The fitness project redefined
I think it’s clear now that, while I may have the knowledge, I don’t have the will to complete my transformation into a hard-bodied superelder. So I had my first session (an evaluation session) with the trainer at Prime Monterey. No surprises: obese and not very fit. In particular, because I’m inactive, my range of motion is pretty limited. So for the first 3-4 weeks, the focus will be on stretches. As my body limbers up, then we’ll move to other exercises.
I also thought it would be a good idea to check in with a dietician. While I know a fair amount about the foods to eat, it’s obvious that my intake is too great. I don’t mind keeping a detailed food journal (including weighing and measuring), and I was thinking that an ideal would be to meet with a dietician, agree on the direction and tools, and then I keep the food journal on-line, where the dietician can look it over every few days. I could then meet in person every fortnight or so for discussing problems and solutions. So I’m looking now for a local dietician who’s comfortable with technology.
Is there a diabetes center at one of your local healthcare facilities? They often have very good dieticians.
The Eldest
25 May 2010 at 9:45 am
Your shape-up plan sounds sooo good. Wouldn’t I love to have a trainer?!And to work with a dietician is a great way to keep reminding oneself to stay on the right track with food choices and amounts and times of eating.
Good luck to you and in perserverance also.
Sunshiny
25 May 2010 at 11:34 am
What we need LG is a bicycle type contraption below our desks so that we can work online and peddle at the same time. The apparatus would have to be integrated to the desk and have the ability to be flexible so that we could adjust sitting positions from say sitting to half stretching out.
can you imagine sitting up straight and typing then lying back and typing and reading etc… NordiK Trac should think of this … I would buy on if it was well made.
On my walking machine I have considered getting Israel my IT guy to put the old Dell lap top on the digital read out area and having it wireless and then the mouse could be adapted to go on the handles bars. At last I would be able to read your Postings while getting some exercise
nick
25 May 2010 at 12:25 pm
PS….Please share some proceeds with me if someone decides to actually market this contraption….
nick
25 May 2010 at 12:26 pm
I would like to emphasise the importance of an exercise program that you are encouraged to keep active in.
I recently voiced my opinion that gardening was no so important. I now recind those remarks. Even though I keep up a very slipshod habit of doing simple yoga , RCAF exercises and walking, I discovered this spring that I had the usual painful introduction to the necessary motions required in gardening. I first had three very difficult days installing a border around my rose garden. Back strain and arthritic hands caused me to contemplate that at at age 79, I might have to consider condominium living. The back strain eased off after 3 days and another 3 days of hand weeding resulted in complete dissapearance of the arthritis.
I remember reading about a 100 year old who started each day cultivating a cash crop. Unless a man can find another way to keep active, keeping a garden may be a sure fire way to maintain quality of life.
Bob Slaughter
25 May 2010 at 4:43 pm
I thought at the time that you were dismissing gardening as exercise too quickly: all the bending and squatting and getting down and getting up and trimming and being out there for a while every day—certainly it’s much more than I am currently doing.
I just had a first: I’m watching The Package (which I’ve seen before, but I forgot how complex the plot is—and I guess that makes sense: one would forget the complexities first), and when I saw Tommy Lee Jones jog up two flights of stairs carrying two full suitcases, I immediately thought, “No way could I imagine my doing thatt,” the first time I really grasped some of the physical deterioration of time and sedentary living.
LeisureGuy
25 May 2010 at 5:07 pm
It occurs to me that this is quite a belated realization on my part. I imagine that most men hit this point much earlier, as they watch younger men play the sports that they themselves played (and sometimes still do): they see the moves of the younger guy and the mirror neurons fire as they feel doing that, and they realize that they can’t.
The sports thing didn’t happen to me because I didn’t play sports. But I did travel on business, and seeing Jones move so easily while laden down—I could feel that I could not do that, though I once could.
LeisureGuy
25 May 2010 at 5:22 pm
I really liked your opening confession: “I think it’s clear now that, while I may have the knowledge, I don’t have the will to complete my transformation into a hard-bodied superelder”. Therein of course lies the crux of the dilemma.
I’ve studied weight and fitness for at least the last 35 years, both from a scientific and personal perspective. Here’s the fundamental problem: If you could be fit…you already would be (substitute “I” for “you” too). The problem with “transformation programs” is that they are generally unsustainable because they don’t fit in with what we REALLY like, which is eating and lazing about reading or writing on the computer.
The other problem is that there is no “one size fits all” approach, and in fact, most approaches aren’t designed by formerly fat, unfit, layabouts….they are designed by buff health-nuts who actually like exercise and really can’t relate to the rest of us other than intellectually. Inevitably, their advice is completely counterproductive. Take for example the commonly held Holy Grail of the six small meals a day. Hey….if I could have a small meal I wouldn’t be fat!!!! This six small meal crap comes from studies of elite athletes…not from lardbellies.
So what is a man to do? Hell, if I could answer that effectively, I’d be so rich I could hire someone to eat for me!
But here are a few things I’ve learned:
1. You must understand your particular pattern of behavior that makes you gain weight and lose fitness. Do you snack all the time? Do you binge at night? Etc. My business partner gets up 2-4 times during the night and eats his whole day’s calories all over gain. Personally, I have a fabulous diet and would lose 2-3 pounds a week painlessly IF….I could stop eating like a crazy person between 9-11 PM in front of the damned TV.
2. Unless Locus of Control is shifted internally, you cannot hope to sustain any results achieved. Computer programs, diets, trainers, etc., are all externalizations of LOC….crutches as it were.
3. Any weight loss/fitness “program” must fit in with your environment, including those in it. If you’re a gourmet living in a food paradise, surrounded bu other foodies, it’s almost impossible to eat like a Spartan. Whatever you do has to fit, or you will a..cquit!
Steve
25 May 2010 at 6:50 pm
Great Post ! honest and down right tough love realistic !
I wonder what the couch cat has to say about that…I think a few less trips to the Victorian Breakfast Cafe or whatever it’s called (my ..my scrumptious breakfasts when i went to their site) might be in order, of course the walk does you great ..unless it’s right around the corner …
I have a 1,000 dollar walker and a stomach crunch machine that has been idle in my bedroom for almost two years… hardly used of course ..
nick
25 May 2010 at 7:44 pm
I don’t know, Steve. I’ve had great success with crutches. I’ve worn spectacles since second grade, I take a number of meds (e.g., to reduce hypertension and to reduce bad cholesterol) that seem to work, and I respond well to direction. Indeed, come to think of it, when I sprained my ankle, a crutch turned out to be extremely useful.
I’m going to go the crutch route.
LeisureGuy
26 May 2010 at 5:55 am
Don’t be discouraged! You can do it! Perserverance is the key. If you let up a day in exercise or diet, get right back to your program. Don’t give up. It can be a major lifestyle change to something much better. And what a psychological lift you will have along with a better body. Better mind, better body. What more can we ask?
Sunshiny
26 May 2010 at 6:39 am
LOL Michael re: crutches. Touche. Good luck with it…looking forward to pics of a buff superelder and some inspiration
Steve
26 May 2010 at 8:56 am