The Weak In Rock

Ok, along the lines of what I posted earlier, this is a food rant.

Food is a subject that generally seems to make us Americans loony.  We’re not sensible about food in any way.  We generally eat too much of it (which is why airlines have to have rules about what to do with a passenger won’t fit in a seat on one of their planes - you wouldn’t have to have such a rule if encountering such a person was a rare occurance; it’s also why stadium seats at sports arenas have had to be enlarged in the past 10 years), and what we do eat wouldn’t have been recognized as food by our grandparents when they were young.

Think about that for a moment.  Here’s a great quote from The Art of Manliness:

Don’t eat anything that comes in a box, tube, or bag. If your great-grandfather wouldn’t have recognized it as food, then it’s not fit for consumption. Stay away from packaged foods, filled with all sorts of preservatives and additives that allow them to sit on a shelf and stay good for a year. Not only are these additives not good for you, companies formulate their foods to bypass your natural hunger/satiety signals and keep you munching past the point of natural fullness.

We Americans tend to regard food in one of two utterly unhealthy and slightly demented ways: it’s either medicine to be measured and dosed precisely or something we consumer purely for pleasure and indulgence.  Both attitudes are utterly wrong.  The rest of the blog post at the Art of Manliness gets to the heart of the matter and is worth a read.   And it sums up nicely:

1. Don’t eat anything your grandpa wouldn’t have recognized as food.
2. Eat protein and plenty of it.
3. Eat in a relaxed and unhurried way
4. Eat sensible amounts

Not so tough.  Personally, I’ve been working to keep the packaged foods out of my diet.  One side benefit is that whole, fresh foods cost less.  They also go bad, so that guilts you into eating them instead of other things that you ought to limit your intake of.

The hardest part is the portion control bit.  One trip to a restaurant will throw you for a loop here because restaurants serve us food on plates the size of Texas these days, generally serving portions that are two to three times the amount you should be consuming.   Some folks automatically will halve their restaurant portion and take the rest home.  Not a bad tactic but I can’t seem to make myself do it yet.  Even at home though it’s tempting to go for seconds or load your plate up with food.

Good food makes us feel good.  My curse is that I’m a fairly decent cook.  I generally really, really enjoy the food I cook.  My mashed potatoes are to die for, so it’s hard not to scoop extra onto my plate.  The one tactic that does seem to work is to tell myself that I’m saving this yummy stuff for later, thus making the joy of yummy food continue beyond the meal for which it was prepared.

The other challenge is re-orienting your tastebuds.  We’re programmed to love salty, sweet and fatty foods.  The big food manufacturers manipulate us using this knowledge by loading their packaged snacks and goodies with salt, fat and sugar.  But if you start to avoid this stuff and stick to eating whole and fresh foods you’ll find that the saltiness and the sweetness of packaged stuff is too salty and overly sweet after a while.  And the types of fats they use won’t sit with you as well as natural fats do.

Pardon the pun, I couldn’t resist.

I’ve decided to make some changes round these parts.  I’m dropping my long-standing rule (observed often in the breach) against overly personal posting.  Now don’t fret folks.  I won’t be engaging in miserable navel-gazing anymore often than I have previously.  What I will be doing is keeping a journal here of my attempts at reclaiming my physical fitness.

Two years ago I signed up to ride a century with Team in Training (worthy folks, by the way - the organization that runs TNT, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, does a ton of good work on the part of people living with blood cancers).  I did it to satisfy three goals I had at the time.  The first was to ride a century, something I’d wanted to do before I turned 40, but couldn’t quite manage because of competing priorities.  The second was to do something meaningful in a community sense, which I acheived by raising close to $4,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  The third was to try to take my portly, out-of-shape self and transform it into something resembling an endurance athlete.

So, I accomplished goal #1.  I rode my bicycle around Lake Tahoe (complete with a dogleg out and back to Trukee to add the extra 30 miles necessary to make that trip into a full 100 miles).  I accomplished goal #2 as mentioned above.  Goal #3, not so much.

Now you’d think that training to ride your bike 100 miles absolutely would have to have an impact on your physical fitness, and it did.  I started out my training as someone who was wiped out after riding 25 or 30 miles and who completely fell apart on any significant climbs.  I finished my training as someone who was able to finish a 100 mile ride, complete with two epic climbs and lots of climbs that would have kicked my ass four months previously.  So, obviously, I was fitter than I’d been when I started.  But what I didn’t understand then that I do now is that fitness and body composition really don’t have a hell of a lot to do with each other.

Let me explain - just because a guy is sporting six-pack abs, a low body fat percentage and lots of muscle definition does not mean that said guy is strong or fit.  Likewise, just because someone is carrying around a lot of body fat and shows little muscle definition does not mean that person is weak or unfit.  My training for the century made me fit.  I had the endurance necessary to turn my pedals over repeatedly enough times to take me and my bicycle on a challenging 100 mile ride.  But I was still overweight.

One of the reasons for this was that I’d focused all of my training on cycling and endurance.  I got my cardiovascular system in great shape (and don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing, and something I was very much in need of).  But if I tried to run or swim a mile I’d poop out long before I finished.  And I was no more able to lift heavy objects than I had been before I started.  I’ve subsequently learned that lots of endurance training actually robs you of muscle tone unless it is accompanied by strength training to build muscle mass.  This is why touring cyclists and competitive marathon runners have that familiar long and lean look to them (and at that level these folks are doing loads of strength training just to retain what muscle mass they can).

So, here’s the brass tacks - when I started my TNT training in 2007 I weighed 175 lbs.  Over the course of the training I droped 5 lbs, all of it muscle.  Last year I had planned to do a few more centuries and see how many cycling miles I could get under my belt in a year, but due to a neck injury I was told to stay off of my bike by my doctor until he could be reasonably certain that any potential fall wouldn’t make my cervical problems worse.  By the time I got the all clear I’d lost the motivation to ride.  Because I didn’t want to backtrack fitness-wise though I started weight training with some swimmng thrown in and took myself from 170 lbs. to 165.

Along the way I found a program that works for me and decided I needed to give myself a goal.  I plan this summer to participate in at least one Sprint Triathlon (swim = .5 miles; cycle = 13 miles; run = 3 miles).  If the first goes well (it’s part of a three-event series), I’ll do the other two and perhaps tackle an Olympic distance event (swim = 1 mile; cycle = 25 miles; run = 6 miles) in the fall.

Today I am at 158 lbs. with my body fat percentage down below 20% for the first time in dog knows how long.  I do vigorous cardio three times a week (typically running because that’s my weakest link, although I’m now successfully running at a 10 minute mile pace for 2 full miles of my 30 minute runs), with circuit training (typically weight training with dumbells where there is no break between excercises and minimal rest between the three sets I do) also three times a week.  Last week I threw in a long bike ride (actually too long, since I hadn’t done any riding in 8 months) and I think I’ll try to keep doing that, although not overdoing it like I did last week because it seemed to give me a bump that carried through the rest of the week.  I will also start adding in time in the pool again because I’ll need that to be ready for my first Tri-For-Fun in mid-June.

So, what’s the point in detailing all this.  Shame.  If I wuss out on any of this I want to be shamed by my friends and readers.  With the Team In Training event they keep you going by requiring you to fund-raise for them.  You must raise a minimum amount in order to participate in the event.  Halfway through the training if you have not raised your minimum you must authorize them to charge your credit card for that amount.  For the Lake Tahoe century the minimum was $2,500.  No small chunk of change.  I had no problem raising the money, so I never feared I’d be out of pocket for the event, but once you’ve gotten people to hand over their money to support you, you do feel obligated to go through with it.  And as it was, by the time I was halfway through the training I knew I’d be able to do the full ride.

This is different.  I’m not raising money for anyone.  I’m just doing this for me.  So wussing out would only affect me.  That’s why I’m going to keep a journal of my efforts here.  I’ll be logging my workouts, posting my weight, bitching about my aches and pains and probably rambling on occassionally about food (because part of this whole deal is an attempt to change some very bad habits I’d acquired over the years).

I’ll bet your year started better than Scott Adams’ did:

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/dog_pillow/

Can’t say it better than this…

Dock Ellis’s No-No
by Chuck Brodsky

It was a lovely summer’s morning
An off-day in LA
So thought one Dock Ellis
As he would later say
His girlfriend read the paper
She said, “Dock, this can’t be right…
It says here that you’re pitching
In San Diego tonight”

“Got to get you to the airport”
And so off Dock Ellis flew
His legs were a little bit wobbly
And the rest of him was too
Took a taxi to the ballpark
An hour before the game
Gave some half-assed explanation
Found the locker with his name

Time came to go on out there
Down the corridor
The walls were a little bit wavy
There were ripples in the floor
He went out to the bullpen
To do a bunch of stretches
Loosen up a little
Throw his warm-up pitches

All rose for the national anthem
People took off their hats
Fireworks were exploding
The cokes were already going flat
Dock was back there in the dugout
So many things to watch
Some players spit tobacco juice
Others grabbed their crotch

The umpire hollered, “Play Ball!”
And so it came to be
Dock’s Pirates batted first
And when they went down 1-2-3
Dock’s catcher put his mask on
And he handed Dock the ball
It was 327 feet
To the right & left field walls

The Pirates took the field then
And Dock stood on the rubber
He bounced a couple of pitches
And then he bounced a couple others
You might say about that day
He looked a little wild
The lead-off batter trembled
Nobody knew why Dock Ellis smiled

You walk 8 and you hit a guy
The things that people shout…
Especially your manager
But he didn’t take Dock out
Dock found himself a rythym
And a crazy little spin
Amazing things would happen
When Dock Ellis zeroed in

Sometimes he saw the catcher
Sometimes he did not
Sometimes he held a beach balll
Other times it was a dot
Dock was tossing comets
That were leaving trails of glitter
At the 7th inning stretch
He still had a no-hitter

So he turned to Cash, his buddy
Said, “I got a no-no going”
Speaking the unspeakable
He went back out there throwing
Bottom of the ninth
& He stood high upon the mound
3 more outs to go
He’d have his name in Cooperstown

First up was Cannizzaro
Who flied out to Alou
Kelly grounded out for Dean
The shortstop yelled, “That’s two”
It must’ve been a mad house
The fans upon their feet
The littler ones among them
Standing on their seats

Next up would’ve been Herbel
But Spezio pinch-hit
He took a 3rd strike looking
And officially, that was it
It was a lovely summer’s morning
An off-day in LA
So thought one Dock Ellis
As he would later say

Technorati Tags: Dock Ellis

And no, I’m not talking about Santa.

Everyone has heard the cliche, those who do not learn from history are
doomed to repeat it. Mostly that old saw is nonsense. History
doesn’t repeat. Study it in even a cursory manner and you’ll see that
clearly. People, however, generally do make the same stupid mistakes
over and over again regardless of what historical period they live in.

Thus we have this
story from today of Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich who has been
arrested for blatantly shaking people down over various things,
including the appointment of President-Elect Barrack Obama’s successor
in the US Senate.

The historical lesson that I’m hoping the Democratic Party learns from
is that of the Republican Party of the Reconstruction period following
the US Civil War. Republicans held sway over practically the entire
US government for 9 years following the end of the Civil War. They
did so primarily because theirs was the party of victory in that war -
the party of loyalty to the Union. When a Republican ran against a
Democrat for an office all the Republican needed to do to discredit
his opponent was call the man a traitor, and it worked. It stopped
working in 1874 for a number of reasons. One of the big ones, and the
one that put the GOP at a significant political disadvantage for
decades afterward was rampant corruption.

One of the greatest military leaders in US History, Ulysses Grant,
became President in 1869 and has gone down in history as one of the
worst, if not the worst, chief executives this country has ever had.
That evaluation is mostly based on the hot and cold running corruption
in his Administration that he was never able to get control over. The
Grant Administration sold influence like no other in our history. It
is also based on the horrid mismanagement of the first economic
depression in US history. These two events led to the Democrats
(remember, these folks were literally traitors to the Union and
defeated combatants in a recent civil war) retaking Congress in 1874.

Part of the problem for President Grant was his unwillingness to
denounce the members of his Administration or party who were caught
with their hands in the cookie jar. By refusing to come out against
people who had clearly broken the law and the public trust he lost the
confidence of the public and was viewed as a political puppet by the
news media and portrayed as such often by his political opponents.
One of the weaknesses of the current Democratic Party is their history
of being lead like puppies by lobbyists and political donors. In 1994
the GOP knocked the Democrats out of their majority in the House by
successfully branding the Dems as crooks and liars. One of the
weaknesses of the GOP in the last two Congressional elections was
their own recent tendency to let the donors and the lobbyists call the
shots.

If Barrack Obama, and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership,
hope to maintain control over the government beyond the next
Congressional mid-term elections they will need to make sure that
Blagojevich and anyone else who conducts their affairs in a less than
scrupulous manner in the Party is not only rooted out but also
ridiculed and vilified. Otherwise the American people will most
likely choose another “change” in 2010.

Technorati Tags: Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, Barrack Obama, US Senate, Democratic Party, US Civil War, Republicans, GOP, Ulysses Grant

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)
An unstable pharmacist humiliates you over your hemorrhoid medication.
Angelina Jolie comes on to you at a holiday party, but your cavalier
remark about the pigs-in-a-blanket sends her off in a huff. Your blues
tune about eating Raisin Bran becomes a major hit for an indie polka
band. Taking a class in medieval tampon storage pays big dividends in
future endeavors.

Makes about as much sense as most “real” horoscopes.

Hat’s off to 23/6 for the chuckle.

The Onion nails it again with a farewell article from George W. Bush.

This was my favorite bit:

“Everywhere I look brings back memories. The Blue Room is
where Laura and I put up our first White House Christmas tree. Down
the hall, in the East Room, is where I concocted my favorite signing
statement to circumvent the anti-torture guidelines of the Detainee
Treatment Act of 2005, and=97ooh!=97right across the way is where Cheney
and I decided to use the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 and the
nation’s subsequent fear of another attack as an excuse to carry out
our long-standing plan to invade Iraq. I should really get a picture
before I leave.”

Like I said, I’d be laughing more if it weren’t completely true.