Category Archives: Health

The New Cheese: Sick at Work

February 16, 2016 tananda Leave a comment

That’s right. I said sick at work, not sick of work. Believe me, if I was just talking about being overtired, burned out, and downright annoyed with the concept of putting in a 40 hour week for people who do not appreciate it… that would be a different post and probably a whole lot longer.

I have a pretty decent work ethic. Some of my friends think my work ethic borders on the obsessive and possibly masochistic, but I feel that it is my responsibility to stay out of bankruptcy court, pay my bills on time, and do the best job I can for the employers that provide me that opportunity whether they appreciate it or not.

What that boils down to is that I can be a bit of a workaholic. I can actually hear a few of you out there who know me screaming at the screen “A BIT?!?” Yes, a bit. I have actually seen and experienced worse. I’ve actually seen and been worse. However, Iknow that being the Type A individual that I am, I’m a happier person busy than indolent or bored.

I try to be more conscious of life and take it a little bit more easy. I recognize my own limitations and that I am not getting any younger. Yes, that was difficult to type. In other words, I’ve only got the one life, and there are… in fact… more things in this world than money, possessions, and job. That was almost painful. However, I recognize, too, that I am lucky enough to have family and a few friends that probably never appreciated playing second chair to the career virtuosity. They might even appreciate spending more time with me.

Strangely, that is not where I was going with this post, though. I only said all that to illustrate my own approach to work, and showing up for work, and not letting anything stand in the way of work… and you get the idea. I can literally count the number of times I have called into work on one hand and remove a few of those fingers while I am at it… in the whole of my life. I have worked through varying degrees of illness and infirmity… frequently when I should not have. Yes, that is what I said… SHOULD NOT HAVE.

The thing is, I appreciate a solid work ethic. I appreciate people that won’t be beaten. I appreciate people who don’t let a little cold or allergies keep them down. I tend to be a little concerned with the person who calls in too frequently or always has some ailment that prevents them from being reliable. I value being able to count on a person to show up when they are supposed to and do the job that they are supposed to do. That is pretty typical of most employers. In fact, there are not a lot of employers that are going to say “Now, you are just working yourself too hard, and you need to take better care. Take it easy and stop putting in all that extra time…” Yeah, never going to hear that in the corporate world. Some companies do try to be more understanding and try to make their organization a decent place to work where people want to be. They understand that content or happy employees are loyal and productive. However, most places (especially larger ones with less highly skilled or highly educated workforce) operate on the philosophy that if you use one up, you can get another for cheaper anyway.

Harsh, I know, but sadly true. Again, I’ve wondered from the point… but not really, because it is all a foundation for what I’m saying.

Because the modern employer and modern company generally do not acknowledge that humans become ill and perhaps shouldn’t be worked until they drop, many employees also choose to ignore the physical limitations of the human body. Also, a part of that modern system is that many places do not have separate sick time and vacation time. Most role it all into something called “Paid Time Off” or PTO. PTO can be planned or unplanned, and some companies have rules about how many “unplanned” absences you can have as well. The point is that people do not want to take off when they
are ill unless they really just cannot function. They would rather save that rather valuable commodity of PTO for things that are more enjoyable like a vacation or time off around the holidays.

The result? People come to work in all manner of conditions. I’ve been guilty of this myself. People suffering from colds, mild flu, varying degrees of contagion… they all push themselves to show up for work because they do not want to miss work for something as simple as a stuffy nose or coughing fit. They don’t want to use the PTO, or they may not have the PTO to use if they have used it all for more enjoyable reasons. This is the problem with not having designated sick time. People come to work when they are sick.

oprah

Sounds very self-sacrificing and diligent, doesn’t it. Sometimes people legitimately will say that they have too many projects, deadlines, etc. that cannot afford a delay of them staying home. That is all well and good… so, maybe not so well, and perhaps not so good. People who come to work with their illness and germs share that with their workspace… and colleagues… and that is how entire office buildings end up sick. What people do not think about when they come to work with their head cold or slight flu is that everyone with whom they come in contact is at risk to catch their illness… and take it home with them. It’s a fine line, and I know it. What constitutes a legitimate threat of contagion to the point that you should ditch work for the public health? Some companies will actually send announcements out during particularly virulent outbreaks. Some organizations sponsor flu and pneumonia vaccines for all their staff. Still, there is usually a few times per year that some disease gets passed around an office.

Telecommuting has provided an opportunity for some employees to stay away from the office petri dish but still work their ducky little hearts out from home. Sadly, this doesn’t necessarily improve productivity. What I’m saying here is not new. There are several articles in the past few years cautioning people about going to work sick and the actual costs to the business that range in the 9-figure range (Bratskeir, 2015; Rasmussen, 2013)… that’s right over a hundred billion dollars lost due to people being so diligent that they come into work when they are not well. It is called presenteeism. Yeah, I didn’t realize there was a name for it either until I started thinking about this post.

Technology has made it possible for us to work straight through almost every situation including hospitalization. That doesn’t make it wise or the best choice. Just because one can work while convalescing does not mean one should work while convalescing. The whole point to being off while you are ill is to get better. Most prescriptions for your average cold or flu involve rest and fluids. The body heals best when resting. So, working while one is ill can actually prolong the suffering and sometimes the contagious period.

I know… I really do. Taking time to get well puts you behind or leaves someone in a jam or any number of other reasons not to stay in bed and drink fluids from a bendy straw (Gaskell, 2015). I am one of the absolute worst and will probably work until lunch on the day of my funeral. However, I do try to avoid spreading my plagues, and if you aren’t going to stay in bed and take care of yourself when you are sick, at least try to stay away from the rest of us. Thanks.

Bratskeir, K. (2015). Global study shows why sick people go to work – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-employees-go-to-work-sick_us_5640dab9e4b0307f2cae408c

Gaskell, A. (2015). Why coming into work sick makes you a villain not a hero – http://www.careeraddict.com/why-coming-into-work-when-sick-makes-you-a-villain-not-a-hero

Rasmussen, D. (2013). The real cost of going to work sick – http://www.careerealism.com/real-costs-work-sick/

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: The boredom trap

February 9, 2016 tananda Leave a comment

I know that this sounds unnatural and most people will not even believe it, but I assure you that I do not tell an untruth here when I say that I sometimes actually forget to eat. Yep. It happens. I get engrossed in projects. I get super busy multitasking like a ninja, and before I know it, it is the end of the day, and I’ve missed breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, pre-lunch, lunch, mid afternoon snack, tea time, cocktails… and dinner is looming. At these times, I really don’t even get hungry. Occasionally, if I pause, the stomach will growl and I will think, When did I last eat?However, if something further captures my attention… that thought generally flees before the SHINY only to be recalled at a much later time. Sometimes, I’ve been known to get through a day look at the clock and think, It’s too late to eat now, and I need to sleep. And so it goes… No, I’m not anorexic. One look and it will be obvious that I am not. When I do eat, I can generally put some food away. I do like food. It is just that eating frequently takes away from other things. When I enjoy food, it is planned meals and outings and times where the food is an event. Sounds odd, right? But for me, this is normal. Even as a child, I would tear up some breakfast, but especially during the summer, there was just too much to do for the rest of the day’s meals to be a priority. It was difficult for parents, grandparents, or anyone else to get me to come inside and eat throughout the day.

But then… there are the down times. I don’t mean depression exactly. I mean literally nothing to do. Days where I have no plans and nothing to occupy my time and attention, I can (and have in the past) eat everything that isn’t nailed down. Even the cat becomes truly terrified.

Turns out, I am an emotional eater. Boredom is an emotion, right? So, boredom it is. I get bored, I eat. Oh, if I am perfectly honest with myself and with all of you reading this, I eat for a lot of other emotions, too. I’m pretty sure of it. Perhaps I will delve into that little issue in another post, but for now, I’m going to talk about the boredom emotion and the impact it has on a tendency to eat when not hungry. I’m probably not the only one that has this particular failing. Too many people today confuse boredom with hunger. In my case, I actually know the difference. When I stand looking in the refrigerator or pantry for hours and nothing looks appealing but I grab something anyway only to chuck away an empty container feeling unsatisfied. That wasn’t it.

If I consciously take stock while I stand there staring at Inspiration Point (the space in front of said refrigerator or pantry) longingly looking for the food item that will satisfy the craving, I will realize, usually, that I’m not hungry. Not in the least. So, what am I doing? I’m trying to fill something else. Time? So, provided I am not on autopilot, I can usually close the door to whatever receptacle or storage compartment and walk away. Better yet, I can go find a project or a book or a computer game or go to the gym, anything, in fact, that will occupy my mind and body with something that isn’t mindless eating… just because there is nothing better to do. I can take it from my younger self, back when I had limitless imagination and energy. There is ALWAYS something better to do.

I know that my family and friends get annoyed with my myriad of projects and sidelines and even taking second jobs on occasion (maybe more about that in TNC post later), but when it comes to my health, diet, and body image, that boredom character is my greatest foe. The best way I know to combat it is to keep busy. If you are reading this and find that boredom is trying to sabotage your efforts to eat more mindfully and make healthier choices, find a new hobby, keep a list of activities. If you find yourself standing at Inspiration Point staring at a bunch of food and not “feeling” any of them, shut the door, turn around, go for a walk (or a run, or do some yoga…). Do not let the saboteur win.

Here endeth the lesson… just kidding. This lesson will never end for me, but I will keep on fighting it.

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: Mind the Gap

January 22, 2016 tananda Leave a comment

This is not so much a rant as a rambling, trip around my thoughts regarding appropriate gym etiquette. I’ve discussed some of my issues before about crowding and personal space. Lately, it has beset my thoughts with ruminations of “Why?” And so… here we go…

I recently posted about what I like to call “Gym-crowding” month. This is always a bit of a difficult time for me as I am not a fan of the press of human flesh. So, with the turn of the year bringing colder months and the recognition of “Oh, hell what all did I eat during the holidays?!?” it makes it all the more difficult to return to the gym and get back on track for my fitness and health routine. I just really dislike having to fight for my right to elliptical or experiencing the awkwardness of jostling to get to a machine or weights with another patron as we race to see who can get there first. It just doesn’t work for me. In truth, had I been lucky enough to choose the right numbers in a recent lottery; I would probably invest in my own home gym and be done with it. However, I didn’t win any large amounts of cash, and I still believe it is probably in my best interests to get out of my house to workout.

As it happens, my gym recognizes those of us who are decidedly introverted, and in an attempt to cater to our dislike of our own kind and possibly good business sense of spreading their business through the day, the management of Planet Fitness provide information about gym population based on time of day. It’s fairly accurate (while experiencing some off tally fluctuations throughout the year). I can look at their numbers and see that there are times when I would encounter fewer rivals for the tricep machine. Most of this information is rather intuitive. You know that there are going to be more people right after work. You can pretty well guess that the middle of the night is less populated (my gym is 24-hour). There are a few surprising things, though. For instance, lunch is a little bit of a rush. There are a good many people that like to take their lunch break at the gym, I suppose. Additionally, there is some sort of strange mid-afternoon spike. So, the data provided by the management, is appreciated. I find that my favorite times are early morning before I go to work or sometime before the actual lunch rush. I take an early lunch to hit it before the crowd does. I avoid the place after work. My absolute favorite is my weekend workouts. I can usually rely on Saturday and Sunday mornings being a ghost town with only a few of us rattling around in the big place like dried peas in a tin can. It’s heaven. I can also take as much time as I like without having to rush back to work or get out of someone else’s way. But… I digress. I told you this might get a little rambling.

I suppose, if I veer back towards topic, I would have to say that I noticed an odd phenomenon starting about 5 or 6 months ago. It was subtle and random at first. I was fairly certain it was merely coincidental. However, after some generally consistent repetitive occurrence of the incidents, I can say that there appears to be a pattern.

I am a striking person by appearance. I am tall. I am by no means delicate or fragile in appearance. I am Amazonian rather than willowy. I believe that I have discussed this before in a previous post. I do not precisely fade into the background, but I am not winning any beauty pageants. I’m totally ok with this. However, recently it seems that if I take on the appearance of a soaking wet rag and smell like an overheated horse, I can’t beat people off with a stick. I have started to wonder if by chance I have some sort of powerful pheromones that can knock people out of any common sense they might possess. However, for those of you who may even remember biology class when we discussed various biological and chemical processes of the mating behaviors of fauna, you would remember that pheromones generally have the impact of attracting the opposite gender and, to put no fine point upon it, totally pissing off members of the same sex.

Something is very, very wrong with my chemistry. I have come to this conclusion after months of observation and frustration. Picture it: I schedule my gym time to give me a mid-morning break from job stress and hopefully give me the best shot at a less crowded gym. Sure enough, walking in, I perceive that there are a mere handful of individuals scattered through the facility. It was great. I figured I would be completely in my groove sans molestation by the talkers, walkers, and generally intrusive members of my species. I was sadly mistaken, and I was approached by no less than three… yes, three men that all used as their initiating salvo “How you doin’?” or something equally ridiculous. Seriously, this happened. So, this was my first inkling that something had gone wonky in my universe. The pattern continued, and as time wore on, it wasn’t just the men. Nope. Women joined in and wanted to talk to me about everything from workouts to soap opera characters (of whom I had literally zero knowledge nor did I wish to have).

Over time, it happened more and more frequently. I switched up my routine and started getting in my workout earlier in the day. I figured people don’t want to talk to you at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. For the most part I was correct. Then, the sad day arrived… it seems my sweat has powers to rival the most powerful of attraction tonics. The gym was all but empty. There were no less than 15 empty elliptical machines, not to mention a plethora of other cardiovascular exercise equipment. I chose one on the end so that I was safe from incursion on at least one side. It didn’t save me. Two ladies entered and while one stood on the empty side of me looking around and talking to her friend loudly, the other took up her progress on the other side using the elliptical immediately adjacent to mine. I resisted the urge to stop and in my best tour director impersonation identify and direct them to the now 14 other options for elliptical that would not require them being right next to me.

I focused my attention on my own progress, listened to my headphones, and tried to ignore the intrusion to my personal bubble. I figured that they would probably do their own thing and as I had not made eye contact nor acknowledged them in any way. I was… mistaken. Oh heavens, I was!

They had started by talking over around and through me, but then, each of them attempted to draw me into conversation with little comments, questions, remarks… Any of you try to hold a conversation while running on an elliptical? Well… maybe folks reading this are more adept with their physical coordination and maybe have more stamina and breath. I do not have that capability, honestly. If I split my attention from what is coming through my headphones, the display screens in front of me, and the physical movements of arms and legs, I am very likely to be catapulted into the treadmills immediately behind and cause quite a commotion if not some nasty injuries to myself. Additionally, I do not speak English before coffee. I don’t speak human before coffee, and most people are lucky if I do not sink fangs in response to any attempts to communicate pre-caffeine. These women had very obviously not gotten the memo. However, after their 10 minutes of talk and elliptical, they departed to allow me peace in which to finish my own 40 minute “run.”

The whole experience and that of the previous months has caused me to wonder what prompts people to invade the space. A friend called it the “gym equivalent of the guy that doesn’t respect the urinal gap.”

I cannot decide if it is just the overtly friendly nature of extroversion, or if it is generally some lack of social perception that would prompt people to push into another human’s personal bubble. Like I mentioned, I briefly considered the pheromone prospect, but I don’t know if that is a viable thesis. It remains to be seen and I suspect testing that might be a more disgusting journey than I am willing to embark upon.

So, for the time being, if you, dear reader, happen to be out there in the world of the workout, be respectful of the personal bubble. You may feel compelled to speak to that person lifting weights or sweating on the cardio machine. You might assume that they, as part of the human race share your desire for social interaction. You can think about it… but don’t do it. Seriously, take a moment to consider that the person is there concentrating and working towards their goals with purpose. If you truly wish to converse with a stranger at the gym… do so in the lobby or at the water fountain or for the love of all that is holy in that little area where people sit to consult with the trainers, but let the person enjoying their gym have some peace in which to do so. Additionally… always mind the gap.

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: ‘Tis the season…

January 6, 2016 tananda Leave a comment

And all the people said… “She’s lost her mind… or her calendar because we just finished all that nonsense.”

No, friends, I do not actually mean the holiday season. I mean the Oh-dear-lord-I-ate-everything-my-resolution-is-to-get-fit-by-swimsuit season. This is the time when former couch tubers, or even gym frequenters who let things get a little on the slidy side (yeah, I made it up)… during the holiday gatherings, parties, and all out gorge fests that started sometime around Halloween… start to head in droves, pushed by self-loathing for their slackness, the fear of cellulite, or New Year’s resolutions, to the temples of physical fitness. Yes, it is gym-crowding month.

I say “month,” but it can sometimes last all the way into March. It’s a well-known phenomenon. Several of my friends who go to the gym discuss the frustrations. It isn’t that any of us begrudge the people for wanting to make a positive change. However, while we applaud their desire, there is generally a lack of follow through, and in the meantime… we’re tripping over them. It just seems that the gym-crowders think that merely showing up is going to transform them overnight. It’s probably similar to my own feelings about skiing the first time.

I was excited to go. I had several friends that love to snow ski. So, off I went. I rented the skis and boots and all that. We went out and had a few trips down the “bunny” slope. I was told that I’m a natural… awesome. This will be fun. I rode up on the lift. Got off and was the only one who did not fall doing so. And… that’s pretty much the end of the fun. Going down the ”not-bunny” slope I was not a natural. I finally figured out that my best way of stopping was to just fall over. I got to the bottom. I was damp, cold, and had zero feeling in my toes because the boots cut off all circulation. While I knew that I couldn’t expect to become an Olympic skier in a day, I also figured out pretty quickly that the après-ski was probably more my thing that the actual ski.

In truth, there are a lot of people like that with the gym. They are excited to get started. They make the preparations (membership, shoes, yoga pants). They have every intention of making that change, going to the gym at least 3 times per week, becoming a healthier, happier, leaner self. And that is where it stops. They get there and figure out in a hurry that this sweating thing is not their thing. Or perhaps they realize that exercising in a public place isn’t their thing… or driving to a gym and fighting for the elliptical is not their thing. The list goes on and on, but for whatever reason, they start tapering off. One by one they go, until the gym population stabilizes usually sometime in the summer, with minor fluctuations for people panicking before trips to tropical places where clothing is more revealing. Eventually, the population starts declining again in autumn, but sometimes that’s hard to really judge in a college town due to student gym members adding to the “usual crowd.” By November, the decrease is more noticeable until the end of December brings a ghost-town-like feel to the place… and we’ve cycled back around. It is familiar. Those of us going through a few years of the cycle have come to expect it. New to the scene regulars have a momentary panic followed by intense frustration with the newbies wandering around aimlessly hoping for insight about how to use the contraptions.

This is really only my second year of observation. I was a newbie myself not that long ago. So, I feel for these folks who want to make good choices and live healthier lives (and look better in their clothing). I’ve been there. I’ve done this, and I watch with sad eyes, trying to pick out the folks who will have the stick-with-it to hold out past the first quarter.

What I have found, purely through my observations, is that there are common threads to the people who actually make the gym a new, healthy habit instead of a short lived fad in their lives.

Buddy System vs. Going Solo. There is a lot to be said for an “accountability partner.” A lot of people who start going to the gym to support someone else find themselves getting healthier, and there is a sense of, “I need to go to support John (or Sylvia or Bruce).” The problem with this? If that person stops going, that impetus of supporting them and going often stops, too. Accountability should be to oneself. There is nothing wrong with peer encouragement to get the ball rolling, but for true sustainability, internalize some of that encouragement to have it with you even when your friend can’t be. Another problem with what I will call the partner system is that sometimes one or the other partner outstrips the progress in the working out process. If that social part of the gym-going is all that is keeping it going, that will eventually be a problem because one will be holding the other back, or the other will feel left out and stop. In the meantime, may I say, that the social-goers and clique brigades also can cause some problems for the regular gym population by stopping in the middle and tying up machines just to have a conversation, sometimes in large clumps. There is nothing wrong with a little conversation and social support to make gym time a fun time, but when clusters of people block the flow in a crowded gym while spewing negative gossip (I’ve actually been subjected to this and heard well more about people than I ever wanted to know; headphones were not able to prevent their loud conversation from penetrating)… it can really detract from the experience for all.

Ignorance vs. Instruction. Literally, I mean ignorance. I don’t mean it as a derogatory term. I mean that people have no knowledge of fitness, physical exercise, or more importantly how that thingie works. So, when they fumble around and misuse equipment (misuse their own bodies), occasionally, there is injury. That puts a kibosh on the whole gym-tendance (I made that up, too).

Embarrassment vs. Intimidation. This relates to the topic above and then bleeds over to other areas. I am lucky enough to belong to Planet Fitness. I say lucky because of a topic I will address in a moment. However, one of the great things about the organization is their “no gymtimidation” thing. They mean it. There are still going to be some people who see people working out at varying degrees of expertise and, in a panic, run for the door, but for the most part, that atmosphere of the beefcake club is not present at my gym. People seem genuinely welcoming. Most people will leave you the hell alone (I said most). There is less of the designer workout gear and perfectly toned physiques displayed. People tend to wear comfortable, sometimes ratty athletic wear and they sweat and look sometimes pretty flaming atrocious (at least I usually do). The people there look like they are there to work out and not judge. So, it is a comfortable environment for people who are new to gym membership and may be a little more self-conscious about their appearance during exercise. Embarrassment and discomfort are a major reasons for drop-out.

Not-asking-for-help (see Ignorance). Playing into the embarrassment factor is the not-asking-for-help thing. All those contraptions! Most people are familiar with the stationery bikes and the treadmills. Additionally, anyone with a television has probably seen ellipticals in varying forms (I can actually attest that using one is not intuitive… it takes a minute to get the hang of it, and there is coordination involved… it nearly did me in the first time). However, there are a lot of machines that people have never seen, certainly never used, and moreover are disinclined to go find someone and ask. So, they pay for gym membership, go a few times, can’t figure out how to work the thingie-with-the-whatnot-that-does-something, and eventually stop going because it is “Just a waste of time and money. I can do most of that stuff at home” or they get hurt because of not using the machine… or their body correctly. The point being, that there is usually someone working at the gym that would be more than pleased to help anyone learn how to properly use the equipment. Often there is a trainer there who not only will help a member learn how to use the thingie-with-the-whatnot-that-does-something, but they will actually help design a specific program to achieve the goals desired. There should be no embarrassment in letting the people do their job.

Proximity. This is a big one, bigger than you realize. Everyone gets excited after making their New Year’s promises to themselves and heading out to purchase a gym membership. However, if you have to drive more than 20 minutes, it is unlikely that you will continue that pattern of behavior. In fact, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that there is a negative correlation between distance of the gym from your home and the amount of time you go (meaning that you are less likely to continue going to the gym the further away it is from your house). For my experience, I will admit that the reason I am in my second year of post-holiday-pocalypse-gym-invasion is because I am literally 5 minutes away. This is the lucky thing that I was talking about earlier. My home Planet Fitness location is nice, clean, and 5 minutes from my house. It’s perfect for me. Seriously. When I travel, now, I have a membership which will allow me to go to other locations for the franchise (bless that black card membership). Occasionally, I have driven as far as 20 minutes to get to the closest gym. However, I know good and well that I would not have done this had my routine and gym habits not already been established. If my gym home was further away or I had to drive well out of my way to go, chances are that work, home, fatigue, and general lassitude would have intervened eventually, and I would have dropped out and gone back to my tuber-like ways. Choosing a facility that is convenient is so important to the longevity of the gym-going. If your workplace has a gym, excellent! Use it. You will be more likely to continue because it is right there. If your apartment complex, condo, home owners association neighborhood has a central recreation center with a workout facility, awesome! If none of these scenarios are available, and if you work outside the home, try to find a gym that is on your route. If you have to pass by it on the way to work or the way home from work, you have a better chance of actually going. If you have the dollars and space to dedicate to a home gym… it’s better than driving over 20 minutes, but you may be less inclined to stick with a workout routine because “I can do that later… or sometime… or *zzzzzz*.” So, with the proximity, there is also the idea that if you go with a purpose and schedule the time to actually go, you may be more likely to make it a continual thing.

Where was I going with all of this? I think I started in one direction and ended up meandering all over and winding up somewhere else entirely. And that’s just fine, because even if my gym feels a little crowded at the moment, and I may growl a bit when I’m having my personal space bubble decreased, I do truly want people to make healthier choices for themselves. So… Merry Gym-Crowding!

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: It doesn’t have to start with a marathon

September 11, 2015 tananda Leave a comment

Unless you are that famed persona of the film, I really can’t imagine that anyone starts off running marathons. I mean, you can start with a goal of wanting to run in a marathon. It’s not really my cup of tea, but most humans don’t go from tuber-hood to marathon-runner immediately.

That’s the thing that people keep saying to me. For those of you following along in my struggles, rants, embarrassments, and victories, you know I never saw myself running anywhere (unless something really nasty was chasing me). Several friends have expressed the desire to get into some sort of fitness routine. When I talk about my running habit, they say things like “I wish I could do that,” or “I could never run,” or “Wow! I don’t think I could ever do that!” Honestly, it’s spectacular for my ego, but it is absolute hogwash.

As of now, I’ve managed to get to a point where I’m running (elliptical, remember the knees) 40 minutes almost every day. On the elliptical, that usually averages close to 5 miles. On the beach, it is considerably less… mainly due to sand and such making it slightly more of an effort, but regardless of distance, the effort is still there. I’m still sweaty and generally feeling it in my legs and backside. That’s really more of the point, no matter what anyone thinks. The effort in the exercise is really what matters. I’m happy that I’ve improved my time and can actually get good distance in those 40 minutes, but I’m not in a race against anyone but myself. What my friends with their comments don’t seem to recall is that I did not start there, and I certainly did not get here very quickly. I had my physical fit over a year ago, and I’m still struggling.

When I first decided to join the gym, I half expected that I would let that lapse like I had before. I would have spent my money and find every excuse on the planet not to go. I’m as surprised as anyone that I’m still going… and regularly. I was also fairly certain that I did not have enough coordination to be on one of those machines without causing myself (and likely anyone in the near vicinity) bodily harm.
What was absolutely zero surprise was that my first efforts were laughable. Quite literally. Grace is not my middle name. However, once I mastered the not-falling-off-and-killing-myself part, the next big hurdle was to actually keep up movement for 10 minutes… in a row. I mean, really? Ten minutes does not sound like a huge amount of time, but when you are trying to coordinate your arms and legs and looking at a timer that is viciously sneering at you… it might as well be a marathon. It was sad. By the time the digits went up to the 10 minute mark, I just stopped. I was out of breath, struggling, muscles weak and hamstrings screaming “What the hell are you doing to us?!?” I had been talked into this by a friend who said, “You need to do the ‘cooldown’ minutes, now.” I won’t repeat my response to that.

From there, I really only had a goal of being able to finish the 10 minutes without dying. I wanted to see if I could get to a point where 10 minutes didn’t seem like an Olympic event. And you know, it actually happened. I got to a point where I could do the 10 minutes and the3 minute cooldown. Not bad. Then, I happened to notice that I was close to a mile at the 10 minute mark. I made it my mission to break my 10-minute-mile.

And I did.

Little by little, I found myself decreasing the amount of time it took me to get to that mile. From there, I had to increase the distance to get in more time. I pushed and before I realized what I was doing, I was at 15 minutes, then 20. I was almost in shock when I looked one day to realize that I had been running for 25 minutes and had 3 miles registered on the machine. That’s where I settled for a while, actually. It was enough, I thought. However, I started throwing in a little cooldown period after my resistance training. So, another 5 minutes or so after weights? Now, I was up to 30.

I felt like I was plateauing again. I was looking for results and not really seeing them. A friend and one of my fitness support group started talking about changing my routine and said something about increasing my run to 40 minutes. What the actual…? Is he insane? I can’t run 40 minutes. I’ll die. And out loud I said, “Do I have to do all 40 minutes in a row?” He said that I did not, but that I needed to keep moving and do my resistance training, weights, whatever in between if I was going to break it up. Ok… I’d give that a try. So, I did. I started with 25 minutes before, did my resistance/strength stuff, and then 15 minutes before heading home. Not too bad, actually. It hurt a lot less than I thought it would. After doing that for a while, I decided to increase the before time to 30 and do 10 minutes afterward. One day, I just decided to do both in a row, and voila! I was doing 40 minutes consecutively. No break. Just straight through. I didn’t die. Crazy, huh?

Psychologically, that 40 minutes looked just sooooo unachievable, but somehow I managed to get through it. I managed to fool myself into seeing it in smaller chunks and it wasn’t so insurmountable. My body appears to be much more willing to accommodate the activity than my brain. I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to be running any marathons in the near (or even possibly distant) future. I don’t think that every trick I know to fool my brain and body could accommodate 26 miles, but who knows? I didn’t think I could run a mile when I started. I still occasionally feel a sense of shock that I run at all. So, it doesn’t have to start with a marathon. It starts with a step.

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: Surviving Vacation

August 2, 2015 tananda Leave a comment

Seems like an odd title, really. I mean, who doesn’t survive vacation? Ok, yes, I know there are accidents and extreme sport enthusiasts and of course those types with debatable intellect and common sense who think they are Grizzly Adams and decide to go walkabout with absolutely no actually survival skills. Other than that, though, for the majority of us who generally just take a few days or a week to not work and get away from the every day grind… that’s who I’m talking about. Yeah… those of us who plan a break and go to a beach or other chosen location for the purposes of relaxation, typically, we don’t have to think about surviving the experience. We just enjoy it.

However, from the perspective of someone who is still struggling with the whole fitness and healthy living aspects, it is a different matter. Anxiety about losing ground in strength or endurance progress, gaining weight due to overindulgence, and other setbacks can prey on the mind and throw a wrench in anyone’s fitness routine.

This year, I decided to approach things a little differently. As a part of the anticipatory goodness of pre-vacation planning, I reached out to friends and fitness partners prior to my departure to ask them for their favorite tips, tricks, and advice for staying on track while still enjoying vacation. Here are the common themes:

Incorporate physical activity in the fun (walk, hike, canoe, swim, etc.)
Choose healthy food snacks.
Stick with normal eating routines.
Do not eliminate favorite vacation meals (restaurants, favorite foods, etc.), just be reasonable and balance workouts with expected caloric increase.
Work out early in the day.
Eat clean, especially breakfast, and incorporate protein and shakes or smoothies.
For hotel living, try to choose someplace with kitchenette (more control over what you eat and cheaper).
Keep the indulgence in adult beverage moderate.
Drink water. Stay hydrated.
ENJOY YOURSELF.

People had great ideas for specifics in following these common threads, too. I thought about it all and realized that the enjoyment factor is especially important for any fitness regimen. It’s all well and good to lose weight, firm up, get stronger, feel better, but if you are miserable because you have denied yourself everything you love all the time, it will never become a lifestyle. That’s how yo-yo diets and weight gain-loss issues are born. Resenting or feeling like you missed out on something will eventually betray you and so the program falls by the wayside.

As it happens, I’m one of those people who have struggled with weight loss-gain pendulums and it has probably damaged my metabolism beyond repair at my age. So, I try to set goals of a different sort for myself than the typical “lose weight” or “fit in to size X, Y, or Z by the holidays.” It just isn’t feasible for me at this point(without surgery anyhow). However, I can have personal goals, such as improving my time per mile and endurance. I can become stronger. And if it just so happens that my pants fit a little looser (or just fit… wouldn’t that be nice?) and my arms stop waving when I do, all the better!

I’m a vacation anomaly in a lot of ways, though. For all that I love sitting on a beach with a beverage and a book and doing absolutely nothing else, I usually lose weight on vacation. Yep, you read that correctly. I generally shed a few unwanted pounds of adipose while I am sitting on my ass doing nothing. Sometimes, this is not necessarily a good thing.

Years ago, when I would make my pilgrimage to the ocean to gaze upon the waves and commune with the creatures thereof, I spent the majority of my time sleeping, reading, eating, drinking, and occasionally dipping in the ocean to cool off. This doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend a week. However, I didn’t really have a lot of activity. Also, while I did eat, I would usually skip breakfast and lunch and then overindulge with dinner. Alarmed at my increasing girth at one point, I changed tactics and restricted my food intake, meaning I limited my caloric intake on dinner and continued to blithely indulge in copious tropical drinks. I actually lost quite a bit of weight, but I had all of the muscle tone of a jellyfish.

Needless to say, my horrible habits of calorie watching and restricting led to about a decade and a half of bouncing all over the scale and never being able to maintain healthy weight loss. However, regardless of my average weight shifting about everywhere, I had always lost a couple of pounds during my sojourn at the seaside. The prodigal pounds generally returned and brought friends later, and having the muscle tone of an invertebrate doesn’t actually fulfill the criteria of health even at my lowest actual weigh-in (what my friend calls “skinny-fat”).

Last year, I changed gears entirely, choosing to incorporate a more active approach to my vacation lifestyle. At the time, I had a goal to run one mile on the beach. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it was sort of a “bucket list” item, and running was nothing I ever thought I would do with any frequency or endurance. Well, run I did. It worked out pretty well, actually.

This year, the pattern continued with some improvements (partially based upon my kind contributors’ tips and advice). Every morning, I get up and run on the beach. I’ve stopped clocking the miles as much, but I just tried to stick to my most recent time goals of 40 minutes. Now, for those of you who have experienced running in loose or slightly packed sand, you understand that this is not going to give me the fastest mile. It does, however, identify muscles I never consciously experienced before, and it cuts my distance approximately in half. True story. Doing my run first thing in the morning did about three things: It got me moving and my workout done early; it allowed me to exercise without positively roasting in the sun and dying of heat prostration, and it gave me the opportunity to see a lot of cool things (like baby turtles struggling to the sea and sunrises each day).

We’ve always had a kitchen in our place where we stay every year. It’s small, and by no means the most modern or professional set up, but it suffices. I actually enjoy cooking when I am not also trying to work a 40-80 hour work week. This year, I planned a full week menu. It wasn’t bad, if I say so myself. It included things like feta-brined chicken with spinach Florentine and braised carrots; Andouille sausage with melon and potato gnocchi; sirloin with balsamic glaze and peaches with harvest mushroom and zucchini rice… Are y’all hungry yet? Planning my menu was not only fun, but it allowed me to try and create new things that I might actually repeat at home. Obviously, dinner is only one meal of the day.

After my run, there is (as always) coffee, but I also included poached eggs. I’m working on my macronutrients (maybe a post later about that… when I wrap my head around it better), and I was not getting nearly enough protein in my diet. So, poached eggs helped make sure I was getting in some protein first thing. I will say that my habits are not changed nearly enough to go inside for lunch once I’m out on the beach, but this year I took my Herbalife shake or beverage drink to give me some protein during the day, too, instead of skipping and being starved at night leading me to overeat.

Sleep is something that is overlooked as a vacation staple. And I can hear what you are saying, “Why do you need to worry about sleep on vacation? Isn’t that what everyone does on vacation?!?” Well… no. Without the dread of the alarm clock jarring me into wakefulness on a daily basis, I tend to stay up way to late reading, playing games on my phone, watching Sharknado (no… scratch that, I will never watch that movie again or any of the sequels). I made a concerted effort this year to keep a decent sleep schedule (sans background TV). It made the early morning waking more natural and reset my circadian rhythm to something approaching healthy.

So… All in all, I’m pretty pleased with how I managed myself on vacation this year. I do not believe I fell off track, or if I did, it wasn’t so far that I’m struggling to get back. I expect that there will be a little bit of transition to go back to running with hard pavement or elliptical pedals beneath my feet instead of sand and a bit of recovery on my strength training since I didn’t do a lot of weight lifting while on holiday. All in all, though, I am hoping that I’ve not lost a lot of ground. Am I ready to go back to the grind? Oh, hell no. But that is an entirely different matter.

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: Powders and Programs and Pills… Oh My!

May 27, 2015 tananda Leave a comment

I don’t really know about the rest of you, but I personally have noticed an uptick in the sheer volume of adverts and click baits pertaining to the weight loss and fitness realm. I don’t have any empirical evidence, but from the mere narrative perspective, there has been a virtual flood of infomercials and random articles that assault my desperate psyche every day. I shan’t even pretend to review the plethora of products out there. I actually thought of doing just that for a while. I considered actually sampling and trying various offerings from the smorgasbord of fitness fads just to see what was out there, but common sense (and lack of funds) won out on that argument and instead, I’m just going to speak in generalities and the observations I have made of the various pleas to our vanity, health, and desperation that I have made during my own journey of fitness acquisition (and no, I am by no means at my destination).

Powders

The latest and greatest thing that has been suffusing the interwebs and social media has been the various offerings of what I will call the Power of Powders. By this, I mean the health food shakes and protein supplements and general liquid nutritional replacements that claim to support all your health and fitness goals. There are a lot of them, and they all have some similarities as well as having some significant differences as well. There are shakes to help you lose weight. There are shakes to help you build muscle. There are shakes to emphasize muscle definition. There are detoxes and microbiotics and macrobiotics and every other thing that you can imagine. Most contain some type of protein. The claim is generally that the addition of protein will satisfy the hunger on fewer calories as well as boosting the protein to fat and carbohydrate ratio of most dietary habits of the American public. Some are available at the grocery store and others from health food markets or GNC. There are others that are only available by subscription or via an agent (usually a friend or family member who becomes a vendor). The point is that all the shakes and powders generally have the purpose of replacing the solid food meals you eat with a liquid version, packaged in a tasty, milkshake-like solution. Some are actually supplemental to the normal meal intakes for people who are underweight or building mass and not getting enough protein in their normal diet.

I will not say that any of this is a bad thing. I have seen some products out there that have questionable ingredients, but for the most part, the popular varieties out there are not going to do you any harm to try them. Do they all do as they claim? Possibly. However, the important part here is to realize that we are not all of a piece, and you need to do your research (by the way, get used to reading that phrase). People are unique for the most part. We each have similarities. We are generally made of the same basic compounds and genetic codes (unless you are a mutant or have been infused with alien DNA… that is a joke, people, seriously). However, each of us probably has environmental and genetic differences that impact how we respond to various dietary elements; otherwise, we’d all be allergic to peanuts and gluten and lactose and any number of things identically. There are some people that can go completely vegan and be extraordinarily healthy… I’m not one of those… and others who to remove meat and dairy from their diets would cause all manner of problems. People have varying metabolisms and responses to how we use and store the nutrition we take into our bodies. What works for one person is not necessarily going to work for the next one. Sadly, we cannot all afford to go have genetic and dietary assessment to have a nutritionist design the perfect program just for us (wouldn’t that be nice, though). Additionally, we all have different preferences and what suits my friend over here, is not going to be my cup of tea… or coffee rather because any of you who know me are aware of exactly my preferences on that.

So, bottom line on powders? Do not judge your response to a product by how it performs with someone else. Just because Shakeology or Herbalife or Muscle Milk works for your friend, does not guarantee that it is going to be just the thing for you. It may not have the same effect, or you may not tolerate those formulas the same way. Does it mean that it’s a fraud or a scam? NO it does not. It means that the particular product is possibly not for you. Try a different one if you are intent upon a meal replacement or supplement. Just do your research. Meal replacements are governed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and usually that means they have at least passed some level of testing, but others that are considered supplements do not go through the same rigorous standards (more on that later). So, do your homework first, before your expend large sums of money, and try it for a short span (again, before you purchase a lifetime supply).

Programs

Can I just say that insomnia is possibly the worst trait if trying to resist infomercial sales pitches about fitness programs? They all sound so simple, fun… the pounds will just melt off you in just 10 minutes per day!!! Um, yeah. Not so much, people. However, that is exactly what they want you to believe, and always, it seems, at times of day or night when you are most susceptible. Again, just like with the meal replacement/supplement thing, I’m not claiming all of these programs are fraudulent. I am saying DO THE RESEARCH before dialing 1-800-LUZ-UR-ASS (yes, I know it is too many digits) at 3:00AM and giving Peggy your credit card number. I don’t care how many extra exercise bands in fluorescent pink and lime green they offer to send you if you ACT NOW!

Most of the programs or exercise equipment promise things like “So, fun you won’t even notice you are working out!” and “In a fraction of the time you would normally spend exercising you will burn a gazillion more calories!” If you don’t notice, then it probably is not going to have the results for which you are hoping. Even the least strenuous exercise that results in firmer posterior or decreased inches in your middle make you feel something… usually sore the next day for a while. That’s just part of the muscle training process. When an exercise stops feeling being an effort, it’s time to change the routine and keep the body working. Anything different takes some getting used to, and if you don’t feel a little of “the burn” you probably aren’t causing all those slow and quick twitch muscle fibers to get excited enough to burn calories. Additionally, your body will develop a tolerance to the level of activity and it may not continue to work forever (remember my Plateau piece?). So, beware of the programs that promise results without effort. Chances are that they are going to cost more than they are worth, OR the claims that you won’t notice the effort are drastically underestimated. When you cannot move the next day, those DVDs will just start collecting dust.

There are some decent programs out there for home use. One that has caught on pretty readily (thanks to some good PR, brand name recognition, and target marketing towards wrestling fans and veterans) is DDP Yoga. All the reviews indicate that the program is pretty easy to follow and provides workout that has some decent results, but you know how I found that out? I did the research and read what others were saying… the good and the bad. There are also a number of free programs with YouTube videos and subscriptions that allow you to get new workouts and articles every week, such as Fitness Blender. These usually are simple exercises that you can do at home, and generally do not take more than half an hour (sometimes less) for the whole workout. For those who prefer to go to a gym, ask if there is a trainer that works there. Many places have a trainer on staff that can help design a program to achieve the specific goals you want. Some may have a fee for that service, but others, like Planet Fitness provide this as a free service to members. So, before you dig for your wallet and phone in the wee hours at the behest of the fitness guru touting the efficacy of their Fat Burning Program GUARANTEED TO LOSE FAT, do a little research. Take some time to see what else is out there.

Pills

This one is the absolute worst, in my opinion. We have become, in American society, the pharmaceutical and supplement dream. It seems that everyone is looking for the miracle pill that will make all the negative aspects of our lives go buh-bye. And, yes, that is absolutely a generalization… broad and sweeping and probably doesn’t apply to every single individual in the country, but there are enough of them out there to make it worthwhile for the shysters, cons, and snake oil salesmen (and women) to continue their patter like side show barkers trying to draw the moths to their particular flame. Why on earth would we expend physical energy and restrict eating what we like if we can just take a pill or sprinkle something on our food and make that food skip the storage as fat portion of the program? Sure would be a whole lot easier, right?

Remember how I said I was going to talk more about supplements and the FDA issue? Yeah, this is that portion of the program. Many of the miracle pills and solutions that are advertised for fat loss and weight loss fall into the category of a supplement. They have been categorized as such rather than as a medication or a food which would be governed by the FDA. Again, I’m not going to go through the enormous list of various pills that have been advertised as “fat-melting” or “appetite suppressing”. Most of the time, these little gems are either diuretics (meaning they make you pee, thereby losing water weight), have a form of stimulant suppressing appetite (and making you pee), or have some sort of fat blocking compound that causes your body to excrete said fat (think Olean and some of the “anal leakage” tales). Others are cocktails of vitamins and caffeine that rev your energy levels (if you don’t mainline coffee like I do). Many are pretty harmless for the normal healthy adult, but sometimes, not so much.

Usually, when it comes to the miracle pills, the advertisement or infomercial will spout a mouthful of jargon and sciency-sounding hogwash that includes actual chemicals in the body like Leptin or Ghrelin and pontificate upon some theory of how the manipulation thereof will result in dramatic body-composition changes. Occasionally, there will be some repackaged manure about high levels of Vitamin D or B or Omega 3 compounds for which they will give you a free trial (you just pay shipping and handling), and can cancel at any time if it doesn’t work. What’s the harm in that? None at all, except that they frequently charge your card astronomical sums of money when you forget to cancel the automatic refill and the shipping and handling probably paid more than the cost of manufacturing and shipping. Additionally, because they have classified their product as a supplement, they may not have been over-careful about adherence to health regulations. Be cautious. Sing it with me all together, now… DO YOUR RESEARCH! Be wary of claims that seem miraculous and contrary to the laws of physics and nature. Listen for phrases like “It is impossible to lose weight without this product!” If it sounds too good to be true, guess what? It probably is.

Click-Baits

What are they? They are those eye-catching headlines or lines in your social media feed that say “5 FOODS NEVER TO EAT WILL LOSE BELLY FAT” or “MY SECRET TO LOSING 30 POUNDS IN A MONTH” or “THE HOLLYWOOD SECRET THAT NO ONE WANTS YOU TO KNOW!” We’ve all seen them. Most of us have clicked on them at least once… well, I have, and I’m not too proud to admit it. The problem is that when you get in there, it is all of the stuff I have mentioned above: Some eye-catching pseudo-science with a trustworthy person in a white lab coat talking about their amazing breakthrough that the government doesn’t want you to know, or maybe even some snazzy animated illustrations to explain how their product or program or powder blocks your fat-making body and will turn you into a god/goddess.

In the modern era where obesity has become a disease that everyone seems to catch (at least in western society and the “first world”), people become frustrated and desperate to lose weight and conform to the modern, western view of beauty. The charlatans of the world prey on that desperation and know that most of the people in the world who have been frustrated by their own attempts will not do their own research and prefer a nice packaged version that is easy to digest and understand… and of course will not require too much time and effort on their part. As my friend says, humans will eat the candy if it is packaged prettily and put before them. So many people want an easy way. Others have tried and failed so many times that they are willing to believe in anything if it will let them have some success in their weight loss and fitness efforts.

Ideally, everyone out there should do the work, read the research, understand what they are reading, and try different things until they find the right formula that works for them. But that takes time. That takes effort, and too many people want someone to boil it down to a simple format. They prefer for someone else to take all the available science, assimilate it, simplify it, and regurgitate it in a readily understandable form. Most of the time, the result is crap; boiled-down stinky crap. Weight loss and physical fitness have become the spiritualism movement of the 21^st Century. It isn’t all fraud out there, but you need to debunk the stuff that the charlatans are dishing out. Do the work. Read product reviews (somewhere other than the website owned by the seller or company manufacturing the product). Sift through the technobabble and garbage science, and look for the reputable. Also, watch the customer testimonials. These are generally the most dramatic changes and chosen for that reason. If you read the fine print, you will often see “Results vary” or “Results not typical”. For people who had more than 100 pounds to lose, frequently any change of lifestyle to something healthier will prove more dramatic than for those who have a few pounds to shave off.

Remember, not all the powders, products, and pills (even if they are legit) will work for everyone. So, be savvy and cautious and get fit in a healthy way, AND check in with your primary care physician before starting out on any fitness or weight loss lifestyle change.

Body Image, Health, Rant

Rant: No one is safe from the fat-shaming media

May 15, 2015 tananda Leave a comment

So, I totally got sucked in the other day, like Alice down the proverbial rabbit hole of the interwebs. It started with a perfectly innocent article about iced coffee popsicles (that is innocent, I swear by all that is holy… and by the first bean of the blessed caffenation… ). However, as frequently happens (well, as happens to me that is) a side link caught my attention “GORGEOUS STARS THAT GOT FAT AND HIDEOUS!” (or something along those lines). Try as I might I could not resist the temptation to see this travesty of modern celebrity, and so, I clicked. And I found to my surprise that my temper flared. Once again the paparazzi and media hounds have pissed me off to an extent I didn’t think possible outside political arenas where they have no knowledge and generally speak from their posterior orifices.

Now, I’m going to digress a tad. I’ll try to keep my tangent to a brief ramble. So, bear with me. I have never been what might be considered a willowy sort. I was, at one time called a skinny kid by a grandparent here or there or others of a generation that knew The Great Depression years and thought that being able to see certain bones in a child meant lack of nourishment. I was never emaciated and I was certainly never without enough food to eat. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had gardens and my mom’s magical abilities to make quite hearty meals appear on the slimmest of budgets. At any rate, I was never one that would blow away in a good wind. I was a solid, athletically built youngster that probably fell in the lower to middle range of those damnable BMI charts… in other words average. That being said, I was never what might be considered thick, either. I tended to be on the long scale. However, with age comes wisdom… and then it presents some more unpleasant gifts. One of those less positive side effects of age is what I will call the thickening. I’m not talking about mere weight gain and adipose tissue acquisition. I’m talking just the pure and simple fact that some of us just get visibly and measurably wider/thicker/whatever as we get older. I believe it has something to do with hormones and genetics and such (at least that’s what all those required biology and human physiology courses I took said), but it is just a fact of life. Neither diet nor exercise will fix it. Some lucky folks seem to dodge this bullet in comparison to their peers, though even they show some change from their own earlier years to some extent. They tend to be those willowy types that no amount of childbirth, years, or desserts seems to change (yeah, I want to stab them, too. It’ll be ok. Just put your head between your knees until the urge passes), but for the rest of us, there is just no avoiding the middle aged spread. We can impact body fat percentages, how we feel, our physical health, muscle tone, and energy levels with judicious dietary choices and appropriate exercise, but despite the efforts we will still never become a bean pole (even if we were in youth). Whether I like it or not, without surgical modification, I am never going to be what I was in my younger years. And with that foundation… on we go.

So, this article/slide show that I happened upon had a title at the top of the page: “Celebrities that Couldn’t Stop Eating and Got Fat…” I started paging through the side by side comparisons of various examples, “Before” and “After” as it were. Both genders were represented. However, the more I paged through the some 30 plus slides, the angrier I became. First of all, there is that misleading title. It brings to mind images of lazy bodies shoving bon-bons in their mouths. At no point was there any evidence presented to support the claim that all of the changes pictured were the product of overeating or food addiction. Secondly, the majority of the comparisons were literally years apart and sometimes decades. Additionally, the “After” shots were by no means grotesque in the majority of instances. They looked like normal people who had traversed spans of time and life events and aged… pretty well actually. For instance, if I was male, I personally would not mind having the physique that Lawrence Fishburne has kept. Aside from that, the disparity between the studio publicity photos and other posed examples given as the “Before” shots and the more candid, spontaneous, and natural “After” shots was glaring. So, I was baffled. Why were these celebrities being shamed? And what exactly is being said by all the negativity?

I also noted that often the females presented not only were “victims” of time, but also had the photos taken after delivering children. Um?!? Yeah! Shame on them for embracing motherhood and pregnancy! I know that some people claim to bounce back, but I dare say there is a LOT of work and self-denial that goes into attaining pre-baby physique, and most NEVER DO! (Think Mammy’s conversation with Scarlett O’Hara who could not attain her former figure with the aid of a corset!) Many of the photographic comparisons were with 30-plus year differences, too. Seriously, people?!? Are you saying that in order to be safe from ridicule, one must maintain the body of the 20-year-old? One that surprised me by truly getting me to the boiling point was a caption in which the author/blogger/snarky-social-commentator made the “witty” chastisement of Gerard Butler on his deteriorated physique stating “Hugh Jackman can do it, why can’t you?” That sent me over the top, and I don’t even like Gerard Butler. Now, for one thing, I follow Mr. Jackman in the social media world (Of course, I do! I am female, appreciate the male form, and still breathing). I witness what it appears to take for him to maintain his Wolverine-like physique. He frequently shares images of his training sessions and dietary choices. This is not your average physical fitness routine. He puts a LOT of time, energy (and likely funds) into looking like that, despite any natural biological gifts and predispositions. Aside from that, who can say what additional differences there are in genetic makeup or body chemistry between these two compared leading men. (Not to mention all those government experimental mutation programs… just kidding). Not that Mr. Butler is any less capable of putting in the same efforts and resources to attain similar physical outcomes, but comparing one to another is just not fair. Besides, the picture showed as the “Before” for Gerard Butler was from the Spartan days… seriously, a still from the movie. Hello? Again, I say “Bad shot!” Let’s see? Movie magical film still with lighting and whatever other special effects vs. photo caught by sneaky photo-stalker with the long lens; not exactly an even playing field. Additionally, that was a bloody acting role people! I’ve seen, read, and heard about what some actors and actresses do for different parts. Look at Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Robert De Niro, Charlize Theron, and Renee Zellweger. That is just to name a few of the performers who have literally changed their bodies by gaining and losing and putting themselves through physical metamorphosis for the purpose of assuming a character. Do you really think that given the timeframes of filming, deadlines, and such that they did that in the healthiest way possible? I can answer that one: NO THEY DID NOT. For many of the stars out there, the physiques and image that they portray come at a sacrifice to their bodies and health (and sometimes minds). Alas, they chose that lifestyle and career, and we have to assume they knew the risks when they signed up. The pressure to fulfill certain expectations and ideal appearance is something that Hollywood has been rife with since the advent of moving pictures. Gerard Butler is no different. He bulked up and got ripped to play a part. Now, because he is not maintaining that same exact body form some little paparazzo/wannabe journalist is shaming him. Did he somehow become morbidly obese since playing King Leonidas? No, he just looks… normal (well, in truth the guy is considered by most to be quite handsome and probably not average, but you get what I’m saying).

So, why do I give two rips about whether the media or one of their vulture-like representatives is bad-mouthing the A-listers? In all likelihood, those celebrities are probably thinking “Hey, attention is attention. All press is good press.” It keeps them in the public eye. So, they probably don’t care that some little whiner is saying that they aren’t brick @#$%houses anymore.

However, those celebrities are often the representation of our ideals in many ways. Even those among us who have been graced with wonderful ego strength, self-esteem and experience no twinge of doubt in the face of external recrimination can absorb some of the societal expectations and approbation to occasionally observe a paragon of physical virtue and think “I want my body to look like THAT!” That sentiment is typically the primary motivation for the majority of people to diet, exercise, and (yes) have surgical procedures. We have an image of our ideal body in mind. We want to look like the modern gods and goddesses of the public eye. We want to be attractive, and to be considered attractive and successful (yes, an attractive physical appearance often results in the assumption of success) according to the cultural norms. So, when some little hopped up photo-blogger or tabloid hack starts bashing someone who wasn’t prepared for a photo shoot and merely looks age-appropriate or like a normal, average human, what does that do in our subconscious and preconscious? Well, if you are a confident specimen who is happy in your life, it may do absolutely nothing… or possibly you believe that it has no impact to your self-perception. You may be correct. However, for the rest of us, it plants a little irrational seed that to be attractive, beautiful, desirable, loved… you have to achieve physical perfection. You cannot age. You cannot participate in the natural human milestones of life. You must conform to the image that the media has designated as acceptable, and the risk is there for making some supremely unhealthy choices just to avoid being too normal.

Health, wellness, fitness, and diet should not be something that is dictated by negativity or the avoidance of external negative perception. It should be something that we choose because it brings us more satisfaction in our lives. So, I say to the nasty little scandal rag jerks out there who love to put other people down (even if it is the Hollywood “royalty”)… Bug off! Or I might start a movement to encourage the victims of those long lenses to return the favor. How will you vultures bear up to the intense scrutiny and critique of your physique?

Here endeth the rant… at least this one (y’all know me too well to think it’s the last).

Body Image, Health, Rant

Physical Fit: Scathing Rant Commencing in 3…2…

April 6, 2015 tananda Leave a comment

So, I have tried not to become one of those people when it comes to my physical activity and fitness regimen, but today truly tested my metal.

I’ve recently changed up my routine workout schedule. A few different circumstances contributed to the adjustments. The primary reason was my move to a telecommute status for my job that put me within five minutes of my gym. Whereas previously my workout waited until the end of the workday when I stopped on the way home (because my office was inconveniently far from the gym to go during the day), I now have the ability to run to the gym for a mid-day workout break during my lunch hour. Another reason for the schedule shift was that my former choice of the after-work-workout was popular with a lot of people. The gym was crowded starting at around 5:00 P.M. If I didn’t get to the gym before that time, it was very unlikely that I would find any of the cardio machinery (elliptical, treadmill, stationary bicycles, or stair climber) free. The same could be said for the various resistance and strength training machines, and don’t get me started on the circuit training area. Needless to say, with my late in the day meetings, project, and door-knob questions from staff, I rarely got to my gym in time to get my turn at the necessary activities. It was frustrating, to say the least, and a recipe for fitness failure if I allowed it to be. Therefore, my change to a mid-day workout was an unexpected blessing. It is glorious. I practically have the whole place to myself, and I get in a full workout in the time most people get through lunch.

I fear that even this brief period of blessed freedom and isolation in my fitness has led me to a sense of complacency. I’ve become accustomed to my privacy and freedom of the unpopulated daytime gym. I have taken for granted that I have the run of the place. I mistakenly assumed that my frustrations of the gym-etiquette-deficient were behind me. Today, that cherished feeling has been decimated … decisively.

First, I got rather a later start than normal, but I was still at the gym shortly after the normal lunch hour. As usual, my chosen temple to physical fitness was practically empty. I was immediately able to get an elliptical machine for my run (yes, this is how I run because I’m old, and I have knees that still haven’t forgiven me for the mistreatment of my youth). So far, so good. After my usual three miles, I moved to the circuit training area.

I just heard the groans from some of my more dedicated fitness experts among my readers, but here is my defense:
I don’t do the circuit training every day or even every workout.
I do practice “muscle confusion” and switch things up between leg day, torso, abs, etc.
When it comes to a lunch hour workout, circuit training is a great way for me to get in a full body workout to start my week.

Back to my tale… I went to my blessedly empty circuit training area. There is absolutely nothing more frustrating than trying to do circuit training during the busy times of the day. Sadly the circuit training area is the one place in a gym where, for some reason, people tend to congregate and socialize after work (which was one of my frustrations with the after-work-workout). This is a serious problem for someone who is trying to stay in their groove (“Beware the groove… beware the groove…”).

For those that are unfamiliar with the circuit training, it consists of a fenced-in area with a series of resistance/weight machines interspersed with steps or other cardio activity that are laid out in a particular order allegedly to maximize the muscle isometrics (the science jury is still out on that one). The point of this is to work on strength and tone while keeping the heart rate in a target zone. There are arguments in the fitness community about the value of this, but for me, it seems to be a good option (especially, again, when pressed for time). My approach to circuit training, and why it is the perfect solution to a lunchtime workout for me, is to do the resistance machines in order (as one is supposed to do). I generally do three sets of 12-15 repetitions on each one, but I don’t do the steps in between every machine. I usually just monitor my pulse and use the cardio to boost it if it drops out of the target range. The exception to this would be when the circuit training area is totally hoppin’. I then follow the prescribed routine to keep from disrupting the flow for others… or I just avoid the circuit training all together and opt for the other machines or free weights available outside the area.

There I was, in the circuit training and starting to work my way around the area from machine to machine, checking my pulse and using the interspersed steps in between… I had worked my way around to the military press machine and just finished it. I took my pulse and found that I was still in the target range. Completely in my groove, I moved with determination to the next machine. That’s when it happened…

He walked into the circuit training area with loose, saggy (and probably more-expensive-than-they-should-have-been) basketball shorts. Ball cap on backwards and sporting a t-shirt with the sleeves cut out. Before I realized what had happened, he stepped between me an my next machine. That’s right, he skipped the rest of the circuit completely, just cut me off in traffic and sat down to do some bicep curls accompanied by impressive huffing and grunting. At this point, I had the option of skipping past this machine to the next in line or use the cardio step. As I paused to reflect, another of the species came over to stand next to the first and slid into place at the machine as the first finished his set.

Suddenly, I had a completely overwhelming urge to be an ass… or kick one. I pictured myself delivering a champion, thermonuclear wedgie accompanied by a firm flip of the reversed baseball cap perched on the head of the original douchebag. I also pictured walking over and just standing there without saying anything. If either of the Neanderthals asked what I was doing, I would calmly explain the purpose of the circuit training area and excuse their ignorant rudeness as “I am certain that your egos have cut off the blood supply to the part of your brain that governs your ability to read or think or have manners.” My final fantasy option was to go over to one of the empty bicep machines that were just outside the circuit training area and visible to the pair of them proclaiming loudly as I did so, “I wish there was a bicep curl machine somewhere outside the circuit training area!!!”

I, of course, did none of these things, satisfying though they might have been. Instead, I heaved a great sigh, gave them a patented Ginsu-knife-eye-of-the-basilisk-witch-whammy glare, walked to the abdominal area to do some oblique work, and then finished up with another mile on the elliptical. Somehow, while much more righteous and mature, I’m pretty sure the imagined actions would have been a good deal more fun. BUT I would like to be able to continue using my gym, and taking the high road probably was the wiser option. However, for any of you out there reading this, be aware of the people around you and have some bloody manners!

Here endeth the rant… As you were.

Health

Physical Fit: Dehydration, It’s not Just For Summertime

February 27, 2015 tananda Leave a comment

Something has occurred to me recently… as in the last week because of some other incidents I have mentioned (i.e. nearly freezing to death in my own home). During the shivering and trying not to become a popsicle, I also realized that I managed to avoid drinking the recommended daily allowance of H₂O. I am dehydrated.

Most people know that water is necessary for life. More necessary than food and less than breathing, and by that, I mean that you can go for a long time without food, less time without water, and we all know that depleting our bodies of oxygen for more than a few minutes will result in unpleasant consequences like unconsciousness, brain damage, organ failure, and death. That’s hardly earth shattering or genius level deduction. Most of us learned that in primary school to some extent.

Anyhow, not drinking sufficient water can lead to a lot of unpleasant things including skin issues, cracked lips, dental problems, halitosis, fatigue, muscle deterioration, headaches, digestive issues, and elimination difficulties (yes, I’m talking some potty problems). It is not a fun time, and of course, failure to hydrate properly can lead to the ultimate adverse effect… death.

People do not realize that our bodies need water all the time. In fact, most people do not even know the actual amount that they need on a given day, and would most likely underestimate that amount. For example, based on my weight and age, I am supposed to consume 110 oz. of water every day. That is just with normal activity and average temperatures and humidity. That does not even take into account diet, medications, consuming alcohol and caffeine, activity levels, or extremes of weather.

On top of all of the negative impact of dehydration upon the body, lack of appropriate water intake can also negatively impact the fitness routine and weight loss goals. Dehydration can result in fatigue and general lack of productivity. Not drinking enough water can slow down your cardio and can even result in increased appetite due to the body’s attempts to boost energy. Staying hydrated can decrease overeating, and boost energy levels. Maintaining proper levels of hydration can also ensure that the body is using the food and nutrients consumed in the most efficient way.

For me, it is so much easier to stay hydrated in the summer. I know that is counterintuitive, but it is true. During the summer, I have no trouble consuming a cool refreshing beverage. I frequently keep a large container of water near at hand and sip on it continually through the day. In the colder weather, however, I find it less automatic to continually drink my water throughout the day, and in truly frigid temperatures, I find it almost impossible to make myself drink enough of the cool water that drops my core temperatures even lower.

It is, however, just as important to stay hydrated in winter. Keeping appropriate hydration allows the body better temperature regulation, and dehydration can contribute to hypothermia. Also, many heating systems tend to dry out the air inside homes and the moisture in the body as well, chapping the skin and drying nasal passages and mouth preventing the body from resisting environmental allergens and other contaminants.

I must remember to drink my daily allotment of water. I also need to remember that by the time that my brain registers that I am thirsty, I am already depleted in my fluids. I have been considering different ways I can get appropriate hydration during the chilly months. My beloved coffee will not suffice as caffeine acts as a diuretic on the system. Though I will do my best to drink water, I will admit that it is more difficult, and I want to mix things up a bit and include a warm alternative. Non-caffeinated hot teas can help with hydration and provide an alternative to cool water. I expect that awareness is probably the greatest asset to my efforts, but it is decidedly important for my continued health to stay hydrated. Contrary to commercials you may have seen, it’s probably not a good idea to “stay thirsty, my friends.”

Tananda.com

Category Archives: Health

The New Cheese: Sick at Work

Physical Fit: The boredom trap

Physical Fit: Mind the Gap

Physical Fit: ‘Tis the season…

Physical Fit: It doesn’t have to start with a marathon

Physical Fit: Surviving Vacation

Physical Fit: Powders and Programs and Pills… Oh My!

Rant: No one is safe from the fat-shaming media

Physical Fit: Scathing Rant Commencing in 3…2…

Physical Fit: Dehydration, It’s not Just For Summertime

A blog about a few thing I picked up along the way… Hey driver, where are we going?!?