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Charlotte’s post about the Diet Wars, and the elephant in the room

Written on July 22, 2009 by hollie in Deep and Meaningful Commentary, Exercise and Fitness, Weight Loss

I just discovered a blog that I’m enjoying a lot, and added to my sidebar under “Fitness”. It’s called The Great Fitness Experiment, and it’s written by one Charlotte Hilton Andersen. She writes about fitness and nutrition, with a side dish of hilarity, and I’ve found myself going through her archives and reading back through all her many experiments.

This morning I found a great post she wrote on March 15th entitled, The Diet Wars: Learning to Listen. It starts out:

Welcome to Dueling Diets! I’m your host, Crazy Charlotte. Today I’ll be pitting the Primal Blueprint a la Mark Sisson against the Engine 2 Diet a la Rip Esselstyn, all as part of my “Striving for Perfection” Experiment this month.

Sound familiar? I was posting about Paleo versus Rip recently myself (part 1 and part 2), although I haven’t done the personal experimentation that Charlotte has (I’m still working on the elimination diet – more on that later).

You should definitely go read her post, because her writing is entertaining and friendly, but I wanted to talk about her conclusions a little bit, because they’re very similar to what several of you guys have been telling me:

A recent study in The New England Journal of Medicine looked at dieters on several different popular diets. Their conclusion – and this will surprise no one – is that despite all the hype, it doesn’t really matter much which diet you pick as long as you cut your calories. I know, the whole “eat less” thing again. The key is to find the diet that helps your body live with the calorie restriction the best. And that apparently can differ from person to person.

Now I know that will sound familiar to some of you, eh? It’s a paraphrase of what you put in comments (and send me in email!), which brings me to….

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.

Yeah, it’s me. I’m not saying I’m an elephant, I’m saying I’m like that thing that no one talks about. I’m THE THING. Except less swampy. I have been writing about different diets for the last, what, six months? And you guys have patiently listened and commented and encouraged me, and yet the fact of the matter is, six months later, I still:

…don’t have a regular exercise routine.
…don’t have a regular diet, meaning a general healthy routine. I still eat willy nilly, even when I’m eliminating things.
…don’t know how to cook very well.
…don’t have hardly any recipes on this blog.
…don’t have any significant weight loss, despite knowing that I need to lose weight to get these hormones in check and my cycle back on track.

I felt such a kinship reading Charlotte’s blog because she struggles with a lot of the same thought patterns I do, even while she’s doing a whole lot more work than I am! She’s brave enough to talk about them, and she’s brave enough to keep going. I talk AROUND my issues, and then I avoid doing a lot of things that might help, because I’m sincerely afraid of it all just failing. I’m afraid I’ll work out every day and nothing will happen. I’m afraid I’ll try to eat right and it will be too hard, or I’ll suck at it, and then I’ll be too afraid to write about it. It’s a lot easier to write about my potential for things than it is to write about struggling through those things.

But I’m going to give it a shot anyway, because this is getting a little ridiculous. I’ve got a perfectly LOVELY little blog here, and it isn’t going anywhere. I’m still sitting on my ass. My ridiculously flat behind, which could use a few squats. As could the rest of me.

I’m still going to write about what I’m eating, but I’m going to try and write less about the theoretics of it all, and instead write more about how I feel, and how my body does, and how I’m learning to cook it all up. I still want to write about diet trends and staying heart healthy, and all the nutrition news I read every day, because I find all that fun. But it has to stop being an excuse to not do any of my own work. On that note: I’m off for a ride on the stationary bike. Wish me luck!

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Tossing out the scale; keeping my bike

Written on July 2, 2009 by hollie in Exercise and Fitness, Panic and Anxiety Issues, Recipes I Try From Books:, Weight Loss

This is me this morning after my half hour on the stationary bike. I’m exhausted. I’m so out of shape it’s surprising I can get up the stairs to bed.

Mmmmm, bed. The question at this point isn’t WILL I take a nap, it’s WHERE WILL I? The kids are in daycare today, which means I should get some things done – although as any mother will tell you, sleeping is doing. It might be the ultimate example of productivity as a parent.

The diet continues to go well. Having wheat back in makes things a million times easier, although I’m astounded at how much I want to eat it. I’m already wondering how I went 9 days without it – was I given some sort of super power I just don’t remember?

I threw my scale into the back of my closet last night. I’d gone out for breakfast with Greg, and we were talking about how exercise is the one thing that has made me feel great in the past, but that I have a lot of trouble sticking to. I began realizing over the course of the conversation that the way it’s set up in my brain is that exercise will lead me to weight loss.

Exercise —> weight loss.

Easy enough, right? Most people seem to think this way. Okay, most overweight women seem to think this way.

Except that I don’t think that’s motivation enough for me. Certainly I want to lose weight, if for nothing else than to get my cycles back on track. But a number just isn’t a motivator.

Instead, I’m reading a book called Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, which happens to have an entire chapter on how anxiety can be treated and even reversed with exercise. I was reading this list night in my bath (yeah, on my Kindle, in the bath – did I mention he also has a chapter on how exercise can make you smarter? I’ll get on that chapter next), and it was the most hopeful I’ve felt in awhile. Exercise, combined with staying off dairy, combined with relaxation and combined with (as long as I need them) my twice daily meds……could I have hope here of approaching a normal life?

So while we were sitting at breakfast, mulling all this over, I said suddenly, and pardon my language but I promise there were no kids present: “Fuck the scale! Fuck the numbers!”

“That’s right!”, Greg said. “It’s never done you any good. Throw the damn thing away, or stick it somewhere you won’t find it.”

And I did. I stuck it in my closet, wedged it between a dresser and the wall. It felt like giving up a crutch. How will I know if I’m doing well? How will I know if I’m getting thinner?

Isn’t it funny how different those two questions are?

I’ll know I’m “doing well” if:

I’m having less anxiety, better anxiety recovery, and fewer attacks.
I do more in my life independently – driving, going out, going farther, being away from home.
I have more energy to chase after the kids, to go for walks, to live.
I sleep better and don’t feel so worn out all the time.
I get stronger, which is easy to notice – I buff out nicely.

I’ll know if I’m “getting thinner” if:

I need to buy new clothes.

There. That doesn’t seem too hard, does it? And I can attest to the fact that today it felt good to get up and not weigh myself. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel differently. I guess we’ll see.

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Riding in the morning

Written on July 1, 2009 by hollie in Exercise and Fitness

You might remember I bought a stationary bike awhile ago, and it’s been sitting in our living room. I use it maybe once a week, but I haven’t been regular about it, and I’m trying to start. Here’s me this morning, yes, at TEN IN THE MORNING.

My Mom took the kids last night, so we got to stay up late playing World of Warcraft (Dude! I made level 79!), and then I read a story about zombies, and then I woke up at 2am from a nightmare that a zombified (and much younger) Ryan O’Neal was trying to give me a watch with four hands, and take me out for chocolate croissants.

After that, I slept in until 9:30am. As you might notice, I’m still a little tired.

But today! Today I will ride my bike! Today I will get some exercise! Right after I post this! And have some breakfast. Not chocolate croissants.

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Are running shoes useless?

Written on May 28, 2009 by hollie in Exercise and Fitness, In The News

On a bbs I’m on, a link was posted in response to a friend asking about shoes for starting the Couch to 5k program.

The link went to an article titled, “The painful truth about trainers: are running shoes a waste of money?”

What I like is that they come to the conclusion that we’re basically better off as barefoot as possible, which as a massage therapist and reflexologist and a many-years member of the Society for Barefoot Living, I completely agree with. Shoes are a freaking menace! That’s my humble opinion. Okay, sure, I like my Chacos in the summer, but I go barefoot as much as I can, and you really do feel the difference after awhile. Your feet and legs get stronger, and your proprioception gets a lot sharper.

Turns out it’s not just us wacko hippies, it’s also endurance athletes:

Then there’s the secretive Tarahumara tribe, the best long-distance runners in the world. These are a people who live in basic conditions in Mexico, often in caves without running water, and run with only strips of old tyre or leather thongs strapped to the bottom of their feet. They are virtually barefoot.

Come race day, the Tarahumara don’t train. They don’t stretch or warm up. They just stroll to the starting line, laughing and bantering, and then go for it, ultra-running for two full days, sometimes covering over 300 miles, non-stop. For the fun of it. One of them recently came first in a prestigious 100-mile race wearing nothing but a toga and sandals. He was 57 years old.

It also turns out that running shoes don’t prevent injury at all – in fact there is no evidence for that claim, and the shoe companies know it.

So, if running shoes don’t make you go faster and don’t stop you from getting hurt, then what, exactly, are you paying for? What are the benefits of all those microchips, thrust enhancers, air cushions, torsion devices and roll bars?

The answer is still a mystery. And for Bowerman’s old mentor, Arthur Lydiard, it all makes sense.

‘We used to run in canvas shoes,’ he said.

‘We didn’t get plantar fasciitis (pain under the heel); we didn’t pronate or supinate (land on the edge of the foot); we might have lost a bit of skin from the rough canvas when we were running marathons, but generally we didn’t have foot problems.

‘Paying several hundred dollars for the latest in hi-tech running shoes is no guarantee you’ll avoid any of these injuries and can even guarantee that you will suffer from them in one form or another. Shoes that let your foot function like you’re barefoot – they’re the shoes for me.’

Researchers began filming barefoot runners……

When he zoomed in, he was startled by what he found. Instead of each foot clomping down as it would in a shoe, it behaved like an animal with a mind of its own – stretching, grasping, seeking the ground with splayed toes, gliding in for a landing like a lake-bound swan.

‘It’s beautiful to watch,’ Pisciotta later told me. ‘That made us start thinking that when you put a shoe on, it starts to take over some of the control.’

Pisciotta immediately deployed his team to gather film of every existing barefoot culture they could find.

‘We found pockets of people all over the globe who are still running barefoot, and what you find is that, during propulsion and landing, they have far more range of motion in the foot and engage more of the toe. Their feet flex, spread, splay and grip the surface, meaning you have less pronation and more distribution of pressure.’

All this is making me want to go for a jog in my Vibram Five-Fingers, the weirdest looking shoes I’ve ever owned, but the neatest and most fun to wear. Definitey worth the money! If you’re looking to go barefoot without worrying about stepping in something scary, get a pair of Vibrams.

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So it turns out I’m not 16 anymore! I know, right? I’m shocked too!

Written on April 30, 2009 by hollie in Exercise and Fitness, Panic and Anxiety Issues

Thanks for the comments, you guys!

I wanted to clarify that:

Exercising itself doesn’t make me anxious – it’s that tightness and wired-ness and the way my heart rate doesn’t drop back to normal that is anxiety-producing.

So on that note, I can do aerobics pretty well and not find the increase in heart rate disturbing. It’s after a strength workout, where my muscles seem to get worked very hard, that I have the symptoms.

Meg suggested that I have an anxiety association with exercise, which is totally true, and I suppose could be causing it. But then you know me; my let’s-assume-it’s-complicated brain views Ockham’s razor with suspicion.

It’s Meg’s other suggestion that I think could be the right one: that I’m working too hard. I went and looked up target heart rates for my age and fitness level. I haven’t done this since, no kidding, HIGH SCHOOL, when I was sixteen-years-old and fifty pounds lighter and athletic. Back then, my “target range” was in the 170′s.

So today, when I was using my heart rate monitor and noticing several times that I was hitting 176, I thought, “Hey! Wow! I’m getting a great workout!”

Yeah.

So I went and looked it up.

         Age 	Target HR Zone
           50–85 % 	Average Maximum Heart Rate 100 %
20 years 	100–170 beats per minute 	200 beats per minute
25 years 	98–166 beats per minute 	195 beats per minute
30 years 	95–162 beats per minute 	190 beats per minute
35 years 	93–157 beats per minute 	185 beats per minute
40 years 	90–153 beats per minute 	180 beats per minute
45 years 	88–149 beats per minute 	175 beats per minute
50 years 	85–145 beats per minute 	170 beats per minute
55 years 	83–140 beats per minute 	165 beats per minute
60 years 	80–136 beats per minute 	160 beats per minute
65 years 	78–132 beats per minute 	155 beats per minute
70 years 	75–128 beats per minute 	150 beats per minute

Your maximum heart rate is about 220 minus your age.
The figures above are averages, so use them as general guidelines.

According to these three sites I checked out (Site A, Site B, Site C), a beginner like me should be exercising at around 50%-60% of her target heart rate. At the “advanced” level, you could safely be hitting around 85%.

Yeah, so apparently I was, at several points, HITTING 95% OF MY MAX.

This is where I duck, while Meg hits me with the clue bat.

So it turns out that I’ve been basically working way way way way way too hard, which explains the 3-hour nap I had yesterday, and why every time I’ve worked out in the last two weeks I feel like I have to recover for days afterward. It also explains why my workout today, which I did in the late morning when all I’d had to eat before that was a glass of ROMAINE LETTUCE JUICE, had my heart rate elevated for almost two hours post-workout. GO FIGURE.

I hereby declare that I will continue with my workouts and aim for a heart rate of between 130-140bpm or so. After a few weeks I’ll maybe go a little higher.

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