In the spirit of the new year, I think it’s fitting to discuss the number one and most dreaded resolution we all have: getting fit. Or getting into shape. Losing weight. Attempting to stop being such a lazy ass all the time. And all sorts of other variations on the theme, which is health.
I’m not a doctor or a health expert. I’m not a professional athlete or a gym rat. I am a regular person who understands the value of health and well-being and find it about as interesting as the next guy. Namely, I know that I need to be off the couch and on the treadmill, but I reeeeeeeallly don’t want to. But I do anyway.
For those of you who are attempting the most hyped and most failed resolution this time of year and would like a little distraction direction, I’ll try to help out. At the very least, I can tell you what I do to trick myself into exercising and eating right.
Knowledge
Knowledge is a good first step, er, or third or fourth step for that matter. It’s good to try and inform yourself about what you are attempting so that you not only don’t kill yourself, but so you have to work exactly as little as possible to achieve substantial results. Yep, here are a few books to look to for information, motivation, and inspiration and here are a few to avoid.
The Good
Live Longer, Look Younger by Jim Nelson
This is a quick and easy read full of cited information on some of the most current and basic research on health and longevity. This is a fantastic starter book because it reads easily, is nearly void of opinion, gives it to you straight, yet is quite enjoyable. It’s not nearly as hokey as the title and cover make it out to be, but that’s the price of advertising and selling books.
Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Ph.D
I always dread giving a “thumbs up” to an Oprah-backed book because they are most crap. Not this one. Again, it is a scientifically based book that merely puts data into your hands in a remarkably enjoyable fashion. It is also a quick read but should be read at least twice to receive the full benefits from the research. Like the previous selection, the data is formed easily for you to draw the obvious conclusions, but those conclusions can actually be used, right now, to maximum effect. Fantastic.
The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
Okay, not much to do with health and fitness per se. But it is a good inspiring read for those suffering deep existential crises this winter. It also gives a good refresher for what science is and what it does for us. It also has great content on the differences between science, pseudo science, and mysticism that will be invaluable when throwing yourself into the exploitative den of the commercial health product industry. Get out your baloney detection kit!
The Bad
Eating in the Raw by Carol Alt
Yeah, Carol Alt the model, Carol Alt. Which is fine. Who better to understand the struggles of eating disorders and the stresses relating to body image, right? Well, no. Eating in the Raw is about how to eat according to a “raw food diet”. A raw food diet is basically not eating anything cooked or processed. Including meat. And yes, they are against pasteurizing milk. You know, that little thing that has probably saved millions of lives? My biggest problem with the book is not the premise. I have no problem with premise, but rather the support of the premise. There is none. There are no studies cited. No information other than testimonial information exists to show us WHY a raw food diet is superior to, um, cooking our food. Granted, I have read studies that indicate cooking certain foods, particularly vegatables, cause them to lose much of their nutritional value. But you won’t find those studies in the book. In fact, there is no basis whatsoever in the book that shows how she knows what she knows. Apparently, she just knows. Additionally, I couldn’t help but feel that Carol Alt was looking down at me the whole time. It was irritating. Here’s a good example of the sort of swarmy sentence you get.: “Tell them to eat raw. Tell them Carol Alt sent you.” (pg. 79) Oh, and my favorite: “Playboy once called me ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’.” (pg. 33) Gag.
The Ugly
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Hooray! I get to thumb my nose at an Oprah guy! Here’s the deal. I read Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth. It was okay. It was just a mish-mash of old eastern religious thought and some western religious and philosophical ideas as well. Pretty harmless and in fact, it kept my interest throughout, which is no small task. Mostly it’s about how the focus on the ego and identitiy is self-destructive and unimportant and how the material is illusion and blah, blah, blah. Nothing new. So then I read his first book, The Power of Now. The first five or six chapters are much the same as A New Earth. But after that it goes bonkers. He starts making claims that you can heal yourself of physical ailments through thought alone. Although this not exclusively a New Age or New Thought idea, it’s presented as something revolutionary. This “wishing-makes-it-so” idea is one that Sagan takes to task in his book I mentioned above. Throw in a creepy chapter about women’s menstration and you get a pretty awful read. Then you go to his website and notice that for a guy who preaches the unimportance of identity, you see his face a lot (unecessarily). And for someone who thinks the material world is an illusion, he’s got an awful lot of things for sale. Funny how that always works out that way.
Activity
Obviously, you can’t get into shape, lose weight, or be generally fit and healthy if you don’t get up and move from time to time. Talk to your doctor before you do anything so you have a good idea if doing it will make you keel over and die. That would be bad. Here are some of the things that I do that are sometimes fun and other times tolerable.
If you are fortunate enough to live in or near the mountains, take advantage. It’s exercising without realizing that you’re exercising. That’s like the whole point remember, to fool yourself into doing what you should do but don’t actually want to do? Colorado is the ideal spot. Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and Estes Park are good starting locations. Take in the scenery, enjoy the solitude, but beware moutain lions. They can literally shred you to pieces. I’m serious about this one, take heed.
There’s nothing better than a pickup game of three on three half-court. If you are in better shape, four on four or five on five full-court is a blast as well. No refs, no pressure, no form? No problem. Don’t be that super competive jerk though who thinks he an NBA superstar. Can’t stand those guys. Leave the trash-talking at home. Just go out there and play. You burn so many calories it’s not funny. Like with all activities, make sure you drink plenty of fluids but especially watch out for twisting, spraining, and tearing joints. Nothing is more devastating to progress than injury.
Portable digital music players are a god-send when you are reduced to the human equivalent to the hamster wheel. As far as daily, indoor exercise goes, I like the elliptical because it’s low-impact, easy to maintain pace and adjust intensity, and it’s affordable. Much more so than a treadmill. Another advantage over the treadmill is the lack of motorized components. They don’t break down and they don’t require a cord. They are also much smaller for those of us who are more space conscious.
Same benefits as an elliptical. What makes this better than a regular stationary bike is mostly in the seat and positioning. Do I even need to talk about the seat? I’ll just say that the recumbent bike typically has a wide, padded, comfortable seat. They are also great for reading while exercising if you don’t want to listen to music.
Sorry, you have to do both. Cardio and resistence training. It’s a must. Weightlifting doesn’t have to include anything that you see on the Olympics. It just has to be simple and comprehensive. So don’t just do bicep curls twice a week. You have to hit all major muscle groups and most auxillary ones. What’s more, it’s probably a good idea to incorporate both free weights and machine resistence into your regimen. Yuck. Do it anyway.
Yoga can be relaxing and meditative as well as just plain good for you. It is a type of resistence workout since you use your own bodyweight (gravity) for resistence and usually elevates the heartrate continuously for long enough to qualify as cardiovascular training as well. It’s a rare all-in-one that usually is overlooked and scoffed at quickly.
This is just for starters. I’ll continue to blog periodically about Heretical Health with more in-depth information about what I do specifically and how I do it. I’ll also point out what supplements I take and which brands I prefer. I’ll try to include articles on health and fitness that I think have value. So stay tuned and watch the blog for new installments.
May I add, if you don’t know what you’re doing in the gym, invest in a few sessions with a personal trainer. I go to the gym regularly, and it’s incredibly frustrating during January of every year to wait for the hoards of resolutioners to finish putzing around on the machines and free weights so that I can actually do my workout. Thankfully, by February, most of them are gone…but what a waste! Learn what you need to do before you do it.
That’s a very good point. Especially during the after-work rush where the gym is at capacity already. That’s why if you’re first starting out, just stick with cardio. It’s so much harder to screw up. It’s less complicated and you are more likely to stick with it longer because it’s a simple plan to follow. And because it’s simple, you can see quicker results.
Is it considered bad etiquette to fall asleep on the gym equimpment? Some of those machines are just so damn comfy, I can’t help myself.
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