Staying Fit to Serve

During my travels today, I changed planes in Atlanta.  I must have seen over 100 men and women in military fatigues, returning home from war ( I assume).  Not one of them was overweight or obese.  Fit they were - though I did spot one or two in the smoking lounge and that was heartbreaking.


Seeing them - all of them - beating the odds(besides those  of surviving war)- i.e over 66% of American men and women are overweight or obese, and they are not, stimulated many research questions.


1) Do people who are more likely to take care of their bodies join the service?
2) Does being in the service 'prevent' obesity?
3) What percent of service men and women who return to civilian duty, become overweight or obese?
4) How long after leaving active military service do men and women begin to gain weight?


Those were some research questions I had - but truth be told, I was just damn glad to see these brave, fit people - predominantly young people, home where they belong.


I am not naive, I know that there will be problems and weight gain is not high among them, I just thought it relevant fodder for the blog.

The Swim

It is done.  I did it.  With rare exception, I swam twice a week (indoors) during the entire fall semester - even when it got cold outside and before the pool water was warmed.   From August until now, I swam twice a week except two times when I only swam once a week (because the pool was closed).  If we go back six months, I had 3 once a weeks and the rest were twice a weeks. 
 

I did get my money's worth from the suit!

The only time that I truly dreaded the swim was in October - when the water temperature really dropped and I tended (literally) to shiver the entire time I swam.

Actually, if you look back at this September post, you'll see some of my angst as I struggled to keep my vow of swimming through to December.

And then there was this post on October 31st when my resolve was wearing thin.  I was called out for being a wimp and "torturing myself" by easing into the pool. I started to jump in the very next time and things looked up from there.

If I look back to June of this year, so roughly six months, I went from 12 laps to 20 - finishing today with 22 laps which is OVER a half mile (1100 yards).  The half mile (880 yards - or just over 800 meters) was my goal. 
Oh, and don't forget, I added the kick board for my final (extra) lap for the last month or two as well. 

I did try the flip turn one more time today, but I missed the wall on the kick off and got water up my nose.  So, well - I can't do everything I set out to do. 

I looked at the usual distances for swimming, biking and running in triathlons and I qualify for the sprint distance on all three and almost the olympic distance (the swim is .93 miles).  

Now that is something to worry about after grad school.  Maybe it will be my 50th birthday present to myself.

I really enjoy the swimming and it has gone from "something to do to rest from running" to a true stand alone fitness activity.  In fact, lap swimming has a pretty high MET value - so WOW - yay me.

That's not really all -  I made it through the entire semester without missing a day of exercise - my regular running, weight training, swimming and walking - all adhered to and all kept me sane.  I am just about as proud of that as I am my final grades!

So - I don't know - there may be swimming in the New Year after all.  The pool is officially closed until January 9th and I am off to Florida for a while - by the time I return I may be over it... however, I thought of packing my suit and maybe going to a Y while traveling :)

What You Really Need to Know about Weight Control

There is a not to be missed article in the April issue of Runners World magazine. I will link it at the end of this post. It is a MUST read.

I agree with just about every word written in their expose` on weight loss myths, and my agreeing with somebody else, well, that is news in and of itself! I do have a little commentary to go along with many of the points they make, so I will state them now and then again, you MUST read the article if you want some serious and factual information about calorie intake and burn.

• Small, frequent meals - the magazine seems to dismiss their effectiveness, but then again not really. I just want to say that it is TRUE - the amount of calories you consume in a day vs the amount that you burn, no matter what kind - IS the final answer for WEIGHT control, but for optimal health, energy, mood state, etc - research DOES support that small, frequent, nutritious (calorie controlled) meals are better! And I must add, when they give an example of a day of eating, the example contains SIX meals.
• Timing - the magazine notes that eating at night does not in and of itself cause weight gain, but that eating too many calories in any given day - does. I eat almost half my total intake after six p.m.
• Popcorn - my most favorite night time snack gets a nice shout out as a healthy food to add to your daily intake.
• The Weekend - READ the piece on Surviving the Weekend. It does NOT include permission to overindulge. Instead, the article warns that eating with abandon on the weekend will only cancel out the hard work you did all week. But other points in this piece are very Your Health Educator -ish. It discusses traveling and eating well and cooking on the weekend! Here is something I have decided to offer up - and may repeat in another post - much of the successful weight loss literature or evidence suggests that persons keep a food diary. We are consistently encouraged to write down what we ate - I challenge you to expand this think ahead approach offered in the magazine and write it down FIRST. I almost always know what I am going to eat in a day and I swear, I look forward to MY meals and am not the least interested in the high calorie snacks or lunches that others parade about the office.
• Weight training - two of my favorite myths - and counter arguments are offered as well. More weight, less repetitions and lifting weights improves our fitness and calorie burn withOUT bulking anyone up.
• Diet soda - the mag speaks against it by noting one of the studies that showed increased weight in those who drink it, but if I remember correctly, it isn't the diet soda causing the weight gain, but the cheeseburger and twinkie that went along with it. (just saying)
• Two a days - YEAH! my favorite. Instead of working out for an hour in the a.m. there is much science to support a better overall calorie burn if you do 30 minutes twice or even two 40s if you prefer, but you will likely expend more energy because you have more and can apply more effort.
• Fat/Carbs- this is addressed on two fronts. What nutrients you take in and what type of calories you burn (long and slow, vs high intensity) and guess what - AGAIN it is total number that you should worry about - if you eat more than you need you will gain weight - period - if you exercise with effort you will burn more.
• It's a forever thing - lastly, this is not a time limited diet "thing". To maintain a healthy weight one must always moderate their calories and exercise daily. [give a take a day or two :)]

As I said, RW did a great job with this article and it is evidence based and written by people who KNOW this stuff... Here is the link..........

Is 10 minutes really enough?

In reviewing for a fitness recertification, I came across some information that answered a question I am often asked, except I wasn't really sure it did answer the question.

Since then I have been trying to track down some of the many other things that I have read and now I feel like I squandered 30 minutes away when I just should have been blogging outright.

The questions I am often asked are what burns the most calories, when does fat get burned and what should one eat to fuel their workouts. A lot of that was addressed in the IFA training manual.

At the same time, our national physical activity guidelines tell us just to get moving, any amount, any activity, just move. And that is still true. However, there is a difference between training for optimal performance and fitness and being active to reduce your risk of chronic disease. The latter category will be the one that is addressed by 30 minutes of activity 5 days of week, in any block of time you can achieve. Ten minutes - three times a day, will work. And remember,sitting all day, regardless of your regular exercise routines, is NOT a good idea and could have adverse health outcomes.

Otherwise I will tell you this. Within the first 15 minutes of aerobic exercise (where the body uses oxygen to burn energy - running, walking, step, rowing, swimming, hiking, etc) the body is using the glycogen or carbohydrate stored in your muscles. After that sustained 15 minutes, the body will be look for fat to burn as energy. As a matter of fact, the fat is burned the most during that first hour and not much more so if you exercise longer.

Remember, we are seeking one or two things with this level of activity, to burn fat (calories) and to improve our cardio-respiratory fitness - the ability of our heart and lungs to use oxygen efficiently. So what should you fuel your body with if you are taking an aerobics class, going for a walk or run, or using the gym cardio equipment? Not sugar! And not sports drinks. If you have those things in your blood stream then insulin will be released. That is supposed to happen if you have eaten a simple carbohydrate, but insulin prevents the liver from metabolizing fat. A complex carbohydrate will do you more good. I always choose carbs and protein together for a sustained energy source, i.e. peanut butter on whole wheat bread, but NOT a whole sandwich, just a half or less. Another good choice is peanut butter and apple slices. The best thing to drink before, during and after your exercise is water.

If you are an extreme athlete or a long distance runner, football player, etc - you must realize, this message is not meant for you.

Lastly, for some people the main point is to burn calories. If that is your goal then just exercise and don't worry about all of these things. Track you calorie burn with the awesome resources available at the Stand Up and Eat site of the Cooper Institute. BTW, they have a great download section as well with handouts and such that can guide your progress.

Stretching

After reviewing research, comments of experts in physical activity and sports and considering my own history, I am going to choose a side on the "to stretch or not to stretch" debate. Actually, it is less definitive. I am taking a side on whether or not stretching is significantly important to prevent injury. It is not.

There has been debate for probably ten years or more on whether or not stretching is helpful or even if it could be harmful The most current research and my opinion belie the common wisdom regarding stretching. Instead consider the following:

Warming up is protective and can simply involve doing leg swings or arm circles or walking. Stretching out a cramp may be helpful, but bouncing is never recommended and static holds that exceed 20 seconds are not necessary and could be harmful. Regardless of length of time, one should never feel pain when stretching.

The best thing to do to prevent injuries is to strength train. The muscles, joints and ligaments become healthy and strong when one follows the ACSM/DHHS/AHA recommendations of twice a week resistance training. This involves lifting weights, or using ones own weight for resistance training. Some fitness centers offer group classes in resistance training. Also I have 8 exercise videos posted on YouTube that are on muscle toning and strength.

Now as a very wise friend told me recently, people who use their bodies on a regular basis, according to physical activity guidelines, no less, are GOING TO pull or strain muscles from time to time. Better to work out now and have a sore muscle from time to time than to not work out and become non ambulatory at age 70.

So do your aerobic exercise, warm up your muscles and limbs and follow a strength training program. When you do stretch keep it short, do not bounce and do not induce pain. [gymnasts and dancers may have different requirements, this is more for runners, swimmers and cyclists and the rest of us]

More about this can be found in a recent USA Today article by Janice Lloyd.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-10-28-stretching-exercise_N.htm

wellness weekly

Okay back to the regular news and a video meal:

The News:

Prescription Drugs: I believe that anyone who has read at least three of my blog entrees, even ones from the early 00s, knows that I have a very strong inclination against prescription drugs. It is also true that when a disease can be controlled or cured and quality life years added, I support pharmacotherapy. That is my little disclaimer I guess. I don’t want people to think that I never advocate for meds. I am not doing so today however. This past week has been a disturbing one in several ways. One big pharma is reported to have paid less taxes than one would expect due to a certain way that they closed a deal, and another kept worrisome clinical trial results hidden from people taking a certain antipsychotic drug. By the way, this is NOT the first case like that. Another company is in trouble for over charging Medicaid. All are being investigated. I also spoke to a man this week who listed six or seven prescription meds he has to take, though he couldn’t name any chronic disease that he had. Another woman told me that the doctor keeps putting her adult daughter on more and more meds and is stymied because she isn’t losing weight. The mother said to me, “He doesn’t understand. She eats like a pig.” Another woman told me how when she was first diagnosed with emphysema, she continued to smoke and could not make her inhaler last for the whole month. On a positive note, she told me that she has quit smoking and hardly needs to use the inhaler. That is EXACTLY why it is never too late to quit smoking. If you have a disease and are in treatment for it, that treatment will be more effective if you stop the activity that is causing the disease. I know, I am so smart. Back to the drug companies, one of them markets an inhaler for COPD in TV commercials and actually says during the commercial that the medicine can be used by current smokers. WHAT?!?!?! Too many meds, too many side effects, and too little personal responsibility. Remember, at least four of the ten leading causes of death and disability CAN and should be prevented.

Omega 3s: I want to say more about this today. First I advise that you read a little more from a trusted source, i.e, a non profit volunteer agency that does not also sell supplements! The American Heart Association. Here is a direct link: Fish and Omega-3 Fatty Acids. I want to revisit this for two reasons. First, last week I reported that Dr. K Cooper said in his lecture that everyone needs to take Omega 3s in supplement form and that the dose is 1g per day. I know he said 1 gram and that it should be 60% DHA/EPA, both of those statements are supported in other literature but the AHA has different dosage recommendations based on an individuals health. According to the AHA for example, I do not need to take the supplement but someone wanting to reduce their LDL or with existing heart disease should. Also they recommend even higher doses for some people, with physician supervision. You must make your own educated decisions. But here is the second thing I want to emphasize. The amount and type of Omega 3 that these companies are adding to your bread, eggs, milk and whatnot, are both WRONG. I checked out a milk carton today that very boastfully claimed 36 mg of Omega 3, well, great, where are you going to get the other 964 mg you need to get 1 GRAM. One place is in salmon, but oh my gosh, there is another awesome link on the AHA, it lists mercury content in one column and omega 3 in the other (by gram). This is wonderful and the kind of info I need to bring out to the community. Fish, Levels of Mercury and Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Device Recall Hits ‘em Where it Hurts: Drugs and devices, both types of companies can get seedy with their direct to consumer advertising and their doctor pandering. More reason to eat your fish and not your chips! We have had recalls of pacemaker batteries, wires that misfire, defibrillators, stents that reclog and more, but this time Medtronic got in trouble with a bone graft device that doctors recommended and used for off label conditions. They can do that, but the concern is that they may have been paid consulting or speaking fees and indirectly marketed the device for a treatment for which it was not FDA approved. Things have gotten bad because a lot of adverse health outcomes were reported for the off label use. Seriously, the FDA didn’t seem that keen on the device for the regular use either. This off label stuff is serious business, I myself had to sign a disclaimer before talking to docs about tobacco addiction treatment. Anyway, according to the WSJ this week, there has been a near 70% profit drop for Medtronic and jobs are being cut.
Fitness: Just a short bit to remind you that physical fitness is measured by muscle strength and endurance as well as flexibility and cardiovascular conditioning. It is important and imperative to good health to exercise your heart. Cardiovascular activity, what we often think of as aerobic, includes activities that get your heart rate up. A weight bearing exercise is not necessarily cardio and cardio is not necessarily weight bearing. What does weight bearing have to do with it? Weigh bearing exercises help men and women prevent bone loss. So running is an example of both cardio and weight bearing while swimming and cycling are just cardio. Of course walking can really get your heart rate up and you can cycle without increasing your heart rate much. Effort counts! Weight training for fitness is not the same as weight training for a competition. Ladies, relax, really, you won’t bulk up unless you spend hours and hours and hours in the gym weekly. Flexibility can be gained through simple stretches, yoga, pilates, etc. Whatever You are willing to do. You can work your core also without doing crunches, by doing the plank for example.

Okay then what are you doing? Don’t just sit there you have diseases to prevent…


Live Well
Deirdre

the following video is a dinner I put together after work one day. enjoy

wellness weekly

Less Weight Better Gas Mileage: MSN recently ran a story on line regarding the money that could be saved if Americans lost their excess weight. Though we are not all overweight and some are morbidly so, in the story by Shirley Steel, it was felt appropriate to say that the average American had twenty too many pounds. Losing the extra weight could improve gas mileage of cars and planes, reduce productivity losses and insurance and medical costs and save an estimated 4000 dollars per household.

Speaking of Productivity: Another article forwarded to me recently from Business Week, covers workplace wellness. The reason I received the email is because I am 100% for “junk food free” workplaces, fruit and water at meetings, higher prices for unhealthy food, and lower prices on insurance for those who modify their lifestyles based on a wellness profile. A point made in the story is one I feel quite strong about and that is – if the message is eat well move more, or some such variation, then the opportunity to do so must also be offered. And if we are encouraging our employees to eat less junk food than as employers we need to offer less of it or charge more for it. This is the same strategy that makes quit smoking programs more successful. Conversely, offering quit smoking programs and meds while also allowing employees to smoke at work sites isn’t only counterproductive, its counter intuitive. Now I realize that many people who smoke or eat junk food get upset by these kinds of policies. However, this is not about an infringement on the employee’s rights. I believe that companies that offer insurance as a benefit, or simply employ us, have a right to ask us to live as healthy as we can. You can smoke (as long as it is legal) and eat as you like, at your home, but the less opportunity you have to do so and the less acceptance you get for doing so, then the less you will do it. This may allow you the benefit of more healthy active productive life years. That will benefit you, the employer, and the general tax payer. Harsh, but research based truth.

Serving for One? Having seen a few commercials in print and on air, regarding certain frozen pizza’s sold in single serving packages, I reviewed one at the grocery store. The calories for this one serving were approximately the same as four slices of pizza hut cheese pizza. How crazy is that? If this is how the food industry plans to regulate itself, we are in trouble. The average person doesn’t know calorie and fat recommendations per meal or per day or per their own body. It is very likely that an average person would choose a product like this and believe that they were doing themselves some good. In fact they may end up eating MORE calories not less.

Fitness Test: Ah, something I like! Well, I should clarify. I did not like the fitness tests that we had to take in school and to hear that this new fitness test was inspired by the adults who miss those tests was a little surprising. None the less, the government is allowing us to test our fitness (children get to take the President’s Challenge and receive a certificate, not so for us!). We can however, see where we rank in fitness compared to others our same age. You do the test on your own and enter the data on line. The items or tests include running or walking (depending on your own baseline), push ups, sit ups and a stretch. You will also be asked to enter your weight and height. I haven’t done it yet, but probably will this weekend. The address is: http://www.adultfitnesstest.org/

Less Weight-Less Rx: Drugs are one of the things we can all spend less money on if we lose that average 20 pounds. Losing weight improves health and thus productivity. It also enables us to exercise more and more vigorously which can enhance our built in disease fighting capability as well as our antioxidant properties. We will age with less loss of function. We do have quite a way to go to make that happen. Research out this week and noted in an article by L. Johnson from AP provides these numbers. Over 50% of Americans who have insurance are taking a prescription medication for a chronic illness (diabetes, hypertension, high LDL) on a regular basis. Some of the more disconcerting points made in the article include that the biggest jump in chronic disease is in the age group that one might expect to be healthiest, 20-44, and worse, one in four children/teens, that is 25% of them, take a prescription medication for chronic disease control. The side effects related to long term use of these meds are far from understood and could be devastating. The physicians interviewed for the article stated that the problem stems from obesity and so, to come full circle, I don’t have a problem with workplace wellness programs that push low calorie foods.

Wishing you wellness