over this to try to prevent cancer? Well, the Times interviewed Dr. Therese B. Bevers, a medical director at a Cancer Prevention Center. She believes that doctors don't want to take the first step — calculating a woman’s lifetime risk of getting breast cancer. Why not? Because that might lead to the next step: "spending an hour or so discussing cancer risk and drug risks and benefits."

An hour or so? Really? When was the last time your doctor spent an hour or so explaining anything? I can't believe doctors can't figure out how to give a brief overview of options in a much shorter time than that. And if it would prevent so many more cases of breast cancer, wouldn't the time be worth it?

Apparently the drugs are a good idea if your lifetime odds exceed 20 percent. (They use the example of a 55-year-old woman who began menstruating early had her first child late, and whose mother and sister got breast cancer. There's an assessment tool here, though they warn you it's designed for medical professionals.)

Equally puzzling, though, is the reaction of high risk patients when doctors do discuss the drug option. According to Bevers, about half the time they turn them down. “The Number one reason I hear is, ‘Oh, I just don’t like to take medications."

Personally, if my risk of breast cancer were calculated to be significantly higher than nomal? I think I'd give the medication a shot.

But no matter what the New York Times says, I'm not entirely giving up on the idea that my bok choy and blueberries and cardio are gonna help me out too.

How to Prevent Bone Loss? Jump!

So the article on exercise and bone loss starts with a disconcerting statistic: a year after fracturing a hip, about one in five people over age 65 will die.

Yikes! I guess I'd really rather not fracture my hip when I'm older.

There is more depressing news, too: a lot of the exercise people used to think would help isn't doing much to build bone density. You need “large forces released in a relatively big burst.” Apparently weight lifting isn’t explosive enough for most people, nor is swimming or cycling. Running can be, although it doesn't work for everyone. Brisk walking helped bone density in older women, but "it must be truly brisk."

What works, they suggest, is jumping--if your bones are strong enough to begin with. “You probably don’t need to do a lot either.” But this recommendation came from... you guessed it. A study of mice.

Photo:armadillo444

Oh wait, not that kind of mice...

It seems that in a Japanese study, mice jumped 40 times a week for 24 weeks and built up bone density, and maintained it by jumping 20 or 30 times a week. (I did not allow myself to discover how they got the mice to jump...I hate animal research and think we should do a lot less of it.)

Anyway, six jumps a day, then down to three or four. Sure, I could add that to my exercise to-do list. And maybe I will someday, if I became convinced that I'm one of those people for whom running doesn't work, and I decide I really need to start jumping too to build my bones.

But just because it worked for mice? At this point, I'm not exactly jumping to any conclusions about humans.

So would you take prescription drugs to prevent breast or prostate cancer if you were high risk? Would you jump up and down like a Japanese mouse to build your bone density?

Exercising over The Holidays and Important Poll!

2009-11-15T10:55:00.000-05:00

Photo: Lincolnian (Brian)

So I've got a short guest post up over at Blogher on exercising over the holidays. Nothing you health & fitness mavens don't know already, but I'm hoping if at least a couple people who are registered at Blogher leave a comment then I won't look like a totally hopeless dweeb. You can even say mean things, or totally unrelated things! And I'll most likely reply because I'll be so excited to see any Cranky Fitness people who might stop by.

(Note: this is NOT the corporate-sponsored forum I was ~~pimping for~~ alerting you to over the summer. It's just the regular Blogher and I'd love to get a contributing editor gig there some day).

So here's the Important Poll Question:

If you go to the Blogher Post, or my Twitter Page, you can see I've uploaded an actual photo instead of the standard Crab picture I use as an icon or avatar or whatever that teensy little picture is called on Blogger.

So the new one is not a professional photo, just a backyard photo. I'm not wearing makeup I look all crinkly and middle-aged and, well, kinda butch. But, as Popeye used to say, "I yam what I yam." Anyway, I'm trying to decide whether to start using that as my Blogger icon too, so there's a "face" behind the crab.

However, I'm pretty darn attached to the crab!

Hi Crab!

So what do you guys think? Crab, or crinkly face, or some other option?

And stay tuned--actual health and fitness news on Monday!

Maybe It's A Tumor: Calling In Sick For a Workout

2009-11-12T05:53:00.004-05:00

How sick is sick enough to skip a workout?

We all know how sick you have to be to miss work. For me, that's when I get up and wonder, "Can I make it twelve hours on my feet today?" If I'm asking the question, the answer is generally "Don't. Even. Try. It."

I've worked out when I'm technically not feeling well, for a couple of reasons: First, because I know that working out (if, say, I've got a head cold) will make me feel better, as long as I do it gently. Second, because I hate to act like a wuss when Attila's there, lookin' all buff and fit.

So when is "sick" or "not feeling good" a sign to lie down and not get on the elliptical?

Generally speaking (ie, according to people who know more about this than I do), if your symptoms are all above your neck and you're not running a fever, you're good to have a nice, gentle, low-to-moderate intensity workout. We're talking stuffy nose stuff here, not "I'm in the depths of the worst head cold ever" symptoms. If you're running a fever, feeling lightheaded, or you have symptoms *below* the neck (like a chesty cough or what I'll delicately term "tummy issues"), Stay Home.

Having the flu--that is, body aches, fever, headache, and exhaustion--is a very good reason not to work out.

(Having the flu, in fact, is a very good reason for calling in zombie and staying put for ten days or so.)

Do not do this.

Having a stomach bug is an excellent reason for not working out, especially if your symptoms are...er...unpredictable.

Sinus infection? For Frog's sake, stay the heck home. With a galloping sinus infection, you're likely to bonk yourself in the head with a barbell or fall off the treadmill.

Head colds are a different matter. If you're over the worst of it and no longer feel like your head is stuffed with concrete, you might could do a mile on the 'mill at a nice, pleasant walk. Better, get outside and do your walking, in the sun (if there is any where you are) and away from people who could catch your bug.

Bronchitis is a good reason to stay home. So are generalized viral infections--the sort of thing my doctor calls "viral syndrome"--as both those conditions can wear you out far more than you'd think.

And, of course, if you're pregnant or nursing, you need to be extra-double-careful.

When do you skip? When do you go to the gym or out for a trot? And what do you use to wipe down the machines when you're done, so other people don't catch your plague?

Generation BMI

2009-11-12T05:29:00.010-05:00

Photo: hoyasmeg

There are all kinds of phrases designating the time period in which we were born. Generation X, Gen Y and specifics aside, I'm somewhere between Baby Boomer and Millennial (a proper lady never voluntarily reveals her age - and neither do I). And even though this generation coming up has been known as the "iGeneration" for growing up in the shadow of the Internet, I have begun to think that maybe we should be referring to them as "Generation BMI" given the intense focus on childhood obesity and the well-meaning attempts at reining that in.

This particular bee in my bonnet got buzzing when some area towns began flirting with the notion of the schools measuring each student's BMI and sending the results home to their parents. These are the same schools which have slashed recess and phys ed programs, but I digress. I'm not about to touch that third rail know as "school funding". I'm also in the camp of thinking that medical issues are better dealt with through pediatricians but understand that not every child might have access to one. My specific concern is the negative emotional message these adolescents might be receiving while we're trying to correct a physical issue (obesity) - which may or may not actually be a problem because they haven't finished growing yet.

Based on personal experience, I was always a slim child until adolescence came along and hit me with the lumpy stick. My two siblings, who were always very trim, just kept growing in proper proportion to their weight and height (damn them!) - but not me. It's not good to feel different at this stage of life. I don't know about you but I remember adolescence as a frantic, hormone swill of a time filled with extreme self-conscious behavior and constant anxiety over fitting in. That was pretty much the extent of my world but in that regard, I think I was a pretty typical pre-teen. It was bad enough that I was conscious of my growing weight but God forbid anyone else take notice too. (Cue nervous mother.) So it didn't help matters when my well-meaning mother got me a girdle after I turned twelve and insisted I wear it.

Talk about humiliation! I became obsessed about my weight and appearance, although thankfully never fell into any kind of serious eating disorder other than general overeating to help soothe my hurt feelings (oh, the irony!). A year later I experienced the growth spurt that my mother thought was never going to happen and "evened out" quite nicely, thank you very much, but now with the very heavy baggage of what I believed was conditional acceptance based on appearance. LaGuadia Sky Caps would need a payloader to carry these bags from the curb.

I recognize the need to tackle this obesity problem but wonder if doing it through the schools is such a great idea - especially during adolescence. While researching whether or not BMI screening in schools was as helpful a tool as it was intended to be, I came across this article which pretty much nailed what I was thinking - especially in the "Potential Harm" section and beyond.

It stated that while more research needed to be done, the only study regarding a parent's reaction to receiving a BMI report of their child being overweight was to restrict the child's caloric intake - which could prove damaging to a child who has not gone through puberty yet. This could lead to stunted growth and behavioral issues such as sneak eating, hiding food, overeating and eventual yo-yo dieting; all of which ultimately increase the risk of obesity.

Another issue that can arise is the stigma of a child being labeled "fat". A BMI reading of overweight can be devastating for a child whose main purpose in his or her early life is to "fit in". There is an awareness in children very early on that being overweight is socially unacceptable - the health risks surrounding that are the least of their concerns. "Few problems in childhood have as significant an impact on emotional well-being as being overweight". As such, overweight children are at increased risk for lower self-esteem, depression and isolation.

Lower self-esteem in this instance is a bit of a double-edged sword. While labeling a child as overweight can undermine his or her self-acceptance as well as that of others, not addressing it at all can lead to increased weight over a prolonged period, which is just a continuation of the problem. A child needs a good sense of self to set the stage for achievement in school, personal interactions and the world beyond. I've heard of schools no longer printing the honor roll in the newspapers to preserve the self-esteem of the kids who didn't make it and yet there seems not to be the same concern with BMI screenings. Is this the Jekyll and Hyde of political correctness? Do some self-esteem issues trump others?

Body dissatisfaction is one of the greatest risk factors involved in the onset of eating disorders. While the correlation between BMI and body dissatisfaction begins in childhood and is small, the size of the correlation increases with age. Peer and parent pressure along with the constant media bombardment of the "perfect body image" already serve to undermine a child's satisfaction with his or her own body. BMI, while intended to be helpful, may be having the opposite effect.

There are very few bandwagons that I don't jump on but this is one of them. While I acknowledge the problem of childhood obesity I also cringe at the idea of telling a not-yet-done-growing child that they are overweight when in fact, their height possibly just hasn't caught up to their weight and left to its own devices, will self-correct. Physical health risks may have been averted but what of the emotional damage? There must be a balance somewhere but I haven't found it yet. And it's not just the schools getting into the BMI business that worries me (even though that's where an "overweight" reading is likely to spread like wildfire) - it's even how some pediatricians approach the topic. How about a little sensitivity for starters. How about the doctor taking the parent aside and talking about it amongst adults instead of right in front of the child? Or how would you respond to the doctor's nurse asking, "Any concerns about his/her weight, Mom?" just after weighing the child in - but still within earshot of that child? My response? "Ask me when he/she is done growing".

I know a lot needs to be done in terms of making our kids healthier and preparing them well for adulthood. We need to make sure they get enough exercise and are eating healthy foods as often as possible - and in a world of fast food and video games, that can be a real challenge. But by properly addressing their physical needs, we also need to keep their psychological health intact as well. We need to bring up the best generation we can.

So what do you think is the right balance to strike here? To BMI or not to BMI before puberty - that is the question.

Does Low-Carb Make You Crankier Than Low Fat?

2009-11-11T09:42:00.000-05:00

Photo: FL4Y

So scientists just did another study pitting low-carb diets against low-fat diets. They took a bunch of overweight Australians, put some on low carb and some on low fat diets, and followed them for a year. Both groups lost about the same amount of weight (30 lbs), but by the end, who was in a better mood?

Well, looks like the Low Fat team won this round.

Hooray for the Low Fat Team!!
Photo: terrapin

Yep: the low-fat dieters were feeling significantly more chipper after a year of dieting than the low-carb group.

But here's the most shocking result the researchers found:

After the first eight weeks, both groups improved in mood. And while the Low-Carbers went back to baseline, the Low-Fatters remained more upbeat than they were when they started, even a year later.

But wait a minute... isn't dieting supposed to be miserable? Doesn't it make us feel anxious, pissy, deprived, fatigued, and depressed?

Well, apparently not for this group. But the low carbers couldn't hang on to their improved moods, while the low-fatters did.

According to the researchers, “this outcome suggests that some aspects of the low-carbohydrate diet may have had detrimental effects on mood that, over the term of one year, negated any positive effects of weight loss.” They wondered if it was the "social difficulty" of going low-carb, or the impact the diet itself might have on serotonin levels.

(Personally, I'm not in either the low-fat or the low-carb camp: for me, I like a good balance of carbs, protein, and healthy fats. It's the kind of fats and carbs that matter to me--I try to eat the healthy kinds, not the junky kinds).

But it's funny, I hadn't realized how much I'd bought into the idea that "dieting is miserable" until this study reminded me that actually, that's not necessarily true. I've settled into healthy eating patterns and have been at a fairly stable weight for so long, I forgot that deciding to lose weight and succeeding can make you happier! Seems obvious, but so many aspects of the process are annoying that I kinda lost sight of the big picture.

In fact, I remember years ago when the Lobster and I decided to change our eating habits, track what we consumed, and try to lose weight, we refused to call it a "diet." We called it going on a "Thing."

We'd say things like:

"Wow, I didn't realize how small a serving of pasta was until we started the Thing."

"Hey look how loose these pants are, I think the Thing is working!"

Even now, when I start getting a bit sloppy about too many treats I'll say: "if I don't stop eating so much junk, I'm going to have to go back on a Thing."

But when we were on The Thing? I'd forgotten that we were actually pretty psyched about it most of the time. Sure, the tracking and measuring and planning was a huge pain in the ass, but there was a big sense of accomplishment at (mostly) sticking to our plans and (mostly) meeting our goals.

However, we only had about 20 or so pounds to lose. We weren't in a hurry, and we didn't have to do anything drastic. And lucky for us, we both have pretty "normal" metabolisms that respond obediently to increased exercise, fewer empty calories, and more muscle mass. I know many folks can do all the right stuff and not get results, which must be incredibly frustrating.

But it's interesting the way I automatically assume that "dieting" is some sort of unpleasant ordeal, when my own experience was that it was pretty darn rewarding, even though I was certainly happy to stop measuring and counting once I reached my goal. I know restricting caloric intake can be completely counter-productive for a lot of people--but this study reminded me that for other people, it can also lead to a better mood.

Now I haven't personally noticed my low-carb friends being any more depressed or cranky than other dieters, but now I'm wondering, after this study, if there are any extra mood challenges with that sort of plan. And I'm curious about the "social difficulty" of a low carb plan--I picture hordes of angry pitch-fork wielding villagers chanting "bread, you must east bread!"--but I expect it's probably a bit more subtle than that.

What have you folks found? Does "dieting" or otherwise consciously limiting your food intake make you feel more miserable, or more upbeat? Does low-carb feel any worse (or better) than other plans?

In Which Jo Tries A Totally Unscientific Experiment!

2009-11-10T06:13:00.003-05:00

Edited to add this disclaimer, inspired by the sensible E. in the comments: The results herein are totally my own experience. You should not extrapolate from my three weeks of supplement use to your own life. If you insist on doing so, be warned: some or all of the vitamins et al I mention here might interact with other medications you're taking, might cause you to develop diarrhea, heart palpitations, kidney stones, or muscle spasms (no kidding, people), or cause other problems if you can't metabolize them or overdose on them. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Do what I did: Talk to your doctor, your pharmacist, and preferably a registered dietician as well before haring off and mega-dosing on stuff. Most of all, to repeat: DO NOT ASSUME THAT WHAT WORKED FOR ME WILL WORK FOR YOU.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled post.

I've been working out and doing Weight Watchers and ignoring the siren call of Cheetos now for about five months, and I've lost fifteen pounds--and maintained that loss. I've also got twenty-five more pounds, several points on my cholesterol, and a few more inches on my waist to go.

So, with Crabby's okay, I've decided to talk about a Totally Unscientific Experiment In Which I Am The Study Animal.

The conversation, which occurred via Gchat, went something like this:

Jo: So, yeah, I've been taking all these supplements lately. Is that something I can blog about, or is that kind of off the Cranky track?

Crab: I think that's a great idea, actually. What have you been taking?

Jo: Oh, just stuff like Evening Primrose Oil and magnesium and so on.

Crab: You do know, don't you, that magnesium can have a laxative effect?

Jo: Oooop! BRB...(sound effect: Jo's feet pattering toward the bathroom)

What I'm Taking, What It's Supposed To Do, and What It Actually Does:

1. Evening Primrose Oil, 500 milligrams (9% GLA), two capsules every night before bed.

EPO is supposed to be good for getting rid of belly fat, controlling the mood swings that come with PMS, and helping with cholesterol numbers. Because I have two of those three problems (not PMS any more, thank Frog), I decided it couldn't hurt and might help.

I'll tell you one thing: This stuff knocks me on my butt, sleep-and-relaxation-wise. I don't know if that's one of the supposed benefits of EPO, but it's doing wonders for my sleep. I take it about an hour before bed and can feel when it kicks in; the muscles between my shoulder blades start to relax. To make more sure that this wasn't psychological, I tried taking it during the day and found myself falling asleep over my lunch.

2. Magnesium, 250 mg, every night before bed.

Most people aren't deficient in magnesium, but Mama's diet tends to be sketchy when it comes to things like spinach. Mama also likes her pink gin of an evening, and alcohol use can wash magnesium out of your body (even moderate use; you don't have to get completely tooty every night). So magnesium it is!

Yes, it does have a laxative effect. Let's just leave that alone, shall we? Thank you.

Mag is also supposed to help with muscle and nerve function and keep your heart healthy.

I've found that taking mag keeps me from feeling shaky and weird in the mornings and seems to help me recover more quickly from the hellish workouts that Attila puts me through. If I miss a dose in the evenings, I feel...odd the next morning, like my hands and feet aren't quite connected to my body. I'm also much, much more sore, both from Hellish Workouts and just from walking and lifting and twisting at work.

3. Zinc, 50 milligrams, at night after dinner if I've eaten enough not to get queasy.

Zinc is one of those immune-boosting, sugar-craving-busting wonder minerals that, again, Your Faithful Correspondent tends to miss because her diet is like the little girl with the little curl: either very, very good or horrid. (Incidentally, did you know that at the time that rhyme came into being, "forehead" rhymed with "horrid"? See the benefits of a liberal education right here!) Zinc is also used in the naturopathic treatment of alcoholism, to control alcohol cravings (see: sugar cravings), but so far I haven't noticed that effect. (Alcohol cravings, in me at least, tend to be more a function of the people I have to put up with at work, though, so your mileage may vary.)

Sugar, though? If I take zinc with a meal--and that's important, as zinc WILL make you barf if you take it on an empty stomach--I don't get sugar or simple-carb cravings.

As far as the immune-boosting effects are concerned, check with me in January, which is when I usually start coming down with whatever bugs are circulating.

4. B-complex capsule, with things like niacin and folic acid in it, every night before bed.

B-complexes are important for nerve function and energy. B-vites tend to get washed out by stress, caffeine, bad diets...check, check, sorta-check. Repleting them means that I have a heck of a lot more energy, I'm not as anxious about things, and I pee neon-yellow for the entire day. It's like Christmas!

The one drawback is that this particular formula tends to make me flush if I don't take it on a full stomach. Ooo--I forgot the other: B-vitamins have a diuretic effect, so I pee a lot. But I pee a lot anyhow. But now it's neon yellow! Wahoo!

Another benefit is that, combined with the magnesium, the B-complex takes away the horrible disconnected, shaky feeling I get in the mornings if I'm sleep-deprived, which is most of the time.

5. Calcium! Two chewable extra-strength generic version fruit-ick-flavored tabs before bed, 750 milligrams each.

Who doesn't love calcium? It's good for your heart, it's good for your central nervous system, it's great for your bones. It's bad for your kidneys if you're chronically dehydrated or have odd ways of metabolizing the stuff, but I don't have either, so calcium is my friend.

Calcium builds (as we all know) strong bones. It's also good for indigestion. I have no idea if my bones are actually stronger through taking icky fruit-flavored chewables (remind me to get the orange next time), but I don't have heartburn. Then again, I never had heartburn before. *shrug*

Given that I am now closer to 40 than 30--a lot closer--it's important that I don't lose any bone mass. My *grandfather* had osteoporosis, if that gives you any indication of my genetics, so I'm a little obsessive about Ca+ and vitamin D. The vitamin D I get from the sun, but come the dead of winter, I supplement that as well.

For now, that's it. If I'm pressed for time in the evening, I might pop a multivitamin (generic version of Centrum or some such), but I find that I don't feel as good as if I take the more focused stuff listed here. If I had to take only one bottle with me to a desert island, it'd probably be the B-complex; I don't know how I managed without it.

If I feel really adventurous over the next month or so, I may start taking stuff like, say, kudzu or garlic or (ew) fish oil, which makes me burp (ew). You will, of course, be the first to be updated.

Smart Phones and Dumb Humans: Is Web Technology Messing With Your Brain?

2009-11-09T09:37:00.001-05:00

Photo: boris

So I finally signed up for Twitter. There's now a little widget down there on the left sidebar that displays my "tweets."

I'm at the Clueless Newbie stage of twitterdom and still have no idea what to tweet, or how to get people to "follow me," or even what the damn thing is supposed to be for. Also, I don't own a smart cell phone, just a dumb one (which is appropriate considering I never recharge it can't remember the phone number), so fear not--you won't have to read my thoughts from the grocery store about what brand of yogurt I'm buying.

My day is just not interesting enough for me to report on my doings every few minutes.

"What are you doing?" Twitter asks, all perky and hopeful.

Photo: Netzkobold

Well, gosh, Twitter...

I'm sitting here on my ass in front of the computer screen again, trying to write a blog post. And later, I might go into the kitchen for a snack! I'm thinking some little almond crunchy things and a glass of milk. Oh hell, that's way more than 140 characters and I just remembered...

Nobody gives a fuck what I'm doing right now.

Cartoon: nataliedee.com

So I'm thinking maybe I'll use Twitter to point out interesting health studies I come across, or fun videos, or stray thoughts, or blog announcements, other miscellaneous items that I don't necessarily want to write a whole post about.

Or, more likely--after a couple of weeks I'll stop using it entirely and pretend I never signed up. I joined Twitter for the same compelling reason a teenager one day starts wearing all her t-shirts inside out: because she figures that's what the cool kids are doing and she wants to be one of them.

(I can now hear my mother saying: "but what if all your blogger friends decided to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, would you do that too?" And my answer would be..."No way, of course not!... Well, not unless I got a humongous boost in page views or a cool sidebar badge or something.")

Anyway, what I will most certainly not do with Twitter is use it properly, like a professional blogger or a young person would. I will not read or skim through thousands of tweets a day, replying @hither and @yon, gaining thousands of followers and networking and building new relationships and bringing hordes of new visitors to Cranky Fitness. That sounds like way too much work. I'm already terrible at keeping up with lovely blogfriends I've met through the comments here. Instead, I will fail to keep up, and watch as my 7 followers drop to 3, and then when I'm down to zero followers I'll try to figure out if there's a way I can follow myself--without defying the laws of physics.

But here's the thing: my inability to multi-task, and my stubborn resistance to new internet technology might actually be a good thing! At least according to Nicholas Carr, who's written some fascinating and controversial stuff about modern technology and the human mind.

Carr's contention is that the web and other aspects of modern technology are changing the way our brains work--and not for the better. We may have access to a lot of information, and may be able to take on many tasks at once, but as a result we're getting all stupid and shallow.

Note: this is an oversimplification; Carr is much more balanced than that. But don't blame me, that's at least partly the point! Oversimplification is all we have time for now, and who am I to argue when it means less work for lazy bloggers?

Anyway, here are some brief excerpts from recent articles in The Sun ("Computing the Cost: Nicholas Carr On How The Internet Is Rewiring Our Brains") and The Atlantic ("Is Google Making Us Stupid?")

See what you think; is he on to something? Does any of this sound familiar?

"Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory....I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. ... Now I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text."

"I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet... Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets, reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link."

"Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

Anyone else notice this phenomenon? I know my ability to concentrate on difficult tasks seems to have suffered quite a bit since I've gotten more used to endless distractions of the web. On the other hand, I discovered when I took a couple of weeks off from the web recently that I'm perfectly able to immerse myself in a well-written novel--especially if it's funny or compelling or features hot lesbian love scenes between 18th century English aristocrats.

Anyway.

Carr goes on to point out the ways in which our culture is changing to accommodate our web-altered short attention spans, and brings up other negative aspects of our technological dependence: the costs in terms of our relationship with people, nature, and our privacy. In particular, he worries that we will "emphasize efficiency of thought over depth of thought. I fear we’re going to lose...the kind of contemplative, reflective intelligence that is most valuable, most human."

I'm not sure I agree with all of his darkest scenarios, but I worry about some of these things too. However, aside from a study comparing new computer users to experienced ones (that shows some brain changes) the articles are a little light on research. (And I have to confess, true to his predictions, I didn't read every word of either article and it could be he had a lot more proof of the whole re-wiring hypothesis in there that I didn't see). Carr has also written several books and has a new one coming out in June, called The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains; perhaps that's where all the convincing "our brains are totally fucked up now" research is.

However, whatever the research says, the whole idea of the internet messing with my brains definitely got me thinking! ... At least for a few seconds.

***Personal footnote for Cranky Team Co-bloggers: You know that section of the Official Cranky Fitness Style Manual on "Appropriate Language" (pg 243, paragraph 2), that reads: "In order not to offend sensitive readers or potential advertisers, please try to avoid the gratuitous use of swearwords, or if you must use them, consider the strategic use of asterisks-- i.e., "bullsh*t"; "assh*le"; or "f*cked up?" Um, you can go ahead and cross that section out. Thx, Crabby.

Are any of you on Twitter? And if not, would you bother to look at a sidebar thingy on the blog that had health links or should I not bother? And what do you think about the notion that the internet is... um... doing something bad to our... wait I forgot what I was gonna ask you.

Giveaway Winners--Update

2009-11-08T22:47:00.005-05:00

So much for my proofreading skills! I didn't notice that a coding error wiped out part of the Fall Giveaway Winner post. Too bad it was the section that explained how winners should claim their prizes and what the deadline was! It's fixed now, and many of you figured it out anyway--thanks for your emails. But I'll extend the deadline to claim prizes until end of day (midnight PST), Monday November 16th. Sorry about that!

Big Fall Giveaway Winners!

2009-11-06T14:30:00.002-05:00

Photo: marc e marc

So the random number generator just got a vigorous workout, and we have quite a few winners to announce in our Big Ass Fall Giveaway.

Are you one of them?

If you see your name here, please email Crabby McSlacker @ gmail.com (but skip the spaces) to claim your prize by the end of the day (midnight, PST) Friday November 13th. (Note: if you are superstitious, you may want to make sure to email earlier). Please include your mailing address and real name (or at least one that won't confuse your mail-delivery person.) You also might want to remind me which prize you won, so I can forward it promptly to the right sponsor's representative. Warning: If you don't check in on time, your prize will go to someone else!

And if you don't see your name? So sorry! But hang in there, because any unclaimed prizes will be re-awarded and you still might win something.

(For more information about the prizes and sponsors, please see the original Fall Giveaway Post.)

And now, a drumroll please....

The winners are:

Grand Prize: The TRX Home Training Bundle

Moonlight Dancer

The $150 Giftcard for a customized T Shirt Quilt from Campus Quilt Co

Pixie

Vitalicious Super Sampler Pack

Gwendrr
dragonmamma/naomi
Certifiably Fit
Little M
bdaiss
Heather
Jody-Fit at 51

Books from Green Mountain Spa (US and Canada)
The Diet Survivor's Handbook:

Choosing Losing

Feeding the Hungry Heart: The Experience of Emotional Eating

TheGardenWeigh

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom:

Beanie

"Groove" headphones:

Tina
Hilary (of the Smitten Image)
Java Chick

Pulse Yoga I Basic DVD

Taylor
Gina Fit by 41

True North Sample Packs

Gretchen
Nicohle
Christine
Jenn
Robert

Atkins sampler

Grace
Rosa
Shelley
Katey
sekhmetsat

Silk Heart Soy Milk:

J.C.
Lillian's Mom
Cammi99
Lady in Weighting
Theresa
theskinnyplate
JustMe
Feed Me I'm Cranky
Carrie
Messymimi
Laura E.
SamSam26
The Gazelle
Slimsdotter
Ruth

ME Beverage Sampler:
Midknyt
EssBee
Gayla B
Tatya
Atta Girl

Thanks for playing, everyone, and sorry there weren't enough prizes for everyone. And thanks for hanging in there during my break; actual health and fitness posts coming next week!

Unicorns, Fairies....and Fitness? Top 10 Fitness Myths

2009-11-06T05:06:00.002-05:00

(Photo: Janet_Farthing)

I love lists. Call me anal (you're anal) but there's something about the order and brevity that appeals to me. I especially love the kind where an expert is called upon to put everything I need to know about a certain topic into a nice, easy-to-follow format instead of having to go out and research it all by myself. And if it happens to relate to a subject that has ~~haunted~~ interested me for years, all the better. So when I saw this list of the Top 10 Fitness Myths, I put aside my macaroni and cheese omelet and began to read.

1) Crunches will burn fat off your abs. First things first: addressing the fat that's covering those abs through diet and exercise has to come before the crunches. In essence, make sure your underwear isn't on over your clothes.

2) There is an easy way to lose weight. There are some "truisms" in life that you know right away are a load of b.s. - "It's not about the money", "This will only hurt a little", and "On time and under budget" - and this is just another one of them. There is a multi-billion dollar industry that's been built upon making it look easier than it really is. Hard work and perseverance are still the answer. If it was easy, I would've found and exploited it by now and Bill Gates and Oprah would be working for me.

3) If you don't have time to get in the government's recommended 30-90 minutes a day, you shouldn't bother. Smaller sessions totaling up to your overall daily quota are still beneficial. (My guess is they're referring to exercise here and not the wait time for your swine flu shot that hasn't even been shipped to your part of the country yet.)

4) Weightlifting makes women bulky. Not unless you're using steroids and/or are in the New York Yankees line-up - which I realize is redundant. (And why, yes, I am a sore loser Red Sox fan - no redundancy intended.)

5) You aren't working hard enough if you aren't dripping in sweat. I assume that they're referring to my own sweat here and not the second-hand sweat spraying off that uber-runner guy on the treadmill next to me. Workout intensity, temperature and a variety of other factors determine how much you sweat.

6) Workouts should hurt. Dentists, dating, mammograms and parenting - yes. Workouts - no. A little soreness a day or two later is common but anything beyond that really isn't and is a sign of something gone wrong.

7) If you stop exercising, your muscles will turn to fat. Your muscles will probably get smaller and/or atrophy but your fat will get fatter all on its own if you stop working out. Fat and muscle tissue are different and seem inversely related; like they take turns being the dominant one - a little bit like the Clintons.

8) As you age, you will lose muscle and gain fat. Part of this might be true, actually, because of your declining metabolism, in which case resistance training can help retain lean muscle - which is not to be confused with resisting change; another more insidious sign of aging (Also see: "Oldsmobile cravings" and "Dinner for two" oops - sorry, that should be "Dinner AT two").

9) Workouts must be intense to burn fat. Surgery is intense. So are IRS audits and air traffic controllers. That philosophy major your dated in college was too. Workouts don't have to be. They can be just as effective at burning fat at lower intensities but you have to do them longer. Plus, you lower the burn-out factor by making them easier to withstand.

10) Stretching isn't important because it won't make you thinner. Stretching is like adding oil to your car's engine - just try driving without it and then you'll appreciate its importance. Missing workouts because of injuries caused from not stretching properly will add to your bottom's line.

So what about it - have you fallen for any of these myths or can you think of any others that could have made the list?

Pass (on) the Salt

2009-11-05T05:00:00.002-05:00

Photo: TooFarNorth

Did you dress up as a double-humped camel for this year's Halloween party and everyone kept asking where your costume was? Do you feel like you're retaining more water than the Hoover Dam without the increased hydroelectric benefit to your utility bill? Have you surpassed the Great Salt Lake as our country's largest inland salt water body? Does your blood pressure reading have the folks at NASA saying, "Man, that's high"? Have you been exercising and watching what you eat and STILL can't lose weight? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may have a sodium problem.

The salt from your shaker might be the least of your worries given the hidden sodium in many processed and restaurant foods (even if it doesn't taste salty - it's in there) - accounting for about 80% of our daily consumption. On average, we should only be taking in about 2300 milligrams (about one teaspoon) of salt a day. But as you might expect, we Americans like to do everything big and are actually consuming about 3400 mg a day. Our sodium intake has risen 55% in the last 35 years and shows no signs of abating. I wish the same could be said about my salary.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is the most common danger associated with consuming too much salt. The AMA labeled the need to reduce sodium from our diets an "urgent" public health issue. But since when have we ever listened to advice that was good for us - especially when we insist that our food be as fast as the pace of our lives? But addressing this issue may not be as difficult as we think - and let's face it, we can all get on board with something that's easy. It just takes a bit of planning and awareness.

If perusing the nutritional labels of our food proves too taxing, then try this quick reference guide to see where your favorites fall on the sodium scale. You should really make yourself aware of what's in your food - besides your fork or spoon. You might even be surprised about some of the foods you're using if you're attempting to lose weight. For example, one cupt of 1% milk fat cottage cheese contains 918 mg (I never liked the stuff anyway) and 3 ounces of Alaskan King crab has 715 mg (no wonder it's so crabby). And one cup of canned baked beans for that all-important fiber? A mere 1,008 mg. Remember how we switched from the potato chips in the big Trans Fat Scare of a few years ago to the healtheir alternative of baked pretzels? Right. Well, ten of those hard plain salted alternatives have 1,029 mg. Some canned vegetable juice cocktails, while claiming to provide several servings of veggies in their drink, also contain 653 mg per cup. Tomato juice (in the can with salt added) has 877. Yeah, drinking your veggies seemed just a little too good to be true.

Kicking the can habit could spare you a lot of sodium. Three ounces of white tuna canned in water has 320 mg while raw albacore has 34. A like amount of canned salmon, 471, versus its cooked sockeye cousin at 56 is a no-brainer (even if it IS considered brain food). Non-canned beans, such as lentils cooked without salt, have a low per one cup serving of 4 mg. Now that's some change we can believe in.

Cooking family favorites that come in a box or can could be cooked from scratch with a lot less of the sodium involved. From scratch, you say? Who's got time for that?! I don't mean making everything from scratch, like the pasta or having your own free-range chicken farm, but the things you like in it or on it such as fresh veggies (vs canned) or cheese, oil, chicken, etc. There are also plenty of non-salt seasonings that could flavor up your meals, too.

Eatings foods that are high in potassium can have the reserve impact on your blood pressure than salt does. Here, unfortunately, the equation of how much we should get daily versus how much we do get is the inverse of the sodium math. We should get 4700 mg of potassium daily but typically average about 2300. Some good sources of potassium are apricots (not canned), bananas, spinach, tomatoes, lima beans and prunes. In the case of potassium (and some folks may have sensitivities to it), supplements are not good substitutes for the real McCoy. And as ever, a doctor or nutritionist are always the best sources of information concerning your health and diet.

So next Halloween, when you're recycling/reusing/repurposing or just plain wearing that camel costume again, I bet you'll need a name tag.

Almost Back...

2009-11-04T09:06:00.001-05:00

This is just a quick post with a few vacation pictures--I promise, actual health and fitness blogging will resume shortly!

As I'm starting to try to catch up with everything I've missed, I just wanted to chime in and add a brief "hell yes" to a couple of Jo's recent pro-exercise posts. (In case you missed them, one is about lifelines and the other is on kicking ass at IKEA.)

Because while Jo is a lot more hard-core in her workouts than I am (whereas I'm more hard-core when it comes to whining), I have to agree with her: staying in decent shape makes life a heck of a lot more enjoyable.

Yep, still using that strappy thing!

Anyway, perhaps our favorite stop on the road trip was Mount Zion National Park. It's just one of many amazing national parks we've visited in the area, and we keep swearing we'll make it back to the southwest more often.

The Lobster likes it too.

But to best experience glorious scenery, you gotta get off your ass and walk around in it! It's not the same peering out the windows from the shuttle bus, or visiting the 3-D giant screen theater version just outside the park.

Even Crabby can't help smiling when she goes hiking.

So on our last morning at Zion, anticipating a long day in the van, I headed out on what I thought was going to be a relatively flat trail for a run. But I hadn't checked it out very carefully; turns out it wasn't a flat trail after all but rather a slow steady climb, with increasingly impressive views along the way. (Note: for those who've been to Zion, this trail was of course NOT Angel's Landing; I am far too chicken-shit to attempt that one.)

In short: it was more a hiking trail, not so much a running trail, at least not for a slacker-runner like me. But I was listening to great music and feeling psyched about being in such a lovely setting. I felt like running, not walking. So I kept chugging up the hill and chugging up the hill and made it to the top and then partway down and back up again (it was not all that long) and it was AWESOME! I got to experience the sort of runner's high that had me grinning for the rest of the morning.

And I couldn't help but think how lucky I was to have the chance to do that. I felt grateful for every tedious workout I'd done in order to "stay in shape."

Not that I plan to stop complaining about how miserable working out can be sometimes--this is Cranky Fitness, after all. I just love to get those little reminders every now and then that an active lifestyle actually feels better, and all that effort is totally worth it.

Note: Sorry for the world's most boring blog post; we just got to the Bay Area and are starting to unpack and I can't seem to find the box in which I put my sense of humor. I swear I had one before we left...

Thanks, everyone, for hanging in there during my break! (Oh, and don't forget the Fall Giveaway Check-in deadline is tonight).

I have a one-word reason why fitness is important:

2009-11-03T10:41:00.004-05:00

IKEA.

Yes, fiends and neighbors, I made a run to IKEA, land of flat-pack furniture, yesterday.

While I was there, I hauled a number of sixty-pound boxes off a number of shelves, along with some twenty-pound boxes and a couple of smaller things, and put all of said poundage into a cart.

Then I hauled it outside to the long-suffering Honda.

Then I hauled it out of the L.S.H and into the house.

And, finally, with the aid of most of a six-pack, a delivery pizza, and plenty of Ramones, I put the IKEA stuff together, took everything save the washer, dryer, and treadmill out of my utility room, painted the utility room, and put everything back in.

All told it took me six hours of steady hard labor. That was six hours of steady hard labor that I wouldn't have been able to do at thirty, and which most people couldn't manage at thirty-nine--and I was able to do it all because I work very hard at being strong and fairly fit.

Think about it like this: working out, especially at things that are *hard*, does two things:

It teaches your body how to respond to hard work that doesn't involve barbells, and

It teaches your brain that even the most horrible misery is temporary.

If you're really serious, you can even train your brain to remember that the results are almost always worth it.

Attila just left. She worked me hard even though I'm still sore from yesterday's renovation adventures. For that reason, this is all the post I'm going to be able to manage. Remember this, though:

Being able to outlift the dudes in the belts at IKEA?

*Totally* a rush.

Ready, Set,... Ah Hell.

2009-11-02T06:00:00.006-05:00

Preliminary Note: Are you entered in the Cranky Fitness Fall Giveaway? Do check the post before this one for an important update.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Is Transition Time Eating Up Your Day?

Does anyone else find that a really huge and annoying percentage of the day seems to take place not actually doing things, but getting ready to do things and tidying back up after the things have been done?

"Going to the gym," for example, may consist of working out for an hour or so, but is that really how much time you need to budget for it?

No, of course not! Not unless you work as a personal trainer or have a home gym and happen to spend all day in your gym clothes, ready to go at any moment. Oh, and you'd also need to manage to work out vigorously without perspiring.

Depending on your routine, "going to the gym" could also consist of finding your car keys or bus pass, collecting all your gear, driving/riding/walking to the gym, waiting in line at the front desk, chatting with friends, changing into workout clothes, using the restroom, working out (which could also including waiting for machines or class to start or whatever), going back to the locker room, stripping off your sweaty clothes, showering, drying your hair, applying deodorant/lotion/sunscreen/make-up or whatever you tend to slather on yourself, putting on your clothes again, getting back into your car... and then, finally, getting ready to do the next thing.

Don't You Hate It When You Realize
You've Forgotten Something Important?
Photo by NataliaEnvy

And yet, some folks stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that life is like this. They are surprised, every single time, when things take so much longer than they should. How come the day is over already and so many things didn't get done?

It's my theory that people who tend to be lead healthy, balanced, productive, yet stress-free lives are often really good at mastering transitions.

Alas, I am not one of those people.

I would further hypothesize that there are at least two important components to mastering transitions, both of which I suck at. But if you, unlike me, actually want to work on these two things, perhaps you can be one of those Successful, Balanced, Healthy, Stress-Free Productive People!

1. Prepare Ahead or Improvise?

Some people are natural "prepare ahead" types; others may have to try to teach themselves this skill. Pack your gym bag the night before your workout! Make a list of things you need to pick up after work! Have a single place to keep your keys so you don't put them down all over the house and then forget where! Think through meal planning, shop for days/weeks/months in advance, cut things up for the week ahead, make extra portions to freeze for later, and have lots of matching food storage containers that are not warped and actually have tops!

There are people out there who actually do all this stuff, consistently, and you rarely see them at work all wild-haired because they forgot to bring a brush to the gym, or guiltily scarfing sad vending machine items because they didn't manage to pack a healthy lunch.

Those of us who wait until we're hungry for dinner and then stare into the refrigerator and realize we need to go shopping unless we want to make a meal out of microwave popcorn and canned tuna and raisins? And then three hours later we're back from the store and actually finally eating something and wondering if the dishes will just this once agree to do themselves because, damn it, it's bed time already?

We're the ones who don't tend to get stuff checked off our "to do" lists very often. (Not that we're very good about making them in the first place).

2. Philosophical or Frantic?

Whether you prepare well or not, there's a certain amount of transition time that everyone has to go through. We need to gather things up, we need to get ourselves places, we must wait in lines and endure delays and deal with things that break at the wrong time or people that don't do what we want them to.

Some people take a very Zen* approach to everyday transitions. Life is life! Might as well enjoy each precious moment! So what if those moments are piling up and you're stuck in a long line at the grocery store and the cash register does something funny but the clerk doesn't know how to fix it and the supervisor is busy elsewhere and no one is opening another checkstand and a little boy is screaming Mommy Mommy Mommy Lookit Me Lookit Me over and over and over but Mommy is still not Lookitting?

Smile! It is what it is. You'll be out of there soon enough. We'll all be "outta here" soon enough.

Anyway, others of us are not so Zen. We get frustrated and make ourselves miserable; we rush and so we forget things; we get anxious and frantic and fumbly so we drop things. We try to extract revenge on obstinate inanimate objects or, even worse, find culpable humans to blame when things go wrong. We rage and fume and fret and worry, which doesn't get us through our transitions any faster or more happily. Yet to change our approach? That would mean effort!

Perhaps some day I'll join the Stress-Free Healthy Balanced Productive People Crowd, and life will seem like it's all Doing! and not so much the Getting Ready and Waiting and Cleaning Up!

But then it just wouldn't be Cranky Fitness, would it?

How about you folks, are you all Prepared and Zen, or do you struggle with all the extra crap that gets in the way of Doing?

*Like many health and personal development bloggers, I often invoke "Zen" principles without having any idea what Zen is about, liking the sound of it but being too lazy to educate myself. Actual Zen people--feel free to make tsking noises, if you Zen folk are allowed to do things like that.

[And yes, this is another re-run, but I will be back really soon with brand new stuff!]

It's Check-In Time!

2009-11-02T05:30:00.002-05:00

Remember the Cranky Fitness big-ass Fall Giveaway? Well, it requires comments on two posts over at our Product Page in order to officially enter the contest. We've got a bunch of great prizes from sponsors like TRX, Vitalicious, American Quilt, Green Mountain Spa and lots of others. So this is to announce that, if all goes right with Blogger's pre-publishing feature, the second post should be up this morning and you have until midnight, PST, Wednesday November 4th to leave your comments.

And if you missed the first giveaway post, it's not too late to enter! But please read the instructions about how to comment, as there are specific requirements.

I'm writing this ahead of time, as it looks likely I will be on the road, heading home when this post appears and will probably not have internet. So if something goes wrong and there is no second post over at the giveaway page? Don't worry, I'll give everyone another shot when I get back!

And don't forget to stay tuned for announcement of the winners!

What are your lifelines?

2009-10-30T13:33:00.002-04:00

I was thinking this morning about things I cannot live without.

I don't mean things like air and water and an appropriate amount of carbon dioxide to stimulate the breathing reflex; I'm talking about things that, if they were suddenly to go away, would make such a huge dent in my quality of life that living would be difficult to do.

The whole reason that this came up is that I did something last night I hardly ever do (which is the reason I'm posting in the afternoon rather than in the morning): I forgot to take my antidepressant before I went to bed.

Those of you who have read Head Nurse know that I take Effexor to control anxiety and depression. It's been a literal lifesaver for me; I think I would've died of ennui had I not started taking it five years ago. *Not* taking it, though, is worse than being depressed: even the extended-release version will set you up for nasty, nasty withdrawal symptoms if you miss so much as a single dose. Think dreams that even Crabby's Lucid Dreaming post couldn't help you control, weird visual and physical effects, and a feeling like your brain has the flu.

So I woke up this morning feeling electric shocks down my arms and up my neck, remembered the crazy dream I had (the ICU staff was doing a cross between "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race", neither of which I've ever seen, and we had to walk from Dallas to the Gaza Strip), felt foggy and goofy, and realized: This drug? Is a lifeline for me. Without it, I have Brain Scurvy.

Intrigued by the thought that a little red capsule could be so important, I thought about other lifelines I have. One is my relationship with my sister. Another, surprisingly, is my relationship with Attila.

Three years ago, if you'd told me I would consider a monumentally expensive personal trainer to be a necessity rather than a luxury, and that I'd actually panic at the thought of not working out with that M.E.P.T., I would've laughed you out of the room. I knew intellectually that exercise could change brain chemistry for the better. I knew it could help manage stress. I knew it could increase a person's feelings of competency and self-esteem. I just didn't realize how much those study results would apply to me.

I'll be darned, though, if I don't feel so much better, so much less goofy, and so much more competent when I'm done falling over my own feet and dropping weights on my head! At first, it was the Hammer Analogy: it felt so good when I stopped that I didn't mind the weight-dropping and floor-kissing. Now, though, it's a totally different feeling: I *jones* for workouts. And I know that I have neither the determination nor the discipline to do them on my own, so I really depend on Attila.

I have, totally unintentionally, become something of a jock. When I'm out for walks with Max, he'll stay on the ground while I balance on a low wall. We'll do doggy-timed wind sprints. I no longer poop out at the idea of lifting heavy patients--in fact, it's become something of a noblesse oblige thing for me to help with every lift at work.

It's not to the point yet that I'm wearing running shoes out in public, or that I'm eating horrible protein bars for breakfast and taking licorice extract at lunch, but I'm sure that time will come. When it does, please knock some sense into my head and remind me of my other lifeline: FRITOS.

What are your lifelines? How many of them are body-fitness-related, and how many are brain-fitness-related?

Hello from the Crab!

2009-10-28T22:03:00.001-04:00

Yep, we're still on our cross country road trip, and we haven't been eaten by bears, struck by lightning, or abducted by aliens. Yet.

Actually, instead of heading for the Rocky Mountains today as we'd planned, we took a weather-related detour and are now holed up in a sad little town that smells of cow shit. On the plus side, cow-shit town has friendly people and features a convenient, if not scenic, RV park that has internet. We're waiting out a storm and are hoping for better hiking days ahead, if not in the Rockies then perhaps somewhere Southwesty. But heck, it's all an adventure, and we're well-supplied with pizza and salad and beer and we're having a grand ol' time.

It's weird not being on the internet for days and days at a time. On previous trips, I've been much better about staying connected when traveling cross country, but this time... not so much. Sorry! I hate missing out on what everyone's been up to, and I feel bad about putting up old rerun posts, but I know that soon enough I'll be settled again on the west coast and will have plenty of chance to get all caught up again.

Thanks so much for your great comments and your patience! And thanks again to my great cobloggers Gigi and Jo for keeping things going.

But anyway, since this is a health and fitness blog, here's some photographic evidence, however indistinct, that I've been attempting to get some on-the-road exercise:

Crabby on a Hike--
The World's Most Clueless Map Reader

Crabby Running--Before She Found Out
It Was Hunting Season and She Was Supposed
To Be Wearing a Bright Orange Vest to Avoid
Being Mistaken for a Deer and Shot Dead.
Hey Western Pa: WTF???

Crabby Using the TRX that You Could Win,
Just Ignore Her Saggy-Ass Form
And Pretend She's Doing it Right

The Lobster!
(This Is Just Proof That She's Still Here And
That Crabby Didn't Accidentally Lose Her In a Poker Game).

I miss everyone, thanks for continuing to stop by. Back soon!

Take Me To The Closet, Bub

2009-10-28T06:00:00.001-04:00

If you listen to music while you run (or any other time, but let's pretend this is a fitness post) you have probably encountered this phenomenon:

The song lyrics are difficult to make out, and sometimes the words you "hear" sound quite silly. But you rack your brain for alternatives and it still really sounds like those are the actual words! Later you discover what the real lyrics are, and of course your goofy version was totally wrong.

Cranky Fitness does not pretend to be the first to discover the humor in "mondegreens," or misheard song lyrics. Google a bit and you will find bazillions of hilarious examples.

However, does anyone else find it annoying that most of these collections are based on the premise that the listener actually thought the silly lyrics were the real ones?

Isn't it funny enough that the Creedence Clearwater lyrics "There's a Bad Moon on the Rise" sound so much like "There's a Bathroom on the Right" that you could almost swear that's what they were singing? Do sensible adults really have to pretend that they believed a song that hit Number 2 on the Billboard charts was written about the location of a restroom facility?

Or that Jimmy Hendrix was asking his listeners, back in 1966, to "Excuse me while I kiss this guy?"

Seems more likely that people heard funny words and thought: "Doesn't it almost kinda sound like they're saying ______? Wouldn't it be funny if those were the actual lyrics?" Yet it remains a tradition that we act as though we once were certain the goofy lyrics were authentic.

(So I'll concede the "when I was seven years old I thought..." sort of stories are a lot more credible. I thought lots of silly things myself when I was a kid. But even some of these sound a little fake sometimes).

But let's put aside the question of whether these mishearings are truly misunderstandings. Some of the collections you come across from various sources (like here or here) really are quite amusing.

For example, do you remember any of these classic lyrics?

Madonna's: "Like a virgin, touched for the thirty-first time."
(very first time);

Eurythmics: "It’s all right, babies come in bags"
(Baby's comin' back);

Robert Palmer's: "Might as well face it you're a dick with a glove"
(addicted to love);

Cher's: "Gypsies, Chimpanzees"
(Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves);

Maria Muldaur's: "Midnight after you're wasted"
(Midnight At the Oasis);

Joni Mitchell's : "A gay pair of guys put up a parking lot"
(They paved paradise and put up a parking lot);

Or the Eagle's : "I'm looking for a lover who won't blow my brother, she's so hard to find."
(my cover, not brother)

(Note: the "corrected" lyrics in parentheses may not be entirely right either, as I didn't bother to look 'em all up).

Alas, an effort to turn this into a more intellectual scholarly discussion of misheard song lyrics turned up nothing the least bit researchy. Well, except this totally incomprehensible study. (Seriously, I have no idea what the hell that was supposed to be about).

So what are some of my mishearings? Unfortunately, most of mine aren't that funny, or else they are entirely too common. For example, the Bee-Gees song "Bald-headed woman" came on at the gym the other day, but tons of us hear it that way, not as "More than a woman." Likewise, I'm not the only one who hears the Savage Garden tune "I Want You" as referencing a poultry-flavored soft drink, Chicken-Cherry Cola. I couldn't even figure out what the heck the real lyrics were.

I do have a tune on my iPod in which a woman enthusiastically implores her man to "Take Me To The Closet, Bub." However, she doesn't sound nearly sultry enough to be suggesting a furtive sexual encounter surrounded by coats and umbrellas, so I suspected those weren't the real lyrics. Yet even trying really hard to make sense of the words, it took weeks to finally hear them as "Take Me to The Clouds Above."

And there's a line in a song called "Poison" in which the singer is talking about how tempting having sex with her lover is:

"Your mouth, so hot; your ware, uncut;
"Your skin, so wet; black lace, on sweat"

I guessed I was probably hearing that wrong--would she really comment on the fact that her boyfriend had an uncircumcised penis? And would she use the rather old-fashioned sounding "ware" as a euphemism? But it kept sounding like that's exactly what she was saying. I finally had to look it up online to find out that "your ware, uncut," was actually "your web, I'm caught."

Dang, I shouldn't have looked. I liked the uncircumcised version better.

So obviously I'm not very good at funny mishearings--I'm hoping you all can do much better--either ones you misheard yourselves, or other funny ones you've come across.

In the meantime, here's an amusing video, and you don't even have to like Pearl Jam to enjoy it.

[Re-run warning: Yep, sorry, this is another oldie. But I'll be back from vacation soon with more new posts!]

Well, that explains a lot of things.

2009-10-26T19:45:00.004-04:00

A study came out recently from UT Southwestern Medical Center. For those of you who've never heard of it, UTSW is one of those research centers that make people who do research for a living go "Oooh" and "Aaaah" when they hear the name. It's also one of those research centers where people apparently get paid grant money to find out things which will serve either to depress you utterly, or boost your willpower.

Dr. Deborah Clegg (who, incidentally, has the coolest glasses I've ever seen) led a team that discovered, long story short, that eating foods high in saturated fatty acids like palmitic acid (found in dairy products and beef, dammit!) actually turns off the chemical reaction in your brain that tells you you're hungry.

This, my friends, is a troubling finding.

What this means, basically, is that if you eat butter on your pancakes on Thursday, your brain will refuse to recognize that you're full, so you'll overeat that buttery pancakey wonderfulness.

“What we’ve shown in this study is that someone’s entire brain chemistry can change in a very short period of time. Our findings suggest that when you eat something high in fat, your brain gets ‘hit’ with the fatty acids, and you become resistant to insulin and leptin,” Dr. Clegg said. “Since you’re not being told by the brain to stop eating, you overeat.”

Further, your brain doesn't reset itself automatically after a load of pancakes with palmitic acids; instead, it takes a while for it to return to its normal state of Weight Watchering and bean-munching.

Dr. Clegg said that in the animals, the effect lasts about three days, potentially explaining why many people who splurge on Friday or Saturday say they’re hungrier than normal on Monday.

What does this mean for those of us who are either trying to lose weight, lower our collective cholesterols, or generally be more healthy?

It means we need to be aware of--though not afraid of--the effect that things like creamy, marvelous butter, stinky cheeses, real heavy cream, and lean cuts of gorgeous, well-grilled beef might have on our brains. Portion control would obviously be the watchword here.

Dr. Clegg said that even though the findings are in animals, they reinforce the common dietary recommendation that individuals limit their saturated fat intake. “It causes you to eat more,” she said. Dr. Clegg then lowered her head to her desk, sobbing, "No more Ben & Jerry's! No more delicious cereal cream on my Corn Snappers in the morning! I've got to eat that hideous fake butter spread! How could you do this to me, research team? How *could* you? Drat those stupid mice!"

Lucid Dreaming for Slackers

2009-10-26T06:00:00.001-04:00

Have any of you ever played around in the amazing fantasy world that is Lucid Dreaming?

With a bit of practice it's something many people can learn. Even I did. Then of course I got lazy and got out of the habit. Now I'm just starting to get back into it (again), and I have to say: totally worth the trouble! I always forget how much fun it is.

What the Heck is Lucid Dreaming?

It's just a fancy name for realizing in the middle of a dream that you're... well, dreaming. It dawns on you that your current "reality" is not actually "real," and this awareness can then lead to the ability to control your dreams. And boy howdy, that's where the fun starts.

The cool thing: it's a learnable skill. There's a set of steps to follow, and if you do them, there's a good chance you'll eventually start having dreams where you're aware you're in a dream and you even get to control what happens.

If you recall your dreams easily, or if you already have occasional spontaneous lucid dreams, you'll have an easier time of it. But all kinds of folks who hardly ever remembered their dreams before they started practicing have learned how to do this.

The not-so-cool thing: it takes some time and attention--something you may not exactly have in abundance. But the more you put into it, the better results you'll have and the faster you'll start having them.

Fortunately, however, it's not a huge amount of time, so it's the perfect Personal Growth Project for Slackers. And this being Cranky Fitness, we will of course discuss Shortcuts.

Why Bother Having Lucid Dreams?

Serious lucid dreaming advocates always give these sort of pragmatic reasons for learning to have lucid dreams:

1. Reducing nightmares.

2. Creative problem-solving.

3. Practicing life-skills you find difficult.

4. Working through personal issues by interacting with significant people in your life in a non-threatening, no-consequences environment.

Blah blah blah.

Let's look at a slightly different list, shall we? Here are some things you can do when you get good at it:

1. You can eat any damn thing you want, totally enjoy it as though it were the real thing, knowing there are no calories or carcinogens or transfats.

2. You can fly.

3. You can explore intricate, intense, fantasy worlds with the smug realization that somehow your humble little brain created and imagined them all by itself.

4. You can have sex with your favorite celebrity, or your best friend's spouse, or that hot yoga instructor at the gym, or hell, all three at once--with no horrible guilt or divorce papers or awkward morning-after conversations.

It's your world, and it feels totally real, and there are absolutely no rules or repercussions. Sound like fun?

Here's what you gotta do to get there.

1. Start Remembering More of Your Dreams

Easier said than done, right? Is there anything slipperier than a half-remembered dream? But increasing dream recall is a necessary step in the process. You get better and better the more you try to do it.

How?

Get in the habit of reminding yourself as you fall asleep that you want to remember your dreams.

Also get in the habit of checking, whenever you wake up for any reason, to see if you can catch any dream fragments floating by. Stay with them, gently and without getting frustrated if possible, and see if you can pull out any more images or feelings or voices or sensations from the dream.

Keep a dream journal by your bed and jot down notes whenever you remember anything.

Linger in bed for a few moments in the morning and try to ease gently into remembering your dreams. Don't immediately leap into thoughts about the upcoming day. Analytical thinking, planning, and worrying seem to be real dream-memory killers.

Bonus: you spend all this time every night dreaming, it's nice to reclaim some it! Unremembered dreams seem like a waste, while remembered dreams can add up to a fuller, if weirder, life.

Slacker Short Cut: While you really SHOULD keep a dream journal, I'm too lazy myself. I discovered I can increase dream recall by reminding myself, obsessively, to try to remember my dreams whenever I wake up.

2. Recognize Dream Signs

As you've probably already noticed, there are themes and situations that seem to come up in dreams a lot. Some recurring themes are personal; others seem to be more common. (How many of us have found ourselves semi-naked at work, or faced with a final exam in a class we've never been to because we forgot we'd signed up?)

Anyway, it helps to know what you frequently dream about, because your personal dream signs will help you recognize that you're not in waking reality. Phones or light switches that don't work are very common; as is the inability to scream or run; the ability to float or fly; teeth falling out or other bizarre body problems; dead people showing up to chat, etc.

However, you probably have your own personal recurring situations or themes. If I'm in an elevator and the whole thing starts to tip sideways, for example, or if I'm a passenger in a plane that seems to be driving along the freeway instead of flying, those are both pretty good signs I'm dreaming.

3. Test Waking Reality

This is probably the strangest step.

Are you dreaming now? Of course you're not! It's rare that we get confused about this when we're actually awake. So it will probably feel totally stupid to get in the habit of asking yourself, many times a day: am I dreaming right now?

Of course you're not--you're reading Cranky Fitness!

But these inane periodic check-ins makes a huge difference. Eventually, as they become a habit, you'll start doing them at night in your dreams too.

And sometimes the answer to: am I dreaming right now?

Will be: um, you know what? I think I am!

If you have a recurring dream sign that relates to something that you do frequently in real life (i.e., weird things happen when you dial a phone or start your car or use a public restroom), then try to use these ordinary experiences as cues to ask if you're dreaming. But even just checking at random times is good too.

Dedicated approach: set a timer on your watch or computer or add a bunch of entries to your daily schedule to remind you to ask yourself if you're dreaming. Even though the answer seems like it's obviously "No," perform a test: read some text and then go back to read it again to see if it changes. Notice if anything impossible is going on. See if you can float. Turn on a light switch and see if the light goes on.

Slacker Shortcut: If you are damn sure you're awake, you don't actually have to perform the tests. But do remind yourself that you would totally check things out if you were on a spaceship to mars, or if your computer just turned into a pink refrigerator stocked with olive jars and paper clips and headless Barbie Dolls.

Additional Slacker Tip: Is there some other annoying thing you're already been trying to remember to do several times a day? Improve your posture, get up to stretch, take deep breaths, drink more water, etc? Then every time you nag yourself to do one of other things, throw in the additional question: am I dreaming?

4. Get Lucid
There are lots of fancy wake/sleep manipulations and gadgets and rituals you can try to hasten the process (see resources below), but basically, if you keep up with the first three steps with a fair amount of dedication, you will most likely (eventually) catch yourself dreaming.

It may start with a vague suspicion, or you may notice a dream sign, or you might suddenly recall that you are long past elementary school so what are you doing back in Mrs. Benjamin's classroom again? And it will finally occur to you to ask yourself whether you are dreaming when you are actually dreaming.

If you answer "yes, I AM dreaming," congratulations! You've had a lucid dream.

And if you are like most people you'll get all excited and wake up almost immediately. Crap.

5. Stay Lucid

This is one of the huge challenges of lucid dreaming. It's really a tricky balance to stay aware enough to enjoy the lucid experience, but not so aware and conscious that you wake yourself up.

Helpful hints to staying lucid:

a. Stay calm.

b. Notice the physical details of your surroundings. Look at your hands; rub them together; try to increase the sensual aspects of the experience.

c. If you feel yourself waking up, try spinning around and around. (No idea why this often works, but it seems to help many folks stay in a dream state).

d. But, try to stay mindful you are dreaming. It's also easy to float back into accepting everything and forgetting that this is not real life.

Once you start having more lucid dreams, you may discover that some end quickly but others will linger. Or that you'll start to wake up but will find yourself in another lucid dream later the same night. Keep it playful; try not to get too frustrated. Unless you've discovered a way to make sleep optional, you'll have every night for the rest of your life to play with this.

6. Start Messing With Your Dreams

Controlling your dreams is a blast when it works, but alas, it's unreliable. Sometimes it happens easily and you can order up your favorite fantasy and experience it in intense detail. Other times, it seems impossible to have any input and all you can do is watch things unfold, and appreciate that you get to experience a dream from a conscious, aware perspective.

See that landscape in front of you? Well, maybe you can't fly through it tonight, but you created it! Every leaf on that tree, you put there. It's pretty cool.

Cultivate a relaxed but hopeful approach. Don't try to force it, but imagine that what you'd like to happen is gradually coming to pass. You're about to walk into the next room, and inside will be... what? Some nights, it may be George Clooney in the all-together; other nights, it could be your next door neighbor's pet iguana Iggy; and who the hell wants to party with Iggy?

But perhaps Iggy will offer you the key to another room, and you can open the door and discover that inside... there's a huge all-you-can-eat cupcake buffet in progress!

7. Read More About It

This is obviously just a quick and quirky summary; there are books and websites and discussion forums and workshops and all kinds of further information if you'd like to become a well-traveled oneironaut. Here's a link to one fairly well thought out lucid dreaming website. And you may want to check out the venerable Lucidity Institute founded by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, a dude from Stanford University who's been studying this stuff for decades. These sites contain further links, or hell, you can just start googling!

Anyone else have lucid dreams? Or do your dreams contain any weird recurring themes you're willing to share?

[And yes, this is another Old Post from the Past--but before too long I'll be back from vacation with new stuff!]

Okay, I admit: I'm bummed.

2009-10-23T02:00:00.001-04:00

It's been kind of a bummer of a week. My workouts have gone well, true, but it's raining. It's raining so much that Max has been scratching at the back door, asking to be let in and towelled dry, something he normally hates.

And work is....a little frustrating.

And the boy thing? Went nowhere.

Life is dust and ashes.

Well, okay. It's not that bad. But I still need some suggestions to get my mojo back. Fitness, after all, implies not only physical, but also *mental* fitness.

What do you do when you want to cancel today for lack of interest? Post in the comments!

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