SmarterFitter Blog Less diet, more brain

Despite increased awareness about the benefits of health and fitness, Americans still have poor diets and the obesity rate continues to rise. According to a 2008 survey by the Trust For America’s Health, obesity rates increased significantly in 37 states since last year, and declined only in the District of Columbia.

What’s going wrong? A recent research report by the USDA points to, well, modern life as the culprit.

The report presents a “consumer demand model” which shows how long-term health goals and external factors can drive a person’s food choices. Turns out, knowledge is nothing compared to “visceral factors” like work and stress which contribute to more meals away from home, more time between meals, and in the end, more calories. Here are some of the key findings:

• Individuals are more likely to consume more calories when they extend the time between meals or consume more of their food away from home. For example, going 5 hours between meals instead of 4 adds about 52 calories for someone on a diet of 2,000 calories per day.
• Unsurprisingly, the location at which someone eats affects what and how much is consumed. People are estimated to cosume about 107 more calories when eating foods from a restaurant compared with foods prepared at home.
• People who work more hours are also more influenced by the interval between meals. At 4 hours between meals, an individual who works 40 hours a week is estimated to eat about 20 percent more calories than someone who is not employed. At 8 hours between meals, the calorie discrepancy jumps to nearly 40 percent.

There are no huge surprises here, but it serves to illustrate the challenge of modern life to anyone wanting to establish healthy habits. Work is a real problem. The obesity issue seems to reflect a need for a national shift in attitude away from work and consumption and more towards, well, fun. Why is life so stressful? Why do we have such a problem taking lunch breaks? Stopping for a snack? Packing lunch instead of eating out? Finding time to take a walk?

In my last job at a big bank, I worked with a bunch of analysts who were constantly overworked, yet unwilling to push back on their duties. One girl spoke to me about her former running habits, and how she hasn’t put on her running shoes in months and it makes her so sad, but “I must finish this report!” she said as she settled into her screen with a tray of take-away sushi, not to leave the office until 10pm.

I suppose my inability to accept tasks when I knew they would cause me to work overtime is one of the reasons I no longer work at a bank. One of my goals is to be healthy in body AND mind, and since quitting the bank and working for myself, I’ve never been happier or healthier. And when I think about the rest of the fitness bloggers I know, many of them work at home or own their own businesses - I wonder if their fitness success is connected with this kind of freedom?

Unfortunately, most of us can’t just up and quit our jobs. So then what? Who out there works the 9-5 but manages (or at least tries to manage) to work fitness into the mix? I bet there’s a lot to learn from people who manage to keep a job without turning into a stress-ball. If you’re out there, let us know how you do it!

Is Dietary Knowledge Enough? Hunger, Stress, and Other Roadblocks to Healthy Eating [thanks Rory!]

Tim and I have recently put the kibosh on our daily 7km walks. He has his sore ankle to blame, while I’ve been experiencing an odd pain in my shin that I can’t seem to figure out.

Right below me knee, the upper portion of my tibia feels bruised to the touch, but there’s no swelling or black-and-blue. Oddly, the only thing that really aggravates it is kicking my legs while swimming freestyle or backstroke. I thought swimming was a fairly no-risk sport but in this case it seems to be worse than walking. How annoying. But then I wonder, maybe it really IS the walking that’s screwing the pooch and the freestyle is just accentuating the pain? Who knows.

I’ve got an appointment with my doc in a week. In the meantime, I’ve subbed walking and freestyle swimming for more breast stroke, and I bought a “pull buoy” so I can swim freestyle without kicking my legs. Things seemed to be getting worse until I decided that this injury was a really good excuse to start doing yoga again. For the past few mornings, I’ve started the day with about 20 minutes of easy yoga. Remarkably, the shin has been slowly improving ever since.

So what’s going on here? I’ve done my share of obsessive-google searching for “shin pain” this week and the only thing I could find was information on shin splints. What I couldn’t understand was that the pain felt like it was on the bone, freaking me out that I might have a stress fracture or something (can that even happen from walking and swimming?). But then I posted a message on the PhysioForum and someone (a physiologist presumably, but who the hell knows - this is the internet, after all) came back with the following:

the area you refer to is the attachment site for your hamstrings and some other muscles…

…and to answer anyone who might ask, on a dissection project last year, we saw the tendon and thickened fascia extend nearly 10cm down the tiba in a broad sheet, not like a finger tendon on a point insertion.

I too have had this pain when running too much.

Often it is a result of poor biomechanics. The majority of my patients have poor dynamic hip stability. The usual suspects tend to be Glut Med and other deep hip rotators. but also Iliacus and glut Max and min are also important in their roles.

It’s remarkable - for all the time I spend working out my body, I don’t really know as much as I thought about the body itself. Silly! If I’m putting this time into my muscles, I should really learn what these muscles are all about, eh’? Time for a lesson in hamstrings.

Indeed, there is a tendon that connects right to the spot where I’ve been feeling this pain. Now, I’m rubbish when I come to stretching, and I’ve had a hunch for a while now that my hams and calves are extremely tight. I suspect that this is what led to my shin pain, and now that I’m doing some yoga, those down dogs are helping me stretch out my hamstrings and ease the tension in those poor tendons.

At the same time, I still feel like I’m treading in modern jackass territory, and I look forward to hearing what the doc thinks.

In the meantime, like Tim, I’m happy I can still continue exercising while recovering from this injury. Still, let our little aches and pains be a lesson to us all:

Overuse injuries happen. Especially when you suddenly increase the intensity of your workouts. Even something as simple as walking can be a stress on the body. We were doing 7kms a day, every day. But even with walking, rest days are important. It’s easy to think “if I take a rest day, then that’s one more day between me and my fitness goals.” But remember, rest days are when all the good stuff happens: the body rebuilds and strengthens itself. You get stronger when you rest.

While you’re resting, why not take the time to get to know these muscles you’re working so hard to build? I’m thinking about ordering one of these posters from the “Anatomical Shop”:

They also sell a Illustrated Pocket Anatomy Muscular and Skeletal Systems Study Guide.

And how cool are these muscle socks??

Just a quick note, I’ve been walking and running and swimming. Doing some push ups and even and few pull ups of late. That’s really good and all but not very interesting in and of itself.

It’s just that my ankle started to get really sore with all the walking and running.

And because I’ve started blending lots of different exercises something interesting did happen, I’m still able to keep on with this process of getting hard. I can still swim and push up and pull up, and that’s really neat.

Previously, I’d have probably just stopped walking and running and been stuck without an alternative.

Diversify your exercise like you’d diversify your financial portfolio to weather the storm. There, a mix of metaphors or similes or something.

A reader sent me a link to this article in the times:

Evolutionary Fitness: the diet that really works

It’s about the diet and fitness regime espoused by 71-year old Arthur De Vany, who “has the physique of a very fit young man and the springy, energetic demeanour of somebody who has cracked most of life’s outstanding problems.” His “Evolutionary Fitness” concept draws on many qualities of the “Paleolithic Diet”, based on the diet of early man. He’s trying to create a lifestyle that blends our “primal natures” with the reality of modern life.

People in the wild – isolated tribes – do not get fat and neither do other omnivores and predators. But, of course, they die younger. We can’t drop the comforts and protection of modernity. But we can fight its sugary seductions.

His diet is heavy on meat, vegetables, fruits and exercise. Sounds interesting. Sound, at the very least, based on REAL food and our real potential as human beings who, at one point in our evolutionary history, were fit because we had to be. Still, I don’t know about this whole thing. There are a few strange habits of primal man that Arthur embraces, habits I would think we’d be happy to leave to the Neanderthals:

“Don’t eat three square meals a day. Skip meals now and then. Work towards an extended overnight period of no eating. This means eat sometime before you sleep and don’t be in a hurry to eat breakfast… Do not fear hunger. Nothing but good will come of it, but it must be episodic, not chronic.”

Given his stance on vegetarianism, I can’t say I would ever follow the way of Arthur, but I do think it’s interesting. It may not be for me, but it’s worth some consideration. There are some bits of wisdom there that everyone can take away:

“First, everybody over-trains. Don’t do it. Don’t trudge away on a treadmill, count sets or repetitions, or work out according to a top-down Soviet model. You will hate it and it does not produce results. You must let it happen. You must have a playful, intermittent form of exercise. And you must exercise. The benefits are profound…”

If you do click through to the article, I should add that I’m not posting it because the article is particularly well written: the journalist is an ass-kisser who makes me want to puke. But the concept is interesting. I’ll give him that!

Your thoughts? Post em’ in the comments!

Evolutionary Fitness: the diet that really works
Aurthor De Vany’s website

In this commentary in Wired Magazine, Clive Thompson equates the Weight Watchers program to a role-playing game (RPG).

The Weight Watchers program is designed precisely like a role-playing dungeon crawler. That’s why people love it, stick to it and have success with it. And it points to the way that we could use game design to make life’s drudgery more bearable.

I’ve never used Weight Watchers but I know people who have lost weight with the program, both through diet and exercise. Most of these people have been women - I wonder if Weight Watchers could gain a whole new market by targeting overweight gamers? Of course, this isn’t a marketing blog, this is a fitness blog, and this article highlights a very important point:

The key to getting fit is to have fun while you’re doing it.

Believe it or not, people can get as hooked on fitness as they do to RPGs like Everquest and World of Warcraft.

I’m in awe of the sheer brilliance of Weight Watchers in adopting the word points as its metric for measuring food. The word immediately shoves the user into the semantics — and fun — of gameplay. You regard losing weight as an intriguing challenge, as opposed to a mere grind.

As J.D. points out on Get Fit Slowly, the one hundred pushups challenge operates on this principle.

…make the gradually increasing pushups into a challenge in order to motivate participants. It works.

It’s true. I’ve been having loads of fun with the one hundred pushups program and look forward to “beating my max” at the end of a set (if I can). It’s amazing how these little “semantic” tricks work to keep me motivated through each set. None of this feels like “exercise” to me. Sure, it feels like hard work, but it’s definitely not a chore. And isn’t that the point?

Exercise shouldn’t feel like “work”. Life is short, and we already spend too much time working and doing chores as it is. Shouldn’t we spend our precious free time doing things that contribute to our happiness? Exercise can be one of those things, the trick is finding a way to make it fun that works for you. Some use Weight Watchers, others keep a journal, others run with friends.

How do you make exercise fun?

Fun Way to Lose Weight: Turn Dieting Into an RPG [via Get Fit Slowly]

Here I was all set to blog about my current moratorium on caffeine when I noticed this article in the New York Time’s, Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions. The article highlights a report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest which reviews the general findings of scientific research on caffeine. Inspired by the general public’s misguided information, the report aims to dispel some of the myths surrounding caffeine.

For instance, many folks believe that caffeine can aid weight loss, but so far there isn’t any research to back this up…

Although caffeine speeds up metabolism, with 100 milligrams burning an extra 75 to 100 calories a day, no long-term benefit to weight control has been demonstrated. In fact, in a study of more than 58,000 health professionals followed for 12 years, both men and women who increased their caffeine consumption gained more weight than those who didn’t.

The news isn’t all bad though…

For the active, caffeine enhances endurance in aerobic activities and performance in anaerobic ones, perhaps because it blunts the perception of pain and aids the ability to burn fat for fuel instead of its carbohydrates.

Recent disease-related findings can only add to coffee’s popularity. A review of 13 studies found that people who drank caffeinated coffee, but not decaf, had a 30 percent lower risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Another review found that compared with noncoffee drinkers, people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, had a 28 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. This benefit probably comes from coffee’s antioxidants and chlorogenic acid.

So caffeine might have some benefits, but I’m still not convinced that it’s an addiction worth keeping. I’ve been caffeine free for THREE MISERABLE DAYS (ok it hasn’t been that bad) and while I’m not exactly trembling for coffee, I have definitely suffered headaches and a tightness in the head that I can only assume is withdrawal. Do I really want to be dependent on a substance that makes me feel like poop without it? I’m excited to find out how I feel once this weird withdrawal period wears off. Sound sleep here I come!

Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions

You might be interested in this from Peta Bee at The Guardian:

“We evolved from hunters - we had to run and chase animals on the hot African plains. We didn’t have time to pause for a drink,” he says. “Physiologists developed an unproven hypothesis that to become even the slightest bit dehydrated during exercise would kill you. The sports drinks industry then used this bad science to market their products.” Runners have died from hyponatraemia, but Noakes says he “has yet to find a death from dehydration in the history of competitive running”.

The article talks about different rates of dehydration for different people and a bit about how to predict how much water you should drink based on your weight difference before and after running.

Link to full article

Last June I blogged about the 100 Pushup Challenge with the sincere intention of joining you all in the effort. Well, after a summer of silly mishaps*, I’ve finally recuperated enough to hit the floor and push my way up to a hundred. I’m currently on my second round of week 2 (I wasn’t ready for week 3 after the second exhaustion test) but I’m not discouraged. In fact, I’m totally digging the program. I love that the plan is laid out for me, all I have to do is show up, and it’s super easy to fit a few push-ups into the day. I guess it’ll be a little time consuming once I’m up to sets of 15+, but my brain seems to like the singular challenge of doing one type of exercise in a session. The time commitment doesn’t really phase me.

The ultra nice thing is that I don’t really see the pushups as exercise; it’s actually kind of fun, especially when I’m well rested and feeling gung-ho. And doing push-ups is a total mind-trip. When I first did the max pushup test, I could barely muster a few. But once I had a few goals put in front of my face, it was far easier to crank out a few more. Getting fit is all about these Jedi mind tricks, isn’t it? I think I can… I think I can… I think I can…

I’m just stoked that I’m doing some resistance exercise again, something I’ve barely touched since I quit the gym. Go me.

Speaking of push-ups, MizFit has a nifty vid on her blog for all you folks who are looking for a challenge. Her advice: get some balls!

* I fell off my bike - ouch! - and then I fell on the pavement - double ouch! The result: bruised ribs and a sad Monica. But I’m all better now!