Return to the Emerging Runner
"Doctor visits are 3-5 minutes, consumed by examination, diagnosis, some grunts, and a prescription."
SM’s other half got her diagnosis the other day: a torn meniscus. The offending part, a crescent shaped piece of cartilage that rests in the knee joint between the femur and the tibia, was shown by MRI to have suffered a significant tear. Mrs. M said the pain was so fierce as to be nausea-inducing. She is unable to identify the event that produced this unhappy result, but the prognosis appears clear: surgery, according to her bone doctor man. He, being a tadly short on communication skills, makes a poor paring with Mrs. M., who suffers from a bit of white coat paralysis and tends to elicit less than exhaustive details from her various care-givers. We are left with acceptance of the treatment recommended and without many answers to the questions of alternate treatment options, consequences in years to come, required rehabilitation, or risks from the procedure.
Why do I even bring this all up? Many years ago I went to a gastroenterologist about a stomach problem, which turned out to be gastritis, no big deal. The doctor sat with me for about 20 minutes, outlining the various common causes of this ailment and the treatments available at the time. When he was through talking, he asked me if I had any questions. I had one or two, which he answered, and then we chatted briefly about my background. A patient is about as likely to have that kind of exchange today as he is of getting struck by an asteroid. Insurance companies are miserly with their reimbursements, so physicians must compensate. Doctor visits are 3-5 minutes, consumed by examination, diagnosis, some grunts, and a prescription. Clearly, you are not going to come out of that type of encounter with a deep understanding of your malady and its consequences. Today we carry the burden of providing a substantial portion of responsibility for our own healthcare. Damn few doctors are going to delve into ancillary and sundry aspects of your complaint. They can therefore (and do) miss salient facts.
It is incumbent upon all of us to get on the www and find out all we can about whatever ailment we are getting, have or have had. It is important to be aware that the interior portion of the meniscus has no blood supply and cannot therefore be repaired, whereas the exterior portion is vascular and may indeed be treated. It is important to be aware that removal of the meniscus, a surgical option that is sometimes used when a tear is in the bloodless interior region, leaves cartilage on the tips of the femur and tibia rubbing against one another, creating a special vulnerability to arthritis in years to come. It is important to be aware.
"For hours would I peer into that soulful firebox, mesmerized, an adolescent moth to the flame."
The Sedentary man is settled in by a warm fire, enjoying the protection, mostly psychological protection in these modern times, against the fierce arctic chill that sweeps up just a few feet away from my easy chair. I have been a big fan of fireplace fires ever since childhood when my sister and I would huddle on the hearth, backs to the roaring blaze, until our skin passed through an itching stage to a no mans land between warmth and discomfort. Later, when I had the inferno all to myself, I would turn to experimentation, remaking the fiery crucible into a private experimental furnace. I found that pennies, steel wool, soda cans, and tin foil burned rather than melted. Plastics, food items, and bits of fabric went up in a trice, while magazines smoldered for hours, averting consumption due to the protective clay coating upon which their pages were printed. For hours would I peer into that soulful firebox, mesmerized, an adolescent moth to the flame.
Years later, I stumbled upon some interesting history of this most civilized of mans inventions. Early hominids built fires in the center of their living spaces, relying on convective currents to carry the suffocating smoke up to carefully situated vents in the roof of the structure. Fickle downdrafts and pressure inversions led often to smoky gatherings for the Gronk family, one supposes. The wooden chimney was invented some time thereafter, helping with smoke management, but leading many times to chimney fires followed by homelessness. An enterprising American inventor later designed a “leaning” chimney. This version was still made of wood and therefore subject to sudden immolation, but in times of stress invoked gravity as an ally and fell away from the house before consuming it as well. Masonry chimneys were a welcome improvement and did much to minimize the burning-house side effect.Modern fireplaces employ better firebox and flue design to minimize innate fireplace energy inefficiency and promote safety and the circulation of warmth throughout the house.
I consider myself fortunate to have a fireplace to stoke up when the outside temperature and my mood beckon. The orange glow and crackling symphony of consumption are blessed solace, an enervating balm against the stressful disquiet of my daily existence. Thank you, Gronk.
Sedentary Man Archive
The original 10 Sedentary Man columns are below. To see more recently archived columns please click Older Posts here or directly above.
The Column
Kettleballers high
By Sedentary Man
I was doing some weight work with my kettleball in the office and decided to push a bit harder than I’d been doing up to now. I continued my reps until I was feeling pain. Each new set, I repeated the drill – push until pain. Curls, reverse curls, over-the-heads (if that’s what they’re called), all continuing until actual pain was felt. Interestingly, the point was reached at about 25 to 27 reps for each exercise; I would’ve thought there would be more variability in the pain threshold, but not. After I was done, I carefully set the weight down on my desk (it took both hands to handle it at that point). And then came the pleasant glow that arrives after the burn. It was great! Which brings us to today’s topic – serotonin, melatonin and other feel good substances drawn out by various human behaviors.
I’m talking about runner’s high, methamphetamine high, caffeine, puppy love, chocolate, alcohol, red hot chili peppers and probably quite a few other things. All these cause some sort of euphoria when introduced to the human body and some sort of distress when withdrawn. It’s all about the release of brain chemicals. My general take on it is that your brain/body (I don’t know where the stuff is actually stored) has a replenishable but finite supply of these substances which are brought forth to euphoric effect when stimulated by exercise, drugs, or whatever. The process leaves the cupboard bare and hence the associated body in some distress (withdrawal) while replenishment happens. I think in the worse cases, say meth addicts, the supply is constantly depleted, resulting in derangement and other gruesome outcomes.
In the best case – exercise high, the sensations dissipate slowly and there is no “withdrawal”, except perhaps a desire to run to experience the high again. I think the benign aftereffects of the runner’s high may have also to do with the fact that the brain response is to a natural stimulant and not some external drug that has been introduced into the body. Somewhere in between meth and runner’s high is falling into and out of love, I suppose. And hot pepper sauce, or the capsasin(*) within it, is pretty close to runner’s high, in terms of being benign.
When I was a freshman in college we had resident advisors in the dorms (RA’s). I think they are still in widespread use today. One of their functions was to review your grades after first semester and offer advice. We all lined up with our report cards and showed them to Brad, our RA. Brad’s advice, in all cases, went like this: “Good job on those A’s. Try to bring up those Cs”. If Brad were here today I think he would advise you to go ahead and enjoy the exercise high, but stay away from the methamphetamines. Thanks Brad.
(*) I know a lot of you will be asking, so for those record, capsasin’s chemical formula is CH(CH2)4CONHCH2C6H3-4-(OH)-3-(OCH3)
Previous Columns
Working Those Guns
By Sedentary Man
The sedentary man is focusing on his upper body these days. His fitness had been maintaining at a just barely acceptable level due to 1 mile walks each day, train station stair-climbing (78 steps every morning!) and the occasional exer-cycle workout. But little was being done for the uppers. That’s where the kettle ball (aka kettlebell) came in. I picked up one of these things (see picture) at an exercise equipment store. It is a 15 pound model and it cost the better part of fifty bucks. I was surprised at how heavy 15 pounds seemed. I could have gotten a 25 or 45 pounder, but I am at the age where I am more concerned about injury than getting awesomely ripped. They also had a 10 pounder, but I just didn’t think it provided enough challenge.
This thing is basically an iron ball with a handle fastened to the top. It’s dipped in some sort of plastic coating, which makes it easier on furniture and nice to look at as well. I find it easier to use than a dumbbell, mainly because you can let the handle rotate in your hand, keeping the iron ball part pointing down. For whatever reason, this makes the exercises easier and more pleasant to do.
I made up my own routines for the thing, and do them all at my desk during the workday. I do 30 reps on each arm in three different modes – 180 reps all together. The sets consist of curls (to work the biceps), reverse curls (extensors) and picking the thing up from behind by head (triceps). This weight and number of reps is just right for me. After doing the routine my arms feel warm and energized, and I feel generally great. And as you can see from the before and after photos below, my appearance has noticeably improved.
I highly recommend this item for those who want to get some weight work in at the office.
Previous Columns
The Real Heroics of the Old West
By Sedentary ManI watched the Academy Award Winner, Unforgiven recently and got to thinking about health and healthcare in the old west. I have often thought about this topic, wondering how anyone survived into adulthood in those times. It’s sort of a litmus test for me as I go about my job of looking after myself. Like if I find myself sitting down to a restaurant meal without recently washing my hands, I might say “well Abe Lincoln probably didn’t always wash his hands either.” They survived in the old days despite some pretty severe obstacles. Think about it: filthy living conditions (sewage in the streets, etc.) contaminated food, precious little shelter from brutal weather conditions, rampant violence, trampled human dignity, bizarre medical practices, and on and on. That people did survive is a testament, I think, to the great resilience and adaptability of the human organism.
And let’s face it; a lot of them didn’t survive. Most accidents were ultimately fatal, if not sooner than later. Childbirth killed women off in droves. Doctors were idiots, not even realizing that washing hands could help matters until the latter part of the 19th century. It was at this time the “heroic” approach to medicine took hold. It is still with us today (think cancer treatments) but we at least have some viable tools with which to conduct the practice. The quote below, written in Flowers In The Blood by Dean Latimer and Jeff Goldberg, is a punch-in-the-face summary of the practice of medicine in the 19th century:
“Their techniques were rooted in the notion that the way to exorcise one set of
afflictions from a patient’s body was to subject it to a considerably more
violent set of afflictions. The heroics were entirely on the part of the
patient: for even the mildest ailments, one could expect to be bled, leeched,
cupped, blistered, amputated, sweated, trepanned, scourged, and purged and
flayed to the fare-thee-well."
Scourged (I think) means beaten, and trepanning, for those readers who may not be aware, is the practice of drilling holes in the skull to release demons or negative humors from the head. You don’t see much of that anymore (although those of you who enjoyed my column on colonoscopy may have a tough time contrasting the two practices on the fun-ness scale). Possibly like you, I had not realized that the sometimes-overwrought practices of modern medicine are a structured approach that gestated in the 19th century. But when you think about it, less invasive approaches, like holistic medicine, acupuncture, and chiropractic get a much shorter shrift than our modern day medicine man, brandishing his bone saw.
Best bet in any era, stay as healthy as possible, and leave the heroics for someone else.
Stairway to Heaven
By Sedentary Man
The limits of cardio pulmonary endurance were tested by the Sedentary man this past weekend. He was found wanting. SM’s daughter, a sophomore at NYU, moved from her dorm to an apartment. Not so bad, except that this two bedroom charmer is found at the top of eight flights of stairs. Again, not so bad, if you are just going up once, and not carrying anything. If you are going up 17 times, and carrying things like TV sets and air conditioners well, that separates the men from the boys.
The apartment is lovely, situated in the lively and energetic lower east side of Manhattan. It has an exposed brick wall, decent sized kitchen, bath and the aforementioned two bedrooms. The cost is a major commitment, as is all apartment living in the Big Apple. But so, too, are the NYU dorms. Monetarily, it’s roughly a wash. The neighborhood is a fun one, with wine bars, restaurants of every stripe, convenience shopping and a youthful vibe. Plenty of trees dot the narrow streets. Character abounds.
It’s just those stairs! The SM was totally gassed each time he reached the apartment floor, holing up and gasping for breath for a minute or two before heading back down for another load. Perspiration flowed off of my head like melting Himalayan snow in the grip of an early thaw. No chest pains or anything scary, just a profound windedness. By the evening, my hips were bruisy lengths of pain. All I wanted to do was lay down on a couch somewhere and whimper. SM was forced, harshly, to take inventory of his physical condition. I came to realize that the occasional workouts I’ve been doing on the exer-cycle are palpably inadequate. Following the weekend ordeal I did workouts on three consecutive nights and plan to continue this rigorous schedule upgrade. At a minimum, I want to be able to comfortably move my daughter to her next place, whenever that happens. Got to stay focused!
Music man
By Sedentary Man
This is about music and brain function. Brains are part of the body and are related to mental health, so this topic is likely to pass muster with Editor. I can’t think of anything (having to do with muscles) to write about right now.
I have trouble playing music in the car. Fact is, I listen to music far less than the average boomer, no matter what the venue. Music processes, for me, through the front door of my brain. I can’t have music going and do anything else. That includes reading, driving, sleeping, talking, working, watching ball games, and a lot of other things. About all I can do when music is playing is eat and maybe shop. And since I like to read while I eat, that leaves shopping, which I do not do very much. All this is because music takes over my attention and it doesn’t let anything else intrude. So I cannot really enjoy music while driving, as most normal people can. This is especially true in tense driving conditions, like trying to find an unfamiliar exit off of a crowded interstate, or tooling around in downtown New York City. I am able to listen during the five minute drive from my home to the train station and back, I think this is because I have made those trips so many times that I don’t need to think to repeat them. I would be curious to know if others experience these afflictions. I suspect not so much, because I see people doing all kinds of things while listening to music. My daughter does schoolwork (effectively!) with music playing – an anathema to me.
In a related development, I am also extremely vulnerable to ear worms. You know, when a song gets into your head and you just can’t get it out. For me, most songs that I have most recently heard have the potential to be ear worms. So it’s not just “It’s a Small, Small World”. It can just as easily be “Africa”, “Land Down Under”, “Kiss Like a Rose”, “I’ll be Watching You”, “Eye in the Sky”, or dozens of others. Interestingly, I can cure any earworm by simply listening to another song, any song (thank God for that). Another interesting phenomenon with me is that my brain has a pause button for music. So if I am listening to a partially completed song as I park my car at the train station, I have a tendency to sing that song during the day, beginning with the exact point, the exact syllable that the song left off on in the morning. If anyone reading this has similar or related propensities, I would love to hear about them.
Doctor MedicusBy Sedentary Man
The Sedentary man had a not-so-sedentary day today, playing 18 holes of golf. As typically happens, the SMster walked the course, eschewing the motorized cart option. This was quite an endeavor, as the mercury flirted with 90 degrees and a fearsome sun forced its will upon us. By the end of the round, I had developed a staggering headache and clammy skin. Dehydration. This despite drinking close to 100 ounces of water during the round. I ordered a coke, “in the largest glass you have” from the grill room barkeep. As I disposed of the sweet liquid in mammoth gulps, I thought about how dogs drink. It’s actually something that I have often thought about because it makes no sense to me. A dog laps up water by sticking his tongue in and out of the water source, drinking whatever meager amount happens to stick to his flailing licker. What I can’t understand is how this method of taking in so vital an ingredient has survived Darwinian selection over the eons. I would think it would be a big survival disadvantage to need to take 5 minutes to drink a cup of water. But then, what do I know?
I actually wanted to talk in this blog about a true miracle product that has improved the daylights out of my golf game. It’s called the Medicus Driver. Now, let me start off by saying that I have nothing to do with the company that sells this learning aid and am being rewarded in no way whatsoever for endorsing it. In fact, I would be quite surprised if they even know that I am endorsing it. It just happens to work, which is more than I can say for any other golf-learning device that I have ever seen. It works like this: the club resembles a golf driver (aka a #1 wood) in every way except that it has a double hinge about 2/3rds the way down from the handle (see above).
The genius of this thing is that the hinge bends if you do anything with the club other than make a perfect swing. This includes the direction, speed and swing path of the maneuver. In case you didn’t know it, it is very difficult to make a perfect golf swing. The pros do it almost all of the time but amateurs and duffers such as me are lucky to accomplish the feat, say, 15% of the time. Well, since this thing gives you instant feedback, you can learn quickly what the swing has to do to avoid bending the hinge. You start by taking very slow swings with it. The DVD they give you tells you where to look for problems in your swing. As you come to know what a good swing needs to be, you can increase the speed. This process does not take long at all – a couple of 15 minute sessions did the trick for me, although I continue to work with it to reinforce the things I learned.
The true test was out on the golf course. My improvement was jaw-dropping. In my last round before purchasing the Medicus I had only one good drive in 18 holes. And by good, I only mean that my shot went reasonably straight and reasonably long. The first round I played after the purchase, I had only one bad drive all day. And that success was repeated today, my second trip out, post-Medicus. My drives are now consistently very long and reasonably straight (some still do veer off a little, but not enough to leave the field of play). I just can’t believe how helpful this thing has been. If you play golf and are having trouble with the drives, I recommend you give this thing a try. The cost for a new one is about $160, but you can probably pick a used one up on eBay for less.
Mind and Body
By Sedentary Man
The sedentary one watched a piece on 60 Minutes this weekend regarding progress on the development of a functioning artificial arm. A couple of different flavors were discussed. One of them relied on muscle contractions from what remained of a man’s amputated arm to send messages to a very functional forearm and hand. The other, designed for people with no stumps or very limited ones, relied on commands from the user’s toes and foot to operate what was again, an amazingly functional hand. By amazingly functional, I mean the guy was picking and eating grapes with it.
When I was young I read some science fiction stories and novels that explored the mind versus body relationship. In one, people were able to exchange bodies depending on their jobs or travel plans. Space travelers, for example, didn’t need legs while they were floating around in zero gravity. Before lift-off, they fastened on interchangeable bodies that didn’t have them. They put legs back on when they returned to earth. Another novel explored a civilization that lived millions of years longer than we had. They had evolved to a point were they just sat and thought about things. Nourishment was provided by automated machines (If you’re thinking I should have probably spent more time with the classics, you are probably right). Perhaps as a result of these readings, I felt at an early age that the body was not very important; it was the mind that mattered. As I grew older, I have deviated from this belief – the body and mind, given today’s level of technology at least, are inextricable. The mind isn’t much good at generating happiness if the body is in sad enough shape. More than that, the health of the mind is directly influenced by the health of the body in profound ways. Post partum depression is one obvious example. The well-documented mental health benefit of regular exercise is another.
Science fiction aside, the 60 Minutes story really resonated with me -- there was something wildly uplifting there; technology alleviating human misery. And highly functional limbs may be only the beginning. How great would it be if Stephen Hawking could be freed from his failing frame and its demands, so he could concentrate on more cosmic things? And, like me, didn’t you desperately hope that Christopher Reeve would succeed in his quest for mobility and health before the ravages of his injuries overtook him? For now, and for the next several hundred years, we should nourish, exercise, and take care of what we have below the neck for all we are worth. But for the cruelly disabled, I wholeheartedly welcome technological assistance. And someday we might need to redefine the definition of a body and its role. Now excuse me, I need to implant some flippers – a bunch of the guys are going scuba diving.
Remembrance of things forward
By Sedentary Man
Yesterday, I had an opportunity to spend some time in a New York City hospital emergency room. My daughter, a student at a university in the city, had a minor medical problem and was taken to the ER where I joined her from work. There began a carnival of human interaction that could probably only happen in a New York emergency room, or on television. My own emotions traversed the spectrum from hilarity to humility. I feel wiser from this brief but extreme view into the human condition.
Things began when I arrived at the triage window. A friendly young guy asked me if I needed help. I told him that I was looking for my daughter and he disappeared and returned a couple of minutes later. Apologizing for the delay, he took me down a couple of hallways to the ER. My first impression was the degree of crowdedness as I came upon it. Gurneys side by side, stacked up in the main room and ringed around various hallways. Visitors, doctors, nurses, orderlies and patients milled about in various states of waiting. I located my daughter and set up camp at her bedside. My butt was impinging into the space of the patient next door, but he appeared to have more important things to worry about.
An apparently homeless person was wheeled in while we waited. She had a couple of shopping bags which the orderlies were attempting to relieve her of so that the medical folks could get to work on whatever her problem was. As we waited her voice elevated and became bellicose. There was a difference of opinion on just what her problem was, with her complaining of a shoulder injury and the doctors coming down on the side of psychiatric treatment. If I were polled, I would be a heavy lean toward the latter. She wasn’t having any of that and demanded to be released or she “would sue, that’s what I’ll do”. I didn’t see any attorneys lining up for a shot at representing her.
On our left was a 60 something who had been experiencing cardiac symptoms. A clutch of doctors questioned him on a variety of his personal behaviors, the answers to too many of which were “yes” it seemed to me. I felt bad for him and for the gentleman on the other side of our curtained cubby who seemed in even worse shape. Most of the room, in fact, contained older folks in distress. It made me reflect on the convergence of age and frailty that I sometimes lose sight of. Life for most people, is a series of things to look forward to – vacations, promotions, children’s arrivals and achievements, ceremonies, visits etc. When you are 78 years old and lying on a gurney in a cacophonous ER in pain, confusion and fear, there can’t be much left to look forward to.
I think I’ll enjoy a walk at lunch today, and savor my upcoming vacation.
It Was a Very Good Year
By Sedentary Man
When I was 17 (and not very sedentary), I lived out of state for the summer with my uncle Don. I needed a place to stay while working at my summer job, and Uncle D. was gracious enough to provide me with one rent free. It was a time of discovery for me, since Uncle D was a man of the world and, one might add, a bit of a party animal. Needless to say, I had great fun. In between more damaging pursuits Uncle D and I did some physical recreation, usually basketball. Sometimes it was a game of H-O-R-S-E, wherein one player takes a shot and if successful, forces the other to follow suit. Each miss by the shooter gives the initiative over to his opponent. Each miss by the follower, causes him to take on a letter. The first player to have enough letters to spell out horse is the loser. I tried to coax Uncle Don into games of one-on-one, a much more strenuous form of the sport. He complied from time to time but usually lost and often begged off, claiming old age (he was 36 at the time). Another pastime was punting a football back and forth to each other. You had to kick from where you caught the opponent’s punt, placing a premium on 1) catching the punt on the fly, and 2) kicking as far as possible. When too much territory was lost, a winner was declared. Uncle Don succumbed in this contest as well. Although I was in marvelous shape at the time (6’3” and 193 lbs), I was only a marginal athlete. What I had on Uncle D was youth.
Curious to me from all this was what it revealed about the toll that age, and hard living as well, took on people. Uncle Don was a pretty good athlete in his younger days but the years following high school had seriously diminished his athleticism and stamina. I have cogitated ever since on the tribute exacted by the march of time and on how much influence one could exert over the process. A couple of thoughts: (1) Carl Yastrzemski, Red Sox hall of fame performer, pioneered off season conditioning for baseball players. He remained an effective player well into his 40’s and made the hall of fame, as much for his longevity as for his accomplishments. Now players routinely condition in the off season and routinely play well into their late 30’s. In Yastrzemski’s time, the early 30’s marked the beginning of the end for major league players. (2) A childhood school chum of mine, Kent Bostick, did things differently than the rest of us at our New Jersey high school. Kent rode an exotic bicycle, what we called a “French racer” and rode it a lot. While we snacked on Hostess Twinkies, Kent ate something he called “gorp”, which we now call trail mix. I grew up to be sedentary man. Kent grew up to represent the United States in the 1996 Olympics in cycling at age 43.
As average life expectancy has gone up over the years, so too, has quality of life lengthened. In the 1950’s, a 62 year old man was considered flat out old. Now, many 60 year olds run marathons. Yes, advances in medicine and in our understanding of nutrition have played a big part. But increased physical activity has probably done its bit as well. In the end, we probably have quite a bit of control over our aging process. Probably the only thing that kept Uncle Don from kicking my ass on the basketball court was inactivity, Schlitz beer, and 2 packs of Marlboro’s a day. And not enough gorp.
18 Holes of BlissBy Sedentary ManSM played golf today, the first outing of the year. It was a bracingly cold and windy affair, but no matter, the outing was sublime. Cool weather causes golf balls to travel shorter distances and muscles to get stiff, but it also minimizes fluid loss and makes for a comfortable experience generally. Beginning a few years ago, SM has always walked the course, so there is some exercise benefit. Pulling a set of clubs on a handcart while taking approximately 100 swings and walking about four miles on hilly terrain has to add up to something.
For those of you who do not participate in golf, the rewards are many. Just an inventory of personalities that you meet makes it a worthwhile pursuit. Golf personalities express themselves mostly when a bad shot is made. I have one friend who unadvisedly shouts “w***e” (synonym for call girl) at the top of his lungs after a missed putt. Another yells “snap hook, Alabama” whenever he hits a hook (shot that veers wildly off to the left for a right-handed golfer). Yet another takes so many mulligans (do-over after a bad shot) that I have suggested to him that he hold extra balls in his hand when swinging, like a tennis player, so as to save time on the re-do. Then there are the club throwers, individuals whose rage they cannot contain on the course. These guys usually lack a sense of humor and are not that funny during the game but are funny to talk about later. One of them once threw a club in my direction when I was seated in an electric golf cart. The thing went under the cart and clacked there repeatedly like a spoon fallen into the wheelhouse of a dishwasher. I responded with a constricted anus and a state of instant alertness. I don’t know how this instinctive fight or flight response aided the passing along of SM genes by my distant ancestors, but here I am.
An unwanted side effect that I received today was a strained latissimus dorsi. The problem crested at the 14th hole; my back simply refused to rotate enough to make golf swings after that. I needed to confine my activity to walking alongside my non-afflicted friends from there on. I believe it was to do with the coolness of the day and am hoping that the problem subsides, because we are talking about going out again next weekend.
Next: Yoga and other things I don’t do
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Sleep Issues
By Sedentary ManHad a great workout today – felt strong and really got into it. I think it was due to adequate sleep. SMs normal routine on weekdays is to arise at 5:15 am, travel to work in the big city, work, and travel home, arriving normally between 8 and 8:30 pm. I then eat, workout (if solstice is occurring), watch some TV or read and hit the sack between 10:30 and 11:00pm. If you are good at math, you calculate that I get 6 to 6 ½ hours of sleep on weeknights. This is not optimal, of course, and leads to a multitude of not great effects: poor short and long term memory, stimulated appetite, grouchiness, puffy eyes, oozing wounds, and spontaneous combustion (ok, maybe not the last two). On Saturdays and Sundays, the SM sacks in and gets 7 to 9 hours. It makes all the difference.
I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of sleep to general health. It’s not just uncomfortable to under sleep, it’s dangerous. The body produces extra protein molecules during sleep, according to http://www.bettersleepbetterlife.com/ (this website name helps reassure me that we will never run out of names for websites). These extra molecules help repair all kinds of damage to the body, including muscle tissue damage, and reduces general inflammation. I am convinced it also helps you exercise more effectively.
But the importance of sleep goes beyond good workouts, and can occur even if adequate time has been allotted for sleep. For example, if you snore a lot, accompanied by fits and snorts, you may have apnea. This is a serious condition wherein the soft tissue in the throat collapses during sleep, obstructing breathing. Because the body is deprived of oxygen constantly throughout the course of the night, the condition threatens major organs, which are put under stress all night. It’s likely that many catastrophic illnesses were caused by or worsened by untreated apnea. SM does not suffer from this condition, but he knows people who do. The warning signs are heavy snoring, general tiredness during the day, exaggerated need to urinate (a defense mechanism of the body in response to oxygen deprivation), and chronic low-grade sore throat. If you have these symptoms, treat it like a serious medical problem, because it may be. Have it checked out, because SM loves and needs his readers!
Next: That’s called running.
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Alexander and LucindaBy the Sedentary Man
When what’s left of the crops have rotted on the ground and all the leaves have fallen, my furnace, Alexander, kicks on and dries the air in the house to the edge of scientific possibility. I wake each morning with lids glued, throat hacking, nose running and skin itching. A fitful stagger to the shower for moist relief is about all the intelligent action I can muster at 5:15am, but it’s enough. Life slowly returns under hot rivulets and I emerge hydrated once more.
I have a humidifier, Lucinda, which tries to offset the crimes of desiccation that Alexander commits each day. She steals water from a copper feed pipe and dribbles it across a porous membrane in the path of Alexander’s dry exhaust, hoping to add life-giving moisture to our forced-air environment. Lucinda fails, and hangs forlornly from Alexander’s plenum, like a barren womb of non-humidification. By mid November, I feel as though I cannot live one more day in this man-made Gobi.
But then something happens, or more accurately, stops happening. I go days at a time without noticing the dryness, and then, not at all. Has Lucinda turned the tide on Alexander’s assault? Has the old boy somehow found a way to deliver the heat we need without the corresponding dryness? No to both. What happens is that I and my various mucous membranes become used to the dry environment and adapt. Adaptation can be a great thing in many contexts. It’s what lets us recover from the pain of loss, the pain of change or even the pain of pain.
All this has to do with exercise. Adaptation allows us to make do with the same body over time. My friend the emerging runner now does eight-minute miles where he once could only manage ten-minute miles. His painful first efforts have been replaced by a forceful pace and runner’s high. As I think about exercising more myself, I am drawn back to my decades-earlier states of extreme fitness and long for that rewarding feeling of adaptation once more. I plan to work on this angle and see if I can use it to increase my exercise participation level. My diet is still in fairly decent swing (another pound gone this week) and perhaps I have that to thank for this fresh look at working out. I’ll keep you posted on developments as they happen.
Next time: Pancake batter is not a beverage.
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Pokings and ProddingsBy Sedentary Man
Sedentary man was reflecting earlier today on the many invasions made by the medical profession upon his person. Understand that I am very much pro modern medicine, even with all its faults. We think nothing of getting treatment for ailments that would have felled a healthy man in his tracks just a couple of hundred years ago. I mean, what would Abe Lincoln’s doctors have recommended if he came to have a mitral valve problem in his heart? Or an ulcerated lesion in his intestine? An infected appendix? I doubt they’d even attempted to open him up. If they did he’d have likely died of sepsis from the dirty hands of his surgeons, or the bacteria-laden catgut thread they’d have used to sew him up. What if he’d had cataracts? The treatment for that would have been dark glasses and a tapping cane. Depression? Actually I think he did suffer from that particular malady, which was at the time probably unrecognized as a disease. If it was anything, Melancholy was probably the diagnosis. Suck it up was probably the treatment.
Not so for the sedentary man. Although I have never overnighted in a hospital, I have sojourned in many a medical lab for shorter periods. Endoscopy, nuclear medicine, radiology, treadmilling with electrodes, I’ve seen much and felt even more.
Start with colonoscopy. There is probably little to add from what you’ve read or heard – semiconscious on a gurney, with two or more medical folks pushing a hose up your nether orifice and watching the resulting show on a monitor. Sometimes they externally massage and assist the hateful thing in a memorable and unpleasant way around the hairpin turns of your intestines. All this is preceded by a day or so of chemically assisted purging of the entire alimentary superstructure, a process which makes the exam itself, and probably any disease that it might be looking for, into a joyous romp by comparison. I’ve had two trips down this path, and for all its horror, I was pleased both times to have done it and gotten a clean report.
Then there is the various heart checking that goes on. One version has the nuclear medicine doctor shooting you up with a radioactive substance that lights you up inside like downtown Hong Kong on New Years Eve. They take pix to see if anything is leaking, pooling, ballooning or squirting. The radioactivity somehow disperses (sounds good to me) and you’re on your way. Another deceptively unpleasant one is the heart sonogram. It has some more official name, but it’s essentially a thingy that pings different parts of your heart and uses the returning sound info to make a picture. It makes a sound like a sperm whale mating call and although there is no pain or discomfort, you find yourself wanting to get out of there. The stress test is you running on a treadmill with 12 or 13 electrodes stuck to various body locations. I got some jagged readings from that one but the cardiologist said I was “just out of shape”. I was offended and happy at the same time.
All these heart tests came from SM’s ongoing bouts of PVC – premature ventricular contractions. These funsy things are premature firing of one of the heart chambers, which makes you feel like you are missing a heartbeat. My doctor (who has them himself, small world) says they are completely benign as long as they are not a manifestation of heart disease. I have no heart disease, so no problem right? Well yes and no. It is f—king disquieting to have your heart miss beats. And if you miss too many in a row, the diagnosis passes from benign pvcs into tachycardia, a serious condition. The pvcs can be aggravated by caffeine, alcohol, overtraining, undertraining, overeating, inadequate sleep, steroid medicine, stress, and stomach upset (Laying in a sensory deprivation tank is probably ok). It’s an ailment that encourages you to live healthier, so for that I’m grateful.
SM diet progress – another 2 lbs lost this week, despite a couple of restaurant meals that I would just as soon forget. I have now lost all of the holiday season weight. Onward and downward!
Next time: Just be glad there is a next time.
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Number 136By the Sedentary Man
Sedentary Man started his diet this week. Not a big event, really. SM has been on approximately 135 diets in his life, losing from nothing to as much as 80 pounds. The most successful were those I invented myself. I am hopeful that this one, which I call the “I’m sick of being fat” diet, will be a good one because it is my own invention. It has the components of a good SM diet – a triggering event, a repetitious menu, a modicum of exercise, and no weekends off. This diet comes with a mantra, which is something new for me. I have high hopes for success, as I do for all of my diets.
The weekday menu:
Breakfast
1 South Beach© meal replacement bar (peanut butter chocolate – always)
Lunch
Salad from salad bar, containing:
Variety of lettuces and greens
2 tablespoons Edamame
8 Kalmata olives
Slivers of red pepper
½ hard boiled egg
1 tablespoon bacon bits
2 tablespoons black beans
2-3 tablespoons creamy ceasar dressing
Dinner
2 slices of thin sliced deli ham
1 slice Finlandia Swiss cheese
(roll the ham up inside the cheese for a breadless sandwich)
One can Slim Fast© optima meal replacement shake (vanilla)
So far there are 7 lbs less of SM and counting. This weekend will be a big test, but I continue to repeat the mantra “I’m sick of being fat”. So far it’s working. Gotta do some exercise this weekend as well. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
Oh yes, the triggering event? Saw myself in an unflattering mirror. Yes, I’ve used this one before, but it’s an effective trigger, and one I can keep in my minds eye.
Next time: McGyver liposuction
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Laying on of HandsBy the Sedentary Man
I’m trying to alleviate my stiff neck but flexibility is an issue for sedentary man. A back scratcher held backwards finally provides some relief. My neck problems stem from improper mousing: my pointing device sits too far away from my shoulder. I have my right arm extended all day as a result and this causes pain and stiffness. Why not move the mouse closer you ask? My workspace is a delicate balance of convenience and ergonomic compromises, worked out over a period of decades. There will be no changes.
To address the neck problems, I have tried professional therapy, and there’s the grist for today’s blog. My encounters with massage are two – one with an inhouse masseur here in the building, and one in Vegas (baby!). I’ll get the in-house guy out of the way first. Mike’s a soft-spoken guy of about 40 who started giving massages on the side before growing it into a living. The company provides space for him in exchange for the presumed well-being he provides for the staff. He gets paid: I think it was $35 for 20 minutes. I have always thought that a massage would be the height of sybaritic indulgence but it wasn’t that way. Damn painful was what it was. Mike’s signature move was grinding his elbow between my ribs and vertebrae. He also had a maneuver with his thumbs that seemed to lift and separate my shoulder blade from its holster in a gruesome and painful act of cruelty. By the time he finished I felt arthritic.
My second experience was in a fancy hotel on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. The spouse and daughters all signed up for spa treatments and succeeded in talking the old man into a walk on the wild side as well. My therapist (that’s right) was Monique. She asked how hard she should go on me and, remembering the experience with Mike, I requested medium soft please. She told me to strip down to my skivvies and climb on the massage table, and then she stepped out. I complied, lying nearly nude on a blanket of some sort. Monique stepped back in and then quickly hustled back into the corridor. Her voice muffled by the closed over doorway, Monique requested that I lie under the blanket, not on top of it. Now she tells me. To calm her perv-radar, I let her know that this was new stuff for me, but things were starting off badly. She put on some new-agey music, oiled her hands and began to work me over. It felt pretty good, especially on my feet and hands, but we didn’t have much rapport. In fact she hardly said a word. My guess is they don’t like to do fat guys but hey, there’s a gratuity at the end. Suck it up. You have to tip her, the towel boy and various other hangers-on. The whole thing came to about $175. I think I’m done with the massage thing.
Next time - Oprah’s secrets for staying under 300 poundsClick here to send comments to The Sedentary Man
Thoughts from the Depths of WinterBy the Sedentary ManWell Sedentary man is hunkered down for the frigid core of the winter season. My weekend workout is complete – 45 minutes on exercycle while watching Battlestar Gallactica episodes off of a DVD collection. By the fire, in the quiet of a comfortable reading chair, a man is inspired to write about all that he has to be thankful for. Instead, here are some things that I really hate:
Turn down service - I’m going to call somebody to come to my hotel room, just to pull down the covers on my bed? WTF? It’s less work, by a lot, to pull down the covers than it is to make the call. I would rather have somebody come and brush my teeth for me – that’s a more strenuous task.Telephone information dialing - When you call information for a number they ask if you want them to dial the number for you for an additional buck. So for a dollar, I won’t have to push my finger 1/8th of an inch, 11 times. Who finds this an amazing value?
Valet parking - This saves people from parking their car and walking, like, a hundred feet. Instead, you get to carry around a cardboard chit all night, which you give to some juvenile delinquent while you wait around for him to go get the car and bring it back, with the seats and mirrors at different settings. All this for only a 5 buck tip.
Rain sensing windshield wipers – I particularly hate when people think they know what I want. OK, so this bit of technology tries to figure out if there is rain on your windshield and, if so, runs your wipers at a speed it deems appropriate to your visual needs. The car computer is so smart that it knows how much wiping you need to see comfortably. Never mind that everybody has different wipe-for-vision versus need-for-non-wiping-peace-and -quiet ratio. If the computer were that smart it wouldn’t be working in a car, it would be in some Japanese robot toy or working in NASA with really smart computers.
Menu customization – While we are on the topic of technology, how do you like it when your computer operating system decides what menu items you will want to see? It does this by keeping track of how often you have called upon menu items and then puts your most popular choices at the top of your drop down menus. To add an additional touch of convenience, it completely obscures from view items that you haven’t called upon lately. This would work well if you were a serial killer and it was a list of people you wanted to kill, because you might not need to see people you have already killed anymore. Since I am not a serial killer and do need to find menu items, even if I have perhaps not used them in a week, this heuristic doesn’t work well for me. I know you can customize away this feature, but it still annoys me.There’s your list for now. I’m actually feeling better; spring is just around the corner. Pitchers and catchers report in a few short weeks.
Next time: Treadmills and wound care.
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FAMILY FOODBy the Sedentary Man
My buddy, editor, is starting to irritate sedentary man, just a little bit. He runs some number of miles a day (three or seven or something), eats tofu, and is starting to look vaguely aristocratic. He has some sort of electronic chip in his shoe (that perhaps sends an electric shock through his calf when he slows down?). Newly limp shirts and pants flap a bit when he walks by. He compares resting pulse rates with other fitness nuts. Disturbingly, people listen to more of what he has to say instead of staring through his head like they used to. I’ve been waiting for him to start eating ring dings again but it’s looking less and less likely. He’s so full of energy that it’s sometimes hard for me to nod off during our meetings. I love the guy – he really is a good guy – but my mother taught me that I should always hate people who are doing well, so we will have to see where this goes.Speaking of my mother, some of my eating habits surely trace their origins to her atypical practices. Ice cream was her major vice: Neapolitan, eaten in small bites with an iced tea spoon. Nobody knows why the long spoon. I suppose in the end it improved her dexterity, but I don’t think that was a goal as such. Mom also exposed me to Weight Watchers. Her favorite WW recipe was a mixture of green beans, tomato soup, busted up Ritz crackers, and some other crap. It was only one or two ingredients shy of being a serviceable homemade Ipecac. “It’s just like eating spaghetti” she would say. “No thanks, mom, I just ate (yesterday). Food historians credit my mother with inventing the grilled cheese sandwich submerged in tomato soup (sorry, the dish has no name). One might suspect it of being a creative offshoot of French Onion soup or some other respected culinary mainstay. I don’t think so. I think a grilled cheese sandwich fell into some soup at one point, et voila! Like Madame Curie holding a piece of radium in her hand and noticing later that her hand fell off, it was sheer accident.My brother deserves his own chapter in the SM cookbook. Most people know him for holding the Guiness Book record for consecutive days eating nothing but ramen noodles, but as the inventor of the spoon sundae, Sedentary Brother falls somewhere between the Chef Boy ar dee and the guy who came up with pimento loaf on the list of notworthy 20th century food inventors. The recipe is almost as short as the title. Take one soup spoon, add one squirt of chocolate syrup, about 1.5 seconds of Rediwhip, and top with a maraschino cherry. Eat in one gulp. Have another – it’s portion control and then some. By the way, if you check out whatscookingamerica.net (I was trying to find out how to spell “maraschino”) you will learn that “absolutely no formaldehyde is used” in the manufacture of maraschino cherries. Not a drop! For anyone who used to eat a half jar of them at a time, this is welcome news indeed. Next time: Fungus, we hardly knew ye.Click here to send comments to The Sedentary Man
January is Weight Watchers Month
By the Sedentary ManInto a dishwater gray day steps a tousled sedentary man, numb from cranial disuse and stiff from couch sitting for over 40 hours of Orange, Holiday, GMAC, Meineke Car Care, Poinsettia, International, Outback Steakhouse, and various other bowls. Awaiting him on the train platform is a brutal reintroduction to the first non-holiday workweek in more than a fortnight. All systems struggle to regain a foothold after the disquieting amounts of fat, salt, sugar, and meat that passed through his plumbing these past weeks. Like a great Roman God arising out of the sea, January is here and he’s demanding his due.
January is, of course, Weight Watchers month. If there was no January, I don’t think there would be any Weight Watchers. Ads blanket the airwaves. Classes start up in high-rises. Join up fees are waived. Food is measured in points. Oh, Sedentary Man knows the Weight Watchers. SM has done the church basement class with 40 overweight women. More than once. A key is recording everything that you eat in entries in a journal. You loose weight for awhile then bail out. That’s how it works. But it’s cheap and it’s better than gaining more weight.
Here’s a sampling of my typical WW menu:
Day 1
Breakfast:
Lettuce leaf with vanilla extract
Half cup of warm water
Mid morning snack:
One serving Weight Watcher’s© brand chocolate walnut flavored eating substance
Lunch:
½ plum tomato with seeds removed
½ cup Weight Watcher’s© brand artificial chicken broth
Grapefruit or orange segment
Afternoon Snack:
7 pistachio nut halves
Black coffee
Smell 1 slice of cheese (don’t eat!)
Dinner:
1 Tablespoon strained tuna fish
½ cup Weight Watcher’s© brand artificial beef broth
Four grapes with skin removed
1 Weight Watchers Frappa-dappa-chino!© beverage packet with warm water
Day 12
Breakfast:
Lettuce leaf with vanilla extract
1 pint Haagen Daaz Dulche Deluxe ice cream,
spread on 4 belgian waffles, with ½ cup peanut butter and honey mixture
Mid morning snack:
½ cup Weight Watcher’s© lite clam broth
Eleven Dunkin Donuts© buttercrunch crullers
1 Napolean
32 oz coffee with ½ cup half and half
Lunch:
½ slice Weight Watchers© YouGoLean© Superlite Rye crisp toast
One Pizza Hut© 16” meat lovers pizza
6 pack of Cinnamon Dessert Stix with vanilla dipping sauce
72 ounce serving Coca Cola Zero© beverage
Mid Afternoon Snack:
Three hot dogs from street vendor
One Chili dog from street vendor
One 12 oz can Mountain Dew© beverage
Dinner:
One Weight Watchers© SmartOnes Steamed Broccoli with Chicken Bitz© 4 oz serving
Two 12 oz Peanut Butter SlimFast© shakes
Gulp of heavy whipping cream (from carton)
Two Tablespoons all purpose flour
11 slices Oscar Meyer© Bologna
One box Sunshine Hydrox© chocolate sandwich cookies
1 finger full Raspberrry Preserves
One 24 oz package baking chocolate
Day 13:
Recording ends here.
Next time: No gain, considerable painClick here to send comments to The Sedentary Man
INGESTATIONSBy the Sedentary ManEach morning I have some Tylenol or Advil (whatever’s around) with strong coffee, just to help me figure out what other meds to take. I have decided to put fish oil on the team, It prevents cancer or strokes, one of those I think, and I kind of like the feel of the gelatin capsule as it slithers down. I want to bite it but I'm afraid of getting fishy mouth. My doctor has set me up with a whole salad of preventative (miraculously, I have no heart disease yet) pillseys – statins, baby aspirins, blood pressure meds. Those last work by somehow stretching out blood vessels (veins?) in your legs wide enough to pass a whole Polish sausage through. Your heart has so little work to do it can finish a Sudoku before it has to beat again. Prunes (recommended by the American Dried Plums Council), are the policeman food – keeping everything moving along, there’s nothing to see here. As one ages, managing your "evacuations" becomes an increasingly demanding (and important!) project. I sock down three prunes after each meal, right out of the bag. This prevents me from having to take Metamucil, which is made from some sort of weird space dust that expands like those dried animal-shaped sponges you buy for children. Alright I looked it up; it’s psyllium, which is a plant. Now the American Psyllium Society is going to be all over me. Wikipedia advises people to not confuse psyllium with Cilium, a substance that causes extreme constipation. Not really, but that would be pretty funny, wouldn’t it? Wikipedia also says that psyllium soaks up cholesterol like an $800 German vacuum. So there, the APS loves me again.One thing I stay away from is tobacco. I have enough risk factors without adding that. But I do keep a bag of RedMan Chewing tobacco lying around. I don’t chew, but I am somehow drawn to the product, defiantly racist and threatening to your health, all in a squeezably fresh foil pouch. It smells good enough to eat (please don’t do this). A nod to the other big vice: After a few blackout episodes, the odd polite beer is the last remaining faded love letter from my once ardent affair with ethanol. I can’t prove this (I already looked one thing up for you!) but I believe that being fat is better for you than being a heavy drinker/smoker. The American Wine Council strongly disagrees, but you know, I think the only thing drinking two glasses of red wine a day is better than is drinking three glasses a day – just my opinion, not necessarily echoed by Editor.Next: chewing on straws and other little things with big cardio vascular payoffs.Click here to send comments to The Sedentary Man
GETTING STARTEDby the Sedentary Man
Well, I want to introduce myself. I am columnist #1, friend and co- worker of Editor. Editor has spent the last several months getting healthy – eating better, running, elipsing, and so on. I have been following his progress with interest but not really matching him stride for stride. About the best I can say is that the rate at which I have been gaining weight has been decreasing. Baby steps, as they say. Anyway Editor and I were talking recently about his little storefront in the blogotropolis. We thought it might be interesting if I were to provide periodic updates in Emerging Runner, aimed at readers who are emerging more out of their size 38’s than out of inactivity.
So then, since we have to start somewhere, how about a few tips for developing a “less intense” fitness program:
Baseline caloric intake: Using a written journal, take note of all the food and its corresponding caloric value that you eat in a typical day. Don’t leave anything out – a peanut butter and banana sandwich after dinner or that turkey leg that you munched while cleaning up the kitchen need to be recorded just as much as the plate of gravy cheese fries you had with breakfast. Now divide this calorie total by 5. This will give you a rough estimate of how many calories you should be taking in per day.
Consuming type: What type of eater am I? This can vary by person – do you eat 5 large meals per day or 9 smaller ones? Would you eat a second whole meatlovers pizza from Pizza Hut if it was available in a “second one for half price” deal? How about if you were told that the second has just as many calories and fat grams as the first? Here’s a simple test you can try on yourself: Eating 70 munchkin donut holes equates to eating how many fully formed donuts? Most people don’t realize that the answer is 22 donuts, depending on type (so you see, just stopping to think about food intake can lead to smarter decisions!). Classify yourself as either: 1) an impulsive eater, 2) a compulsive eater, or 3) the subject of a Science Channel documentary.
Exercise profile: Short quiz:
1)When you come to a staircase and an escalator do you a) take the escalator or b) find an elevator?
2) How long has it been since you actually ran (had both feet off of the ground at the same time)? a) Clinton administration, b) Carter administration, c) not sure.
3) Does talking leave you out of breath? a) False b) True.
4) Which of these activities do you participate in most often? a) watching comedies on TV, b) watching sports on TV, c) watching something else on TV.
5) How much fat can you pinch around your waist? a) 10 inches, b) can’t reach waist, c) can’t find waist
Multiply every answer a by 70 lbs. Add them up and the total is your exercise weight loss goal.
So, we’ve got some background for our program. Next time: Overeat this don’t overeat that.Click here to send comments to The Sedentary Man
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