But there are other things to talk about. For example, I don't believe I uttered a single word last time about the workout situation! Things are finally (and really this time!) back to normal. Starting in about mid-January, I got a membership at the YMCA, since they waived the joining fee for the new people in January. They also have this financial assistance program for people who are poor, or underemployed, or college students (simply a combination of the previous two) so it actually costs me quite a bit less each month than my old gym membership ever did.
Plus, the facility is really nice - they have an indoor track and everything. My old gym was a snap fitness, and they didn't have a real bench or a rack or anything for weights, so I didn't do bench or squat, or really anything that I couldn't do with dumbbells. Now I'm doing them regularly, and unashamedly begging for spotters whenever I bench (my bench is really pretty pathetic, so it's almost embarrassing asking for a spot - but that's not my style to be embarrassed about anything - except dancing). In fact - and I don't mean to brag - I'm hittin' it pretty hard. The indoor track is a huge part of it... I hate running, and I hate running on a treadmill even more, and I have short, poorly coordinated legs, so the elliptical machine makes me feel like my hip is going to fly out of my pelvis. But the indoor track is cool - you get to run past people who are walking to make yourself feel fast, and with the right music it's actually kinda fun to try to run with the rhythm (if it's too slow or too fast I can't keep it up for too long though).
Speaking of which, I definitely listen to the Black Mages at the gym. In case you are unaware, the Black Mages are a Japanese progressive metal band led by Nobuo Uematsu, of Final Fantasy fame, which does covers of music from the Final Fantasy series. It's fantastic - and for someone like me who is used to getting a lot of work done listening to battle themes there's nothing like it to get my blood pumping for a workout. Apparently they have a relatively new album which I am thinking about investing in... Anyway, it almost makes me wish people could hear what I'm listening to at the gym, as I run around the track in old nerdy t-shirts. Now that I'm actually making some money, I may try to get some new ones :)
As for the details of my routine: I try to go for a nice warm-up with a few laps around the track, usually about a half mile at a decent pace, followed by a walked lap then straight to the weights (if I'm gonna be doing squats I take it easier on the running). After that, I split up my workout into two days, so one day I might do back and chest, and the next shoulders and legs (or some similar combination of those) and I throw in little things here and there, going for about 5 or 6 days a week at the gym, occasionally throwing in a much easier day, or a day of just running (if it sounds like a lot, its not - I'm usually in and out in about an hour). I aim for three sets of about 10 reps each for each exercise, after a warm-up set, and usually dropping the weight down because I can't maintain it yet. I figure I'm not working out hard enough to really worry too much about over-training at this point, so I'm not too worried about that. I also haven't been doing deadlifts - although I want to do them... I admit I've tried to do them before, and they make me sore in a bad way, which means I'm doing something wrong. Don't try to give me advice - I've watched youtube videos all about doing them right and I just can't get it... I'm too awkward. I'm avoiding the risk of injury by doing other things while I wait for an opportunity to have someone show me how to do them and tell me what I'm doing wrong.
Also, if you have read Gary Taubes other book, How We Get Fat you will recall that he details an entire chapter to the "elusive" benefits of exercise. Basically his point is that if we envision exercise as a way of increasing the calories out part of the calories in/calories out dynamic, then we must realize how hopeless things are - the calories in/calories out idea is simply untrue. This is why I don't get to the gym and run for 20 miles or some other such nonsense (and because I'd give up and say eff that by about mile 1.5). However, exercise does have a tendency to reduce insulin resistance, which does help people lose weight. And if you lift weights it has a tendency to make you stronger, so you don't end up fat, old, bald, poor, and short (I remind myself whenever I don't want to go to the gym that I am already short, I am balding, I will one day be old, and I will never be fabulously rich - so if I can't at least avoid being fat I won't have much going for me - except for my charming personality, of course... and shocking good looks... and razor sharp mind and...). Uh, anyway, if the goal is weight loss, then the key to exercising is intensity. Intense workouts cause a shift in hormones that tends to make you lose fat when compared to lower-intensity workouts. All exercise will increase your production of cortisol, which, put simply, makes you fat. But more intense exercise also increases your production of glucagon, testosterone, adrenal hormones, and human growth hormone - which all have a tendency to make you less fat (women, don't worry about testosterone making you bulky - if it were that easy for guys they wouldn't workout) [I also want to do a post about glucagon someday and how it is basically the counter to insulin, but now is not the time]. In other words, the net hormonal effect on weight loss is more positive for intense workouts than for less-intense workouts. The details of it aren't entirely clear to me, but I do know that the calories in/calories out aspect of exercise isn't what makes you lose weight, and the hormonal explanation makes more sense. So it makes sense to go with what makes more sense.
Speaking of all this business, have you ever tried to find accurate information about exercising? I feel like it is exactly like diet/nutrition/health. Everyone is trying to sell something and promising to make you look like Suzanne Somers or Ahnold or make you lose 300 pounds in 6 days or something else that clearly requires too much plastic surgery or at least ought to have required more. I'll admit I've checked a few websites myself and almost been convinced - I have talked about Mark's Daily Apple before... He's the guy who talks about the "primal blueprint." And he was so close to being right about a lot of things - yes intense exercise is good; yes, we ought to eat fewer carbs in general; yes, most fats are not bad for you - that it's almost enough to suck you in, but his reasoning was so flawed. Just because our ancestor's ate it - even if for a long time - does not imply that it is good for us; and just because we did not eat it does not imply that it is bad for us.
Speaking of all this business, have you ever tried to find accurate information about exercising? I feel like it is exactly like diet/nutrition/health. Everyone is trying to sell something and promising to make you look like Suzanne Somers or Ahnold or make you lose 300 pounds in 6 days or something else that clearly requires too much plastic surgery or at least ought to have required more. I'll admit I've checked a few websites myself and almost been convinced - I have talked about Mark's Daily Apple before... He's the guy who talks about the "primal blueprint." And he was so close to being right about a lot of things - yes intense exercise is good; yes, we ought to eat fewer carbs in general; yes, most fats are not bad for you - that it's almost enough to suck you in, but his reasoning was so flawed. Just because our ancestor's ate it - even if for a long time - does not imply that it is good for us; and just because we did not eat it does not imply that it is bad for us.
Taubes showed this repeatedly in his books: The Japanese and many Asian peoples do fine on diets high in carbohydrates when they eat primarily rice, despite the fact that our ancestors likely didn't eat much rice. All people do poorly on diets high in sugar - regardless of the source of that sugar... It rots teeth, it causes heart disease, and liver diseases, and all kinds of horrible things - even though our ancestors likely ate as much sugar as possible (which didn't amount to much). Many mushrooms are poisonous when consumed raw, but are fine sources of trace nutrients when cooked - there's no way our ancestors ate them for too long. The Masai people of Africa live in a state of relative health despite subsisting on a diet of mostly cow's milk. And whey protein and fish oils - two sources of food that our ancestors likely didn't have year-round access to - have a tendency to be exceptionally healthy.
But anyway, then he went on to say that eating primal eliminated his B.O. Put bluntly, he's retarded for saying this. Put less bluntly, it discredits him greatly, and is further evidence that he is simply trying to sell something.
In a frustrated way, what I'm saying is that I'd like a definitive summary of what we know about exercise in a (relatively) concise format similar to Taubes' books so I could more easily sift through all the garbage to know what is true.
What else... I know!
*POOP WARNING*
So, I mentioned in passing in my previous post something about a bit of diarrhea... It was actually quite unpleasant - I believe this may be what was referred to in the "meat for a year" study as the factor that caused the scientists to change their plan to both subjects eating more fat than lean. I won't go into great detail - but it is interesting to note a few things. One is that it didn't seem to be severely dehydrating me - I didn't change my fluid intake much and didn't notice any ill effects. Two is that aside from an often unpleasant frequent urge to use the toilet, I didn't feel bad... there was no pain or cramping or headaches or those sorts of things that you might expect with this sort of issue. Three is that my over-consumption of cayenne pepper did cause a certain amount of unpleasantness... Combined with diarrhea it was actually really unpleasant at times... I'm trying to cut back (but it goes so well with roasts!) Four is that it went on for about a week, probably a couple days more. Since then I have been intentionally trying to eat more salt and more fat, and the problem seems to have cleared up.
I believe it may have been less severe than what the study mentioned because I was still eating mostly fat, rather than mostly lean - just not enough fat. But honestly who knows. I'm gonna try to stick to what I'm doing now though to basically avoid it. I wish I could pin down the cause more accurately, but there's no way of knowing without intentionally trying to force it to happen again - which I don't want to do.
*POOP WARNING OVER*
*POOP WARNING*
So, I mentioned in passing in my previous post something about a bit of diarrhea... It was actually quite unpleasant - I believe this may be what was referred to in the "meat for a year" study as the factor that caused the scientists to change their plan to both subjects eating more fat than lean. I won't go into great detail - but it is interesting to note a few things. One is that it didn't seem to be severely dehydrating me - I didn't change my fluid intake much and didn't notice any ill effects. Two is that aside from an often unpleasant frequent urge to use the toilet, I didn't feel bad... there was no pain or cramping or headaches or those sorts of things that you might expect with this sort of issue. Three is that my over-consumption of cayenne pepper did cause a certain amount of unpleasantness... Combined with diarrhea it was actually really unpleasant at times... I'm trying to cut back (but it goes so well with roasts!) Four is that it went on for about a week, probably a couple days more. Since then I have been intentionally trying to eat more salt and more fat, and the problem seems to have cleared up.
I believe it may have been less severe than what the study mentioned because I was still eating mostly fat, rather than mostly lean - just not enough fat. But honestly who knows. I'm gonna try to stick to what I'm doing now though to basically avoid it. I wish I could pin down the cause more accurately, but there's no way of knowing without intentionally trying to force it to happen again - which I don't want to do.
*POOP WARNING OVER*
Anyway, I think it's time to end this post. Until next time.
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