How to be fit
Dec. 8th, 2006 02:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rezendiI went to boxing tonight, and I'm out of shape, but not horrendously so.
Strenuous exercise has combined with insomnia to spark this post, which is kind of a compendium of what I've learned about physical conditioning from the last decade-plus-one, a period during which I went from "couch potato" to "exercise junkie."
I have a nasty suspicion this is going to be very, very long.
Good thing I can't sleep and I've already written my 11 GSPTS pages for the day.
1. The Why
When fully in my workout routine I probably average about an hour a day of exercise. I expect to a lot of people this sounds like a tedious, deeply unpleasant, and enormous waste of time. Why spend one-fifteenth of your waking hours straining to work up a sweat when you don't have to?
I mean, you already know about all the health reasons: fit people are at enormously less risk of basically every noninfectious disease known to mankind, especially as they get older. But unadorned that sounds like those crazy people who live on calorie-restricted diets to extend their lifespan: what the hell's the point of living in joyless misery so you can extend the misery even longer?
People will tell you that if you're really fit you'll have so much more energy. They'll tell you you'll sleep less, so you actually get more time out of it than you put in. These, based on my experience, are total lies. I remain a lazy bastard, and I still sleep a good 10 hours a night. (When I can sleep. Dammit. Fortunately these kinds of insomnia bouts hit me only maybe once a year.)
There are, however, plenty of very good reasons to get fit.
The first and often most compelling is probably the most basic. Lord knows it's what suckered me in. When I first started seriously exercising, I was 23, I had just moved to a new city, I was fat and unattractive, and I started working out mostly because I wanted to get laid. And you know what? It works. I mean, it's a long row to hoe, but take it from me, the overwhelming majority of women (at least, those in their 20s) treat trim and muscular men totally differently than they do those who are pudgy and slouched, and I expect the reverse is even moreso. (Well, maybe swap "fit" for "muscular," if we're going to stereotype.) And one can lose weight, too, although, well, see below.
But I sure wouldn't have stuck with it if that was the only reason. (And indeed you often see people coupling off and promptly falling out of shape, which I always think is kind of sad.) I discovered that being fit made life better. As in, like, every waking moment. The tangible things, like thinking nothing of going for an hour-long walk through the autumn; and the intangible things, like just generally being happier; the air being sweeter; my mind being clearer, more active, more alive. Yes I know I sound like a fucking hippie. But I really mean it. (And, going out on a limb here, I don't think it's necessarily coincidence that I wrote my first eventually-published novel the year I became a total exercise junkie.)
Then came the third reason. I started to actively enjoy the exercise itself. Oh, I'd never really minded it exactly - but I started to really look forward to it, and not just in a "because I'll feel so energized and my mind will feel so clear when it's over!" kind of way; I'd look forward to the workout itself. Other exercisers are probably looking at me now in a funny way, like 'of course you enjoy it, that's the point' - but remember when you had to talk yourself into going to the gym, or on that twenty-minute run, or into the pool, or the yoga center? Remember when it was a chore instead of a pleasure? Remember when you couldn't really imagine it being a pleasure? Well, it becomes one. Heck, I've learned how to enjoy pushing myself even when my muscles are groaning and my lungs are burning.
And then came the fourth reason, which is that I became outright addicted, but that's kind of a mixed boon, so if you don't mind I'm just gonna slide right past that and move on to
2. The How
OK. So maybe you actually do want to get in shape. Maybe you want something you can do that will clear your mind. Maybe you like the notion of some day enjoying exercise. Here's how.
2a. This Is A Long Freakin' Road. And people have a lot of trouble with that. Gyms sell a lot of memberships in January, thanks to New Year's resolutions. Gyms hard-sell one-year memberships. Why? Because it's free money for them - they know that most people who sign up in January will never be seen again after March.
Muscles grow slowly. Fat dissipates slowly. Joints and soft tissue grow limber even more slowly. Your cardiovascular system's a better bet - but it's the system that aches the most awfully at first, and it's limited by the other factors. It takes months to get real results from working out. It can take a good year of hard work to go from "unfit non-exerciser" to "in good shape." And you can only do this if -
2b. It Has To Be A Priority. Like, a serious priority. As in, you say things like, "I'm sorry, I can't go for a beer with you after work tonight, but maybe I'll join you after my run." As in, you wake up on a weekend morning and go work out. As in, one of the top few priorities in your life.
Oh, you can do a half-assed job if you want. And heck, half-assed is OK. Being a weekend warrior or going to the gym three times a week is a lot better than nothing. But if you're serious about getting into excellent physical condition, you should be doing at least three different kinds of exercise, totalling at least five sessions a week. Maybe more. In 2001, when I went from half-assed to serious, there was a period of several months where I was working out 12 sessions per week. OK, a) I had no day job, b) I was lucky to avoid injury, and c) even so that was kinda psychotic - but still.
Once you're in shape - I think maybe to some extent once you've ever been in shape - you can slack off for lengthy periods, months even, and come back to peak form in a relative hurry. But if it's the first time? No half measures. Half measures fail.
2c. Through The Nose. It's going to cost money. Yep. Gym memberships are like thirty bucks a month nowadays, minimum. You can get in shape from a gym membership alone - but it's much harder. Easier if you can spend the money on something else too. Yoga classes are pricey. Martial arts classes are pricey. All classes are pricey. Pools are pricey. Running itself is cheap, but good running shoes are expensive. A decent bicycle is at least a couple hundred bucks. You wanna get in shape, in today's world? Get ready to pay for it.
3. The When
Young is good. I'm super-glad I did it before I hit thirty; I expect I would have really felt all the pounding required for a first forging if I'd waited too much longer. The ability to recuperate doesn't exactly diminish, but it slows. It's worth noting, though, that the three fittest guys at my boxing gym are all over forty, and that professional athletes in all sports now routinely play into their mid-thirties.
Oh, you mean the when as in when in the week? I dunno. Whenever you got time. Some people swear by mornings. Me, I work out at night. Listen to what your body tells you. I'm probably going to say that a lot here. OK, sometimes you're going to go ahead and ignore it; and sometimes you're going to decide it's just your subconscious being bratty and lazy; but listen, at least, before you make those decisions.
4. The What
OK, the key thing here is: you have to do more than just one thing. Probably more than two. Those musclebound guys big as houses who live in the free-weights section? They're not fit. Those skin-and-bones distance runners? Those rubbery, muscle-free yoga girls who can bend themselves into pretzels? Them neither. They're the idiot savants of exercise.
There are basically four key components to fitness, of which the first three are strength, flexibility, and aerobic endurance. (I'll get to the fourth one later.) Ever play D&D? Sorta like Strength, Dexterity (not counting hand-eye) and Constitution (not counting disease resistance). You ask me, you kinda need all three to be reasonably considered fit.
This doesn't mean you have to get all crazy like I did and box and run and lift weights and do yoga 3 times each every week. Au contraire. Be flexible. Pick one thing, and do that three times a week; pick two other things, and do them once each; and when you get bored of the first - and you will get bored - mix it up. Go intense for a month, working out almost every day; then slack off to three days a week for a couple weeks. Not just to avoid boredom; because your body gets used to exercise just like your mind does, and if you mix up what you hit it with, it will become stronger and tougher faster. Not sure if this week should be hard or soft? Listen to what your body tells you.
Oh yeah. And before I start on details, one last generalization. It's all about the core muscles - the hips, the abs, the lower back, the pelvic floor. What's all about the core muscles? you ask. And I answer: Everything.
It's also all about the breath. What's all about the breath? Everything.
4a. Weight Training.
I am going to stereotype here. Most men, you take them into a gym, and immediately they wanna go do free-weight bench presses and bicep curls - oh, maybe not right away, but that's the goal. Most women stay away from the free-weight room as if it smells like skunk.
These stereotypical women might have the right idea. 'Cause honestly? Weight training builds muscle. (It does this very slowly - I've met women who claim they don't lift only because they don't want to be really muscular, which is a bit like saying you don't play tennis because you don't want to be as good as Roger Federer). Muscle is strength. Weight training makes you strong. Yep.
But that's all that weight training does. (People claim it helps you lose weight because muscle consumes energy. Horse puckey. I mean, it's technically true, but it's almost never a decisive factor. See part 6 below.) Lots of other things, such as certain forms of yoga, can also make you reasonably strong - if you do ashtanga yoga, bicep work is the only reason you have to go into the weight room. Serious boxing coaches often frown on weight training because they think the added muscle will slow their fighters down. (Although again I think this is horse puckey.) Muscle is heavy, and if you're a runner, every pound of muscle is another pound of weight slamming onto your fragile knee joints with every step.
Having said all that? I box, and I run, and I do ashtanga yoga, and that would make me reasonably strong - but I'm generally in the weight room lifting and bench-pressing twice a week, because I like lifting weights, and I like being more than just reasonably strong and muscled.
4b. Running / Swimming / Biking.
I'm glopping these together because these are the classic "aerobic fitness" exercises, and also, they combine into the triathlon, and also, they're all things that you should stretch after doing. (Yes, after. Never stretch before you've warmed up, you're just asking for trouble.)
4b1. Running. We were built to run. We really were. Distance running is one of the very few physical activities that humans do better than (AFAIK) any other species on the planet. A fit human can and will outrun a fit horse, or dog, or cheetah, over a fifty-kilometre distance. It's been theorized that that's how we killed prey, back when we just had spears and clubs; we just ran them down until they could run no further.
At the same time, I expect running causes more injuries than any other form of exercise. This probably has something to do with its popularity, but - well, let me put it this way. Next time you meet someone who believes in Intelligent Design, ask them to explain the knee joint. (And while you're at it, the lower back.)
That said, you should try it. Yes you should. Yes, even if you hated it in high school. Running is in many ways the purest form of exercise. It's the easiest - all you need is a pair of shoes. It's one of the most delightful, if you can run outside. It even burns the most calories per hour. Just be careful.
First of all, get good shoes from a running store. When I first took up running, I really thought expensive running shoes were a pay-for-the-brand ripoff, and I ran on PayLess Shoe Source shoes. Ow. Please. Learn from my mistakes. If you want to run - especially if you overpronate or supinate - especially if you don't know what these words mean - get good shoes from a running store that will examine your gait. It's not rocket science. But it's not something you want to screw up.
OK. Got your shoes? Great. Now find a place to run. Some people run on treadmills at the gym. I can handle that for about 20 minutes before I get so bored I start fantasizing about mass murder. Some people run in the streets, find their way around pedestrians, jog in place at traffic lights, etc. I can't stand that - once I've started, I hate to stop, the rhythm's all-important to me. Parks are great. Seashore or riverside running trails are even better. Beaches are awesome, if incredibly hard on the muscles. Rain sucks. I don't really run in the rain. My sister, a competitive marathoner, calls me a wimp. I do run up Mont-Royal, in Montreal, in winter. No, that's not crazy; I start layered in clothes, after five minutes I'm generating plenty of heat, and after ten I usually peel my hat off. I said it's not crazy. Anyway, find a park or something. Yes you can. I've ridden public transit for an hour to go for a half-hour run.
Oh - one more thing? You're going to hate it.
Running is the most loathsome form of exercise. For the first 2-3 months. Your muscles will wobble, your lungs will burn. Your mind will tell you, time and time again, to stop this torturous insanity. Maybe you will. Many people do. Maybe, however, you will get angry at yourself. I think that's the only secret; it's certainly the only reason I kept running after the first month. (OK, that and sibling rivalry.) Grimly force yourself to go and run two or three times a week. If you're anything like me, you'll hate it. For months.
And then one day, usually at about the time you can go half an hour nonstop, you'll look up and see the park around you, and feel the wind in your face, and realize that your lungs are not groaning for air, your legs are not moaning with weariness, and you'll think to yourself: hey, this is pretty cool. This will last about three minutes. But the next time, it will last about four, and more importantly, you'll start to realize, the part after that? The part that really sucks? It doesn't suck so much as it used to. In fact, you don't really want to stop, not when you're about to beat your personal best. Congratulations. You're a runner.
4b2. Swimming. Ah, my nemesis.
"Swimming is the best form of exercise," people will tell you. And they're not far wrong. Swimming works almost all the muscles in your body (especially if you vary your stroke), is no-impact (though certainly not injury-free!), builds aerobic fitness, and probably improves your flexibility and makes julienne fries while it's at it. And god knows it's hard work. The one time I swam the 1.5K Olympic-triathlon distance - 30 lengths of the 50-metre pool at Les Halles in France - I came out of the water so dazed with exhaustion that I walked straight into the womens' change room and looked wildly around for a good half-dozen breaths, gaping, knowing that something was wrong but not quite able to work out what. (Fortunately les Parisiennes were most forgiving.)
I took up swimming because I wanted to do an Olympic-distance triathlon. I have never done a triathlon. I don't expect I ever will. Why? Because I really, really hate swimming, and try as I did, over a period of a year, that hate did not go away. In fact it intensified.
Don't get me wrong; I love the water. I love frolicking in the water. I might even enjoy free-water distance swimming. But I hate pools. I hate the crowds in the lanes. I hate the transition from lukewarm air to lukewarm water. I hate the smell. I hate the bland, endless, mind-numbing repetition. It's also that I'm not naturally buoyant (too much muscle, not enough fat); it's also that I'm prone to swimming shoulder injuries - but even without that, I would hate it. I was a little dejected when I finally gave up the best form of exercise. But mostly I was relieved.
4b3. Biking. Now cycling is basically just pure fun.
There are a few problems with it. Bikes can be expensive (especially if you want to get competitive or start going long-distance.) Mountain biking can lead to very gory cases of road rash. Casual biking doesn't really count as exercise, and basically you have to cycle for 3 hours to get the same workout as running for 1. You only work a few muscles, and you run the risk of overworking them and leaving your body uneven and hence prone to injury. And it can be difficult to find good trails (again, I dislike cycling in traffic.) On the other hand spinning classes are great. And there's nothing to it, presuming you learned when you were younger.
Overall? Thumbs way up. I only go cycling every now and again, but if my knees ever make running untenable, I'll expect you'll soon find me out there on my bike several days a week.
4c. Yoga
Yoga is awesome. The very first yoga class I ever went to, it was one of those "try for $5" deals, and then as I was walking out they asked me if I might like a $120 ten-class card, and I was floating so high on bliss I was barely able to say "Where do I sign?" (In fact, come to think of it, I imprinted so strongly I wound up dating that yoga teacher for a few months.)
Yoga has a reputation of being kind of a hippy-dippy chanty-chakras-crystals New-Agey sort of thing. And, yep, it sure can be. I'm as Old-Age a kind of guy as you're likely to meet, but I do like the "Oms." I even like the chanting, though I always imagine that it's a soap commercial. Sometimes they lecture, which annoys me.
Yoga has a reputation of being all about flexibility. Only sorta. Yoga, more than anything else, is explicitly about the breath and the core muscles. You don't need to be bendy - trust me on this one; I'm as flexible as your average brick. Yoga is one of the rare things I do that I enjoy even though I'm not actually good at it and never will be, thanks to my tight back and nonexistent hamstrings.
Yoga also attracts a whole lot of very fit and flexible women, which, um, if I were the sort to notice such things, would not be a disincentive.
Yoga is also really, really hard.
At least the kind I do is. There are many varieties. Without going into too much detail: Hatha yoga is very laid-back and relaxing, and a great place to start. Bikram or "hot" yoga is a gimmicky thing done in a sauna. (As you can tell I'm not a fan.) I do ashtanga aka "vinyasa" aka "power" (retch) yoga. This is basically a fixed series of poses that you go through in the same order and the same way every class - all teachers throw in their own curves, but all follow the same general flow. Does that sound boring? It isn't. You know why? Because I'm working my body so damn hard my brain doesn't have enough oxygen to be bored. I finish dripping, sometimes soaked, with sweat. (Ashtanga is decent aerobic conditioning too.)
A good friend of mine, black belt in aikido, went to his first yoga class once. The teacher said, "This is a moderately advanced class." He said, "It's OK, I do martial arts." He couldn't walk right for three days.
OK, now I fear I'm intimidating you. That's only true of the tougher classes. But even when I can think - you know, it's utterly fascinating doing the same thing in the same way and the same order. Because you know what? I learn something new about some of the poses every single class. It's taught me more body awareness than anything else I do, by far. And the positions themselves are relentlessly tough, but soothing and - oh, hell, I'll say it - centering, at the same time.
I also love the naptime at the end.
4d. Boxing / Martial Arts
I've written at some considerable length about the joys of boxing before, so I'm just going to focus on the fitness benefits here.
I know a lot more about boxing than other martial arts, largely because I'm totally inflexible and thus unsuited to them. But I gather they're similar in some crucial ways. In particular -
You remember way up above I wrote there were four key components to fitness? I'm going to talk about the fourth now. Anaerobic fitness. "Anaerobic" means "without oxygen" - basically, he said unscientifically, when you're working so fast and hard that you can't breathe steadily. You remember how the other three components were like Strength, Dexterity and Constitution? Let's call this one All-Out. It's when you're giving it everything you've got for a short period of time.
There's bleedover between aerobic and anerobic fitness, helping one helps the other, there's a reason boxers do roadwork - but at the end of the fight, they're not the same thing at all. I remember reading about a fight a couple years ago, a commentator saying that one fighter had great stamina because he regularly ran half-marathons during training; I remember thinking "that dude doesn't know what he's talking about"; and I remember the guy fell apart and lost in the last few rounds. Distance running is the exertion of moderate energy over a long period of time. Boxing is working as hard as you can (don't believe me? Go spar a few rounds) for three minutes and then taking a mere 60 seconds to recover between rounds.
There's not much real-world benefit from All-Out. It's for professional athletes, soldiers, martial artists. But it is kind of the ne plus ultra of fitness. Things that give you All-Out fitness put you into insanely great shape. Boxers, muay thai fighters, other martial artists - people who do that kind of thing at all seriously generally have phenomenal conditioning. They have to. 'Cause if they don't, the other guy will. If there's a huge skill imbalance in a fight, that'll decide it; but if there's a fitness imbalance, that'll decide it almost as fast.
4e. Other
Of course there's lots of other ways to get fit. You can dance your ass off every night. You can go hiking. Rock climbing, definitely; I only ever took up rock climbing for six months, and that indoor, but I'd like to try it again despite my unsuited body type. Most climbers I've met were in awesomely good shape.
Whatever you do, the main points, to repeat: At least three different things. Mix it up. And always remember that it's all about the core muscles, and the breath.
5. The Where
Some people exercise at home. I can't even imagine doing that. I have run through quick yoga workouts in hotel rooms, when I was desperate and there seemed no other way to get the monkey off my back, but generally, I gotta go out to work out.
At the same time, you don't want to go too far. Commuting to work is bad enough; commuting to work out can be even worse. A decent nearby gym, one that offers not just machines but things like yoga and spinning classes, is great. That gets monotonous, though - so go for a run or bike ride, or drop in on a dedicated yoga centre, every now and again.
Eventually you'll basically start arranging your whole life around where you exercise, but, um, I'm trying to portray it as a positive innocuous thing for now, so I'll just mention that once and move on.
6. Weight Loss
A lot of people want to get fit to lose weight. This only sort of makes sense.
Before I go into detail, let me tell you about Phil and Caroline from boxing.
Caroline is one of the regulars. She's short, kind of stocky, not fat but not slender either, particularly by Montreal's willowy standards. She doesn't look particularly muscular. But she is in incredibly good shape - she's often the only one to actually finish Phil's freakishly gruelling exercises without collapsing moaning on the ground.
Phil's the boss. He's 40. Earlier this year, he was also about 40 pounds overweight. So he decided to lose weight. And he lost 40 pounds in like two months. Everyone will tell you that that's unhealthy - especially for a 40-year-old man - but they're talking about average physical specimens. Because, you see, Phil is the other person in that room who can finish his freakishly gruelling exercises; and he lost weight that fast because he was in such good shape that burning through an extra 2000 calories a day (which, incidentally, is like running nonstop for two hours) was no big deal.
My points? "Fit" and "fat" are two largely independent axes, until you get near the extreme end of either scale; but if you want to lose fat, it sure helps to be real fit.
There's apparently some evidence that men are more likely than women to lose weight from exercise; exercise helps women keep off weight they've lost from dieting, but isn't an effective direct cause. I'm deeply suspicious of this as a black-and-white claim, although I could buy it as different distributions on the same spectrum.
I also have this totally nonscientific theory that our metabolisms have momentum. Once your body starts gaining weight, it wants to keep doing that; once it starts losing weight, it keeps going. This is why losing weight is so hard at first - you don't want to lose it until you've gained it, but that recent gain means the momentum's against you. (Uh, again, I have no evidence for any of this except my belief that it's how my own body works.)
All that said: if you want to lose weight from exercise, you're going to have to exercise pretty damn hard. If you run nonstop for 30 minutes, you'll consume some 500 calories. You'd have to do that every day for a week to lose a pound. There's some evidence that exercise raises your general metabolic rate for some time thereafter so you'll burn more calories then too - but I doubt that effect is major. In short, you're going to have to be pretty fit to lose fat.
And you're going to have to do it gradually. Running is one of the fastest ways to burn energy - but if you suddenly start ramping up your running, you will almost certainly get injured, especially if you're already overweight. Vicious circle. Like fitness itself, weight loss is a matter of months, often many months, unless you're willing to go on some kind of crazy drastic diet - or unless you're very fit, and accustomed to pushing yourself physically.
7. Injuries
You will get injured. Oh yes you will. Unless you are my younger elder sister, who has run a bunch of marathons including one of the toughest in the world (Catalina Island), who finished top-ten in the first triathlon she ever did (and only; she then gave them up as too easy), and who started as my rock-climbing partner and had totally surpassed me like three days later, and who to the best of my recollection, has never been injured. The rest of you mere mortals, however, are gonna get hurt.
Listen to what your body tells you.
There are two types of sport injuries; acute and chronic. Acute ones really suck but whatcha gonna do. You're climbing over a fence, you pull a muscle. You're playing Ultimate, you change direction suddenly, you hear the dreaded 'pop', and your ACL's gone. Hello, surgery and six months of rehab and six more of getting back into shape. That's awful. Whatcha gonna do.
Listen to what your body tells you.
Most sport injuries are chronic overuse injuries, meaning "your fault." Runner's knee. Achilles tendinosis. Tennis elbow. Rotator cuff. Lower back. They ache and twinge. You rest up a little. They get a little better. You start to push them again. You get used to the aching and twinging. It's no big deal. Actually, it is a little weirder lately, but you'll rest them next month, when you're going to Florida. And then one day you're in the middle of something totally normal and you yelp Ow!
Listen to what your body tells you.
It's worst when you're first starting to get into shape. Especially if you're doing something high-impact like running or tennis. Because it takes six to eight weeks for your muscles to start getting used to this new impact, to start recovering faster, increasing their stamina: but it takes months for your bones and joints to get stronger - and that time in between is when you are most vulnerable.
Listen to what your body tells you.
If you have a cramp, suck it up. If a muscle is twinging or feels weak, suck it up. If something feels vaguely funny, suck it up. If something aches, pay careful attention to it, especially if it's soft tissue. If something hurts, stop immediately. If you have to change the form of what you're doing - your running gait, your swim stroke - stop immediately.
Listen to what your body tells you.
You'll get minor injuries that resolve by themselves in a few days. You'll go to sleep feeling fine and wake up with a leg that can hardly move, especially if you forgot to stretch. By then it's too late: never stretch an injury. You're supposed to use RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) although, you know what, I actually never do, in large part because I think the miracles of RICE are overstated; but at least keep a bag of frozen peas around to ice swollen joints. You'll get niggling little injuries that only start to come on after half an hour or so and don't go away for months.
Listen to what your body tells you.
I got patellar tendinosis four years and a month ago. I could run through it. I thought nothing of it. Four years ago, midway through Regent's Park, I suddenly went from "I can run through this" to "I can barely walk." It wasn't that big a deal. I never even saw a doctor. Maybe I should have - although, if I had, I sure would have made sure it was a doctor who runs. Six months later I was running again. Six months after that I was running for an hour. But this last month is the first time in four years I've been able to do leg extensions pain-free, the first time that knee hasn't ached for the first five minutes of and the day following every run.
Listen to what your body tells you.
8. Diet
Uh. I'm like the last guy you want to talk to about this. You should talk to my friend Cathy, who's an About.com editor and whose book THE INSIDE-OUT DIET is coming out in like six months. You should talk to my about-to-be brother-in-law Jeff, who introduced the phrase "Is it fat-free?" to our family. But me? I basically eat what I want, when I want; as far as I'm concerned, that's one of the nice bonuses of being a fitness nut.
That said, I do drink a lot of 'power' smoothies. In the periods when I'm working particularly hard, I do find myself craving fruits and vegetables (along with a lot of meat.) I understand diet is very important. I understand you should eat fish, brown rice and vegetables. And any year now, I'm going to start paying attention to these things that I understand. Until then, I'll be at Schwartz's eating medium smoked-meat sandwiches with fries and a Coke.
OK. That is my fitness infodump. I'm not even going to tell you what time it is. Nor am I going to count how many words I just wrote. I'm just going to hope that somebody somewhere gets something out of it, 'cause, dude, my fingers are aching, and that's not the kind of injury I thought I was going to risk today.
Oh, one last thing - feel free to link, if so inclined, but please don't copy this, OK? I may turn it into a for-pay article, and if so I'd rather not have other copies floating around out there.
Strenuous exercise has combined with insomnia to spark this post, which is kind of a compendium of what I've learned about physical conditioning from the last decade-plus-one, a period during which I went from "couch potato" to "exercise junkie."
I have a nasty suspicion this is going to be very, very long.
Good thing I can't sleep and I've already written my 11 GSPTS pages for the day.
1. The Why
When fully in my workout routine I probably average about an hour a day of exercise. I expect to a lot of people this sounds like a tedious, deeply unpleasant, and enormous waste of time. Why spend one-fifteenth of your waking hours straining to work up a sweat when you don't have to?
I mean, you already know about all the health reasons: fit people are at enormously less risk of basically every noninfectious disease known to mankind, especially as they get older. But unadorned that sounds like those crazy people who live on calorie-restricted diets to extend their lifespan: what the hell's the point of living in joyless misery so you can extend the misery even longer?
People will tell you that if you're really fit you'll have so much more energy. They'll tell you you'll sleep less, so you actually get more time out of it than you put in. These, based on my experience, are total lies. I remain a lazy bastard, and I still sleep a good 10 hours a night. (When I can sleep. Dammit. Fortunately these kinds of insomnia bouts hit me only maybe once a year.)
There are, however, plenty of very good reasons to get fit.
The first and often most compelling is probably the most basic. Lord knows it's what suckered me in. When I first started seriously exercising, I was 23, I had just moved to a new city, I was fat and unattractive, and I started working out mostly because I wanted to get laid. And you know what? It works. I mean, it's a long row to hoe, but take it from me, the overwhelming majority of women (at least, those in their 20s) treat trim and muscular men totally differently than they do those who are pudgy and slouched, and I expect the reverse is even moreso. (Well, maybe swap "fit" for "muscular," if we're going to stereotype.) And one can lose weight, too, although, well, see below.
But I sure wouldn't have stuck with it if that was the only reason. (And indeed you often see people coupling off and promptly falling out of shape, which I always think is kind of sad.) I discovered that being fit made life better. As in, like, every waking moment. The tangible things, like thinking nothing of going for an hour-long walk through the autumn; and the intangible things, like just generally being happier; the air being sweeter; my mind being clearer, more active, more alive. Yes I know I sound like a fucking hippie. But I really mean it. (And, going out on a limb here, I don't think it's necessarily coincidence that I wrote my first eventually-published novel the year I became a total exercise junkie.)
Then came the third reason. I started to actively enjoy the exercise itself. Oh, I'd never really minded it exactly - but I started to really look forward to it, and not just in a "because I'll feel so energized and my mind will feel so clear when it's over!" kind of way; I'd look forward to the workout itself. Other exercisers are probably looking at me now in a funny way, like 'of course you enjoy it, that's the point' - but remember when you had to talk yourself into going to the gym, or on that twenty-minute run, or into the pool, or the yoga center? Remember when it was a chore instead of a pleasure? Remember when you couldn't really imagine it being a pleasure? Well, it becomes one. Heck, I've learned how to enjoy pushing myself even when my muscles are groaning and my lungs are burning.
And then came the fourth reason, which is that I became outright addicted, but that's kind of a mixed boon, so if you don't mind I'm just gonna slide right past that and move on to
2. The How
OK. So maybe you actually do want to get in shape. Maybe you want something you can do that will clear your mind. Maybe you like the notion of some day enjoying exercise. Here's how.
2a. This Is A Long Freakin' Road. And people have a lot of trouble with that. Gyms sell a lot of memberships in January, thanks to New Year's resolutions. Gyms hard-sell one-year memberships. Why? Because it's free money for them - they know that most people who sign up in January will never be seen again after March.
Muscles grow slowly. Fat dissipates slowly. Joints and soft tissue grow limber even more slowly. Your cardiovascular system's a better bet - but it's the system that aches the most awfully at first, and it's limited by the other factors. It takes months to get real results from working out. It can take a good year of hard work to go from "unfit non-exerciser" to "in good shape." And you can only do this if -
2b. It Has To Be A Priority. Like, a serious priority. As in, you say things like, "I'm sorry, I can't go for a beer with you after work tonight, but maybe I'll join you after my run." As in, you wake up on a weekend morning and go work out. As in, one of the top few priorities in your life.
Oh, you can do a half-assed job if you want. And heck, half-assed is OK. Being a weekend warrior or going to the gym three times a week is a lot better than nothing. But if you're serious about getting into excellent physical condition, you should be doing at least three different kinds of exercise, totalling at least five sessions a week. Maybe more. In 2001, when I went from half-assed to serious, there was a period of several months where I was working out 12 sessions per week. OK, a) I had no day job, b) I was lucky to avoid injury, and c) even so that was kinda psychotic - but still.
Once you're in shape - I think maybe to some extent once you've ever been in shape - you can slack off for lengthy periods, months even, and come back to peak form in a relative hurry. But if it's the first time? No half measures. Half measures fail.
2c. Through The Nose. It's going to cost money. Yep. Gym memberships are like thirty bucks a month nowadays, minimum. You can get in shape from a gym membership alone - but it's much harder. Easier if you can spend the money on something else too. Yoga classes are pricey. Martial arts classes are pricey. All classes are pricey. Pools are pricey. Running itself is cheap, but good running shoes are expensive. A decent bicycle is at least a couple hundred bucks. You wanna get in shape, in today's world? Get ready to pay for it.
3. The When
Young is good. I'm super-glad I did it before I hit thirty; I expect I would have really felt all the pounding required for a first forging if I'd waited too much longer. The ability to recuperate doesn't exactly diminish, but it slows. It's worth noting, though, that the three fittest guys at my boxing gym are all over forty, and that professional athletes in all sports now routinely play into their mid-thirties.
Oh, you mean the when as in when in the week? I dunno. Whenever you got time. Some people swear by mornings. Me, I work out at night. Listen to what your body tells you. I'm probably going to say that a lot here. OK, sometimes you're going to go ahead and ignore it; and sometimes you're going to decide it's just your subconscious being bratty and lazy; but listen, at least, before you make those decisions.
4. The What
OK, the key thing here is: you have to do more than just one thing. Probably more than two. Those musclebound guys big as houses who live in the free-weights section? They're not fit. Those skin-and-bones distance runners? Those rubbery, muscle-free yoga girls who can bend themselves into pretzels? Them neither. They're the idiot savants of exercise.
There are basically four key components to fitness, of which the first three are strength, flexibility, and aerobic endurance. (I'll get to the fourth one later.) Ever play D&D? Sorta like Strength, Dexterity (not counting hand-eye) and Constitution (not counting disease resistance). You ask me, you kinda need all three to be reasonably considered fit.
This doesn't mean you have to get all crazy like I did and box and run and lift weights and do yoga 3 times each every week. Au contraire. Be flexible. Pick one thing, and do that three times a week; pick two other things, and do them once each; and when you get bored of the first - and you will get bored - mix it up. Go intense for a month, working out almost every day; then slack off to three days a week for a couple weeks. Not just to avoid boredom; because your body gets used to exercise just like your mind does, and if you mix up what you hit it with, it will become stronger and tougher faster. Not sure if this week should be hard or soft? Listen to what your body tells you.
Oh yeah. And before I start on details, one last generalization. It's all about the core muscles - the hips, the abs, the lower back, the pelvic floor. What's all about the core muscles? you ask. And I answer: Everything.
It's also all about the breath. What's all about the breath? Everything.
4a. Weight Training.
I am going to stereotype here. Most men, you take them into a gym, and immediately they wanna go do free-weight bench presses and bicep curls - oh, maybe not right away, but that's the goal. Most women stay away from the free-weight room as if it smells like skunk.
These stereotypical women might have the right idea. 'Cause honestly? Weight training builds muscle. (It does this very slowly - I've met women who claim they don't lift only because they don't want to be really muscular, which is a bit like saying you don't play tennis because you don't want to be as good as Roger Federer). Muscle is strength. Weight training makes you strong. Yep.
But that's all that weight training does. (People claim it helps you lose weight because muscle consumes energy. Horse puckey. I mean, it's technically true, but it's almost never a decisive factor. See part 6 below.) Lots of other things, such as certain forms of yoga, can also make you reasonably strong - if you do ashtanga yoga, bicep work is the only reason you have to go into the weight room. Serious boxing coaches often frown on weight training because they think the added muscle will slow their fighters down. (Although again I think this is horse puckey.) Muscle is heavy, and if you're a runner, every pound of muscle is another pound of weight slamming onto your fragile knee joints with every step.
Having said all that? I box, and I run, and I do ashtanga yoga, and that would make me reasonably strong - but I'm generally in the weight room lifting and bench-pressing twice a week, because I like lifting weights, and I like being more than just reasonably strong and muscled.
4b. Running / Swimming / Biking.
I'm glopping these together because these are the classic "aerobic fitness" exercises, and also, they combine into the triathlon, and also, they're all things that you should stretch after doing. (Yes, after. Never stretch before you've warmed up, you're just asking for trouble.)
4b1. Running. We were built to run. We really were. Distance running is one of the very few physical activities that humans do better than (AFAIK) any other species on the planet. A fit human can and will outrun a fit horse, or dog, or cheetah, over a fifty-kilometre distance. It's been theorized that that's how we killed prey, back when we just had spears and clubs; we just ran them down until they could run no further.
At the same time, I expect running causes more injuries than any other form of exercise. This probably has something to do with its popularity, but - well, let me put it this way. Next time you meet someone who believes in Intelligent Design, ask them to explain the knee joint. (And while you're at it, the lower back.)
That said, you should try it. Yes you should. Yes, even if you hated it in high school. Running is in many ways the purest form of exercise. It's the easiest - all you need is a pair of shoes. It's one of the most delightful, if you can run outside. It even burns the most calories per hour. Just be careful.
First of all, get good shoes from a running store. When I first took up running, I really thought expensive running shoes were a pay-for-the-brand ripoff, and I ran on PayLess Shoe Source shoes. Ow. Please. Learn from my mistakes. If you want to run - especially if you overpronate or supinate - especially if you don't know what these words mean - get good shoes from a running store that will examine your gait. It's not rocket science. But it's not something you want to screw up.
OK. Got your shoes? Great. Now find a place to run. Some people run on treadmills at the gym. I can handle that for about 20 minutes before I get so bored I start fantasizing about mass murder. Some people run in the streets, find their way around pedestrians, jog in place at traffic lights, etc. I can't stand that - once I've started, I hate to stop, the rhythm's all-important to me. Parks are great. Seashore or riverside running trails are even better. Beaches are awesome, if incredibly hard on the muscles. Rain sucks. I don't really run in the rain. My sister, a competitive marathoner, calls me a wimp. I do run up Mont-Royal, in Montreal, in winter. No, that's not crazy; I start layered in clothes, after five minutes I'm generating plenty of heat, and after ten I usually peel my hat off. I said it's not crazy. Anyway, find a park or something. Yes you can. I've ridden public transit for an hour to go for a half-hour run.
Oh - one more thing? You're going to hate it.
Running is the most loathsome form of exercise. For the first 2-3 months. Your muscles will wobble, your lungs will burn. Your mind will tell you, time and time again, to stop this torturous insanity. Maybe you will. Many people do. Maybe, however, you will get angry at yourself. I think that's the only secret; it's certainly the only reason I kept running after the first month. (OK, that and sibling rivalry.) Grimly force yourself to go and run two or three times a week. If you're anything like me, you'll hate it. For months.
And then one day, usually at about the time you can go half an hour nonstop, you'll look up and see the park around you, and feel the wind in your face, and realize that your lungs are not groaning for air, your legs are not moaning with weariness, and you'll think to yourself: hey, this is pretty cool. This will last about three minutes. But the next time, it will last about four, and more importantly, you'll start to realize, the part after that? The part that really sucks? It doesn't suck so much as it used to. In fact, you don't really want to stop, not when you're about to beat your personal best. Congratulations. You're a runner.
4b2. Swimming. Ah, my nemesis.
"Swimming is the best form of exercise," people will tell you. And they're not far wrong. Swimming works almost all the muscles in your body (especially if you vary your stroke), is no-impact (though certainly not injury-free!), builds aerobic fitness, and probably improves your flexibility and makes julienne fries while it's at it. And god knows it's hard work. The one time I swam the 1.5K Olympic-triathlon distance - 30 lengths of the 50-metre pool at Les Halles in France - I came out of the water so dazed with exhaustion that I walked straight into the womens' change room and looked wildly around for a good half-dozen breaths, gaping, knowing that something was wrong but not quite able to work out what. (Fortunately les Parisiennes were most forgiving.)
I took up swimming because I wanted to do an Olympic-distance triathlon. I have never done a triathlon. I don't expect I ever will. Why? Because I really, really hate swimming, and try as I did, over a period of a year, that hate did not go away. In fact it intensified.
Don't get me wrong; I love the water. I love frolicking in the water. I might even enjoy free-water distance swimming. But I hate pools. I hate the crowds in the lanes. I hate the transition from lukewarm air to lukewarm water. I hate the smell. I hate the bland, endless, mind-numbing repetition. It's also that I'm not naturally buoyant (too much muscle, not enough fat); it's also that I'm prone to swimming shoulder injuries - but even without that, I would hate it. I was a little dejected when I finally gave up the best form of exercise. But mostly I was relieved.
4b3. Biking. Now cycling is basically just pure fun.
There are a few problems with it. Bikes can be expensive (especially if you want to get competitive or start going long-distance.) Mountain biking can lead to very gory cases of road rash. Casual biking doesn't really count as exercise, and basically you have to cycle for 3 hours to get the same workout as running for 1. You only work a few muscles, and you run the risk of overworking them and leaving your body uneven and hence prone to injury. And it can be difficult to find good trails (again, I dislike cycling in traffic.) On the other hand spinning classes are great. And there's nothing to it, presuming you learned when you were younger.
Overall? Thumbs way up. I only go cycling every now and again, but if my knees ever make running untenable, I'll expect you'll soon find me out there on my bike several days a week.
4c. Yoga
Yoga is awesome. The very first yoga class I ever went to, it was one of those "try for $5" deals, and then as I was walking out they asked me if I might like a $120 ten-class card, and I was floating so high on bliss I was barely able to say "Where do I sign?" (In fact, come to think of it, I imprinted so strongly I wound up dating that yoga teacher for a few months.)
Yoga has a reputation of being kind of a hippy-dippy chanty-chakras-crystals New-Agey sort of thing. And, yep, it sure can be. I'm as Old-Age a kind of guy as you're likely to meet, but I do like the "Oms." I even like the chanting, though I always imagine that it's a soap commercial. Sometimes they lecture, which annoys me.
Yoga has a reputation of being all about flexibility. Only sorta. Yoga, more than anything else, is explicitly about the breath and the core muscles. You don't need to be bendy - trust me on this one; I'm as flexible as your average brick. Yoga is one of the rare things I do that I enjoy even though I'm not actually good at it and never will be, thanks to my tight back and nonexistent hamstrings.
Yoga also attracts a whole lot of very fit and flexible women, which, um, if I were the sort to notice such things, would not be a disincentive.
Yoga is also really, really hard.
At least the kind I do is. There are many varieties. Without going into too much detail: Hatha yoga is very laid-back and relaxing, and a great place to start. Bikram or "hot" yoga is a gimmicky thing done in a sauna. (As you can tell I'm not a fan.) I do ashtanga aka "vinyasa" aka "power" (retch) yoga. This is basically a fixed series of poses that you go through in the same order and the same way every class - all teachers throw in their own curves, but all follow the same general flow. Does that sound boring? It isn't. You know why? Because I'm working my body so damn hard my brain doesn't have enough oxygen to be bored. I finish dripping, sometimes soaked, with sweat. (Ashtanga is decent aerobic conditioning too.)
A good friend of mine, black belt in aikido, went to his first yoga class once. The teacher said, "This is a moderately advanced class." He said, "It's OK, I do martial arts." He couldn't walk right for three days.
OK, now I fear I'm intimidating you. That's only true of the tougher classes. But even when I can think - you know, it's utterly fascinating doing the same thing in the same way and the same order. Because you know what? I learn something new about some of the poses every single class. It's taught me more body awareness than anything else I do, by far. And the positions themselves are relentlessly tough, but soothing and - oh, hell, I'll say it - centering, at the same time.
I also love the naptime at the end.
4d. Boxing / Martial Arts
I've written at some considerable length about the joys of boxing before, so I'm just going to focus on the fitness benefits here.
I know a lot more about boxing than other martial arts, largely because I'm totally inflexible and thus unsuited to them. But I gather they're similar in some crucial ways. In particular -
You remember way up above I wrote there were four key components to fitness? I'm going to talk about the fourth now. Anaerobic fitness. "Anaerobic" means "without oxygen" - basically, he said unscientifically, when you're working so fast and hard that you can't breathe steadily. You remember how the other three components were like Strength, Dexterity and Constitution? Let's call this one All-Out. It's when you're giving it everything you've got for a short period of time.
There's bleedover between aerobic and anerobic fitness, helping one helps the other, there's a reason boxers do roadwork - but at the end of the fight, they're not the same thing at all. I remember reading about a fight a couple years ago, a commentator saying that one fighter had great stamina because he regularly ran half-marathons during training; I remember thinking "that dude doesn't know what he's talking about"; and I remember the guy fell apart and lost in the last few rounds. Distance running is the exertion of moderate energy over a long period of time. Boxing is working as hard as you can (don't believe me? Go spar a few rounds) for three minutes and then taking a mere 60 seconds to recover between rounds.
There's not much real-world benefit from All-Out. It's for professional athletes, soldiers, martial artists. But it is kind of the ne plus ultra of fitness. Things that give you All-Out fitness put you into insanely great shape. Boxers, muay thai fighters, other martial artists - people who do that kind of thing at all seriously generally have phenomenal conditioning. They have to. 'Cause if they don't, the other guy will. If there's a huge skill imbalance in a fight, that'll decide it; but if there's a fitness imbalance, that'll decide it almost as fast.
4e. Other
Of course there's lots of other ways to get fit. You can dance your ass off every night. You can go hiking. Rock climbing, definitely; I only ever took up rock climbing for six months, and that indoor, but I'd like to try it again despite my unsuited body type. Most climbers I've met were in awesomely good shape.
Whatever you do, the main points, to repeat: At least three different things. Mix it up. And always remember that it's all about the core muscles, and the breath.
5. The Where
Some people exercise at home. I can't even imagine doing that. I have run through quick yoga workouts in hotel rooms, when I was desperate and there seemed no other way to get the monkey off my back, but generally, I gotta go out to work out.
At the same time, you don't want to go too far. Commuting to work is bad enough; commuting to work out can be even worse. A decent nearby gym, one that offers not just machines but things like yoga and spinning classes, is great. That gets monotonous, though - so go for a run or bike ride, or drop in on a dedicated yoga centre, every now and again.
Eventually you'll basically start arranging your whole life around where you exercise, but, um, I'm trying to portray it as a positive innocuous thing for now, so I'll just mention that once and move on.
6. Weight Loss
A lot of people want to get fit to lose weight. This only sort of makes sense.
Before I go into detail, let me tell you about Phil and Caroline from boxing.
Caroline is one of the regulars. She's short, kind of stocky, not fat but not slender either, particularly by Montreal's willowy standards. She doesn't look particularly muscular. But she is in incredibly good shape - she's often the only one to actually finish Phil's freakishly gruelling exercises without collapsing moaning on the ground.
Phil's the boss. He's 40. Earlier this year, he was also about 40 pounds overweight. So he decided to lose weight. And he lost 40 pounds in like two months. Everyone will tell you that that's unhealthy - especially for a 40-year-old man - but they're talking about average physical specimens. Because, you see, Phil is the other person in that room who can finish his freakishly gruelling exercises; and he lost weight that fast because he was in such good shape that burning through an extra 2000 calories a day (which, incidentally, is like running nonstop for two hours) was no big deal.
My points? "Fit" and "fat" are two largely independent axes, until you get near the extreme end of either scale; but if you want to lose fat, it sure helps to be real fit.
There's apparently some evidence that men are more likely than women to lose weight from exercise; exercise helps women keep off weight they've lost from dieting, but isn't an effective direct cause. I'm deeply suspicious of this as a black-and-white claim, although I could buy it as different distributions on the same spectrum.
I also have this totally nonscientific theory that our metabolisms have momentum. Once your body starts gaining weight, it wants to keep doing that; once it starts losing weight, it keeps going. This is why losing weight is so hard at first - you don't want to lose it until you've gained it, but that recent gain means the momentum's against you. (Uh, again, I have no evidence for any of this except my belief that it's how my own body works.)
All that said: if you want to lose weight from exercise, you're going to have to exercise pretty damn hard. If you run nonstop for 30 minutes, you'll consume some 500 calories. You'd have to do that every day for a week to lose a pound. There's some evidence that exercise raises your general metabolic rate for some time thereafter so you'll burn more calories then too - but I doubt that effect is major. In short, you're going to have to be pretty fit to lose fat.
And you're going to have to do it gradually. Running is one of the fastest ways to burn energy - but if you suddenly start ramping up your running, you will almost certainly get injured, especially if you're already overweight. Vicious circle. Like fitness itself, weight loss is a matter of months, often many months, unless you're willing to go on some kind of crazy drastic diet - or unless you're very fit, and accustomed to pushing yourself physically.
7. Injuries
You will get injured. Oh yes you will. Unless you are my younger elder sister, who has run a bunch of marathons including one of the toughest in the world (Catalina Island), who finished top-ten in the first triathlon she ever did (and only; she then gave them up as too easy), and who started as my rock-climbing partner and had totally surpassed me like three days later, and who to the best of my recollection, has never been injured. The rest of you mere mortals, however, are gonna get hurt.
Listen to what your body tells you.
There are two types of sport injuries; acute and chronic. Acute ones really suck but whatcha gonna do. You're climbing over a fence, you pull a muscle. You're playing Ultimate, you change direction suddenly, you hear the dreaded 'pop', and your ACL's gone. Hello, surgery and six months of rehab and six more of getting back into shape. That's awful. Whatcha gonna do.
Listen to what your body tells you.
Most sport injuries are chronic overuse injuries, meaning "your fault." Runner's knee. Achilles tendinosis. Tennis elbow. Rotator cuff. Lower back. They ache and twinge. You rest up a little. They get a little better. You start to push them again. You get used to the aching and twinging. It's no big deal. Actually, it is a little weirder lately, but you'll rest them next month, when you're going to Florida. And then one day you're in the middle of something totally normal and you yelp Ow!
Listen to what your body tells you.
It's worst when you're first starting to get into shape. Especially if you're doing something high-impact like running or tennis. Because it takes six to eight weeks for your muscles to start getting used to this new impact, to start recovering faster, increasing their stamina: but it takes months for your bones and joints to get stronger - and that time in between is when you are most vulnerable.
Listen to what your body tells you.
If you have a cramp, suck it up. If a muscle is twinging or feels weak, suck it up. If something feels vaguely funny, suck it up. If something aches, pay careful attention to it, especially if it's soft tissue. If something hurts, stop immediately. If you have to change the form of what you're doing - your running gait, your swim stroke - stop immediately.
Listen to what your body tells you.
You'll get minor injuries that resolve by themselves in a few days. You'll go to sleep feeling fine and wake up with a leg that can hardly move, especially if you forgot to stretch. By then it's too late: never stretch an injury. You're supposed to use RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) although, you know what, I actually never do, in large part because I think the miracles of RICE are overstated; but at least keep a bag of frozen peas around to ice swollen joints. You'll get niggling little injuries that only start to come on after half an hour or so and don't go away for months.
Listen to what your body tells you.
I got patellar tendinosis four years and a month ago. I could run through it. I thought nothing of it. Four years ago, midway through Regent's Park, I suddenly went from "I can run through this" to "I can barely walk." It wasn't that big a deal. I never even saw a doctor. Maybe I should have - although, if I had, I sure would have made sure it was a doctor who runs. Six months later I was running again. Six months after that I was running for an hour. But this last month is the first time in four years I've been able to do leg extensions pain-free, the first time that knee hasn't ached for the first five minutes of and the day following every run.
Listen to what your body tells you.
8. Diet
Uh. I'm like the last guy you want to talk to about this. You should talk to my friend Cathy, who's an About.com editor and whose book THE INSIDE-OUT DIET is coming out in like six months. You should talk to my about-to-be brother-in-law Jeff, who introduced the phrase "Is it fat-free?" to our family. But me? I basically eat what I want, when I want; as far as I'm concerned, that's one of the nice bonuses of being a fitness nut.
That said, I do drink a lot of 'power' smoothies. In the periods when I'm working particularly hard, I do find myself craving fruits and vegetables (along with a lot of meat.) I understand diet is very important. I understand you should eat fish, brown rice and vegetables. And any year now, I'm going to start paying attention to these things that I understand. Until then, I'll be at Schwartz's eating medium smoked-meat sandwiches with fries and a Coke.
OK. That is my fitness infodump. I'm not even going to tell you what time it is. Nor am I going to count how many words I just wrote. I'm just going to hope that somebody somewhere gets something out of it, 'cause, dude, my fingers are aching, and that's not the kind of injury I thought I was going to risk today.
Oh, one last thing - feel free to link, if so inclined, but please don't copy this, OK? I may turn it into a for-pay article, and if so I'd rather not have other copies floating around out there.
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Date: 2007-03-26 01:32 am (UTC)