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The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20110426061510/http://theskepticalloser.com:80/
This is a strange eating disorder I first learned about on the Fat2Fit podcast. Orthorexia nervosa is a term Steven Bratman uses to describe those that have an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. It’s important for me to distinguish the difference between my attempts at healthier eating and a disorder. From Steven Bratman, MD, orthorexia “indicates an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy food.” A quick questionnaire developed in a study on the disorder can be found here.
According to the study, “The desire to eat healthy foods is not a disorder in itself, but an obsession for these foods, along with a loss of moderation and balance and the withdrawal from life caused by this food habit, may then lead to orthorexia. The orthorexic sufferer spends a great deal of his time thinking about food, frequently dedicating his whole existence to the planning, purchase, preparation and consumption of the food that he considers healthy. His eating behavior becomes the only one possible, and generates a feeling of superiority over the lifestyle and eating habits of others.”
The Internet has many many examples of this disorder, and folks like this can be found in any health related forum. Like most disorders, this falls along a spectrum of severity, and I’m sure I have some of the signs. However, skirting the fine line between health choices and obsession is something I need to do on a daily basis.
If the amount of exercise was all that matters, it would be a 10 out of 10. Unfortunately, until I get more weight I’m not doing all I can. I hope that a set of PowerBlocks will remedy that. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but getting all single weight dumbbells really isn’t practical. The cost and space needed is excessive for a small home gym.
Twice this week I ran on a treadmill while on vacation, and prefer the outdoors by far. There was absolutely no airflow in the hotel fitness center. Let’s just say I sweat a fair bit, but that wasn’t the worst of it. At one point, I reached for the towel to wipe the sweat off my face, and it came up red! I glanced down to see red streaks on my shirt–apparently, sweat and constant motion equals chafing. I covered up my bloody nips the best I could to protect them from passing vampire babies and made my way back up to the room. I wore Band-Aids over them the next time I ran and it seemed to work. Taking the Band-aids off after my run sucked.
Diet: 0
That’s right, a big fat zero. The week started bad and ended worse. I gained 2 lbs. because of my diet–I just stopped tracking calories and ate a lot. My measurements haven’t changed, so it had to go somewhere. In addition, I had one of my embarrassing heat-ups again, sweating like a stuck pig while in a coffee shop. I haven’t had one of those in a long while–can a person be allergic to fat and salt? I ate a lot of good Connecticut pizza and wings the night before and sweat the day after.
Motivation: 9
The motivation is still there. I fired up my metabolism with the 2700 calories I’ve been feeding it for the past month. I’m ready for another slight reduction. Moving the activity level to “sedentary” over on Livestrong.com gives me 2400 calories at my target weight, so that’s what it will be starting today. I hope that I can get those PowerBlocks ordered this week and get lifting to my full potential.
After reading over and over that the way to lose the fat is to resistance training, and the fact that I’m bored with bodyweight exercise, I went out and got a set of dumbbells. I already need more weight. My workout will be done Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and will consist of squats, straight leg deadlifts, rows, bench presses, shoulder raises, curls, and tricep extensions.
I’ll be traveling today so I’m going to keep this short and sweet. In the quest to get more protein in my diet, I’ve been finding ways to include egg whites in my diet. Here’s what I found so far that’s worked. Keep in mind these are pasteurized egg whites out of a carton, I couldn’t do a lot of this with regular egg whites. I also have been looking for a good source of egg white powder to try.
Mix them with my whey powder drink. It completely changes the consistency of the mix, making it much more creamy.
Mix them with milk. It boosts the protein and makes the milk almost like whole milk.
Mix them in my oatmeal. I just add a serving before microwaving and it does the same thing–adds a nice creamy texture.
That’s it for today, I’m always looking for suggestions and recipes for those egg whites!
Think these vibration machines are just a blast from the silly past? These machines have experienced a resurgence recently, and Google searches provide hours of entertainment.
Amazon.com has machines ranging from the very simple under $100 model to the Vibration Cadillac at $4000 plus. As with most scam products, there are a lot of fake reviews and testimonials to slog through.
Let’s check out some of the claims. Lose 17 lbs in 17 days! No effort! 10 minutes a day is equivalent to 100 minutes at the gym! These kinds of claims should give any rational person pause. Fast weight loss is due to loss of water weight and muscle mass, both of which are not a healthy loss and setting up the person for Yo-Yo dieting. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been Yo-Yo dieting since out of high school and have no desire to continue that nonsense. At least she wasn’t lying about the “no effort”. According to one study by The University of Western Ontario, adding vibration to an exercise does not increase cardiovascular stress.
As with other scams trying to sell something, there’s the requisite appeal to authority. Russian cosmonauts developed it, it must be good! What do they use today? For instance, how many vibration machines do the have on the International Space Station? Astronauts in the ISS spend about 2½ hours a day exercising, and none of that involves standing on a vibration plate. They do the same exercises that get results down here—biking, running, and lifting weights.
And so we send another quick-fix machine to the junk yard. While it will certainly lighten your wallet significantly depending on the model, it won’t be that quick fix you’re hoping for. Rest assured, I’ll keep searching and will eventually find it.
I wrote all that stuff about maintaining my motivation and missed a biggie–goals. I’m talking specific goals here, not “I’m gonna get fit” or “I’m gonna lose some weight”. Setting specific short term, medium term, and long-term goals keeps me working hard.
On the short term, my goals are sticking to my diet and exercise program daily. It’s satisfying to see the little x on my diet daily, meaning I stuck to my calorie allotment. I don’t beat myself up too much when I don’t. The overall goal is to get it done 90% of the time; the 10% of the time I screw up isn’t a deal breaker.
My medium term goal, set six months ago, was to get up to basic training military standards. Following some guidelines for the military fitness tests of different branches, I decided that 30 push-ups, 3 pull-ups, a 5K in 29 minutes or less, and a weight of 181 or less would put me in the bare minimum for boot camp fitness. I met the push up and pull up goal, and have since switched to weight training. I run in three weeks to see if I meet my running goal. I’m 13 lbs. away from my weight goal.
My long-term goal is to get to a fitness level where I can finish an xterra triathlon once a year. I love running my short distances three times a week, but I have no desire to do a marathon. A 10K race is about my limit. Triathlons just seem more fun to me. I’ve also been looking into the Warrior Dash and the Death Race; I’d like to do those two at least once. Another long-term goal is to keep incorporating healthy living in my daily life for the rest of my life, and I hope I can pass on some good habits to my kids.
I’m not going to mince words here–homeopathy is a sham. This topic should be easy to discuss and discard as nonsense. However, there are a dedicated group of followers that believe in the magic water and magical pre-germ theory nonsense. There is a large following in the health food industry. I can understand the general public’s belief in magic water–after all a full third of the world population believes that water can do everything from save a baby’s soul from Hell, exorcise a demon, and make a really neat projectile weapon against vampires. All it needs is a priest’s blessing. The magic water of homeopathy is not much different–all it needs is a naturopath’s shake.
Here is one blog by Former Fat Guy, who raves about homeopathy. I’m sorry, he raves about Ultrahomeopathy. I’m not sure what’s “ultra” about it, he seems to be describing homeopathy and then adding a prefix to make it more—watery. How he can explain homeopathy and still remain convinced that it works just baffles me. He knows that a substance is diluted “[i]nconceivably far beyond the point at which not one atom of original substance is left.” He still believes in it. Well, if the “good” stuff remains in the water’s memory, what about the “bad” stuff—germs, dirt, pig shit, etc.? His bottom line—the message that proves once and for all the homeopathy works? “You do not have to know or figure out what homeopathy is,” he states emphatically, “just follow her advice and her plans and you will get results, once and for all.” Well, I’m certainly convinced. Spend your money! Take the remedies! Pay no attention to the naturopath behind the curtain!
The HCG diet, the diet that uses injected pregnant woman piss to supposedly help people lose weight, is a weird diet on its own. However, it gets weirder–the injections are not approved by the FDA for the purpose of weight loss, so people started selling the homeopathic versions of the hormone. Basically, quacks are selling sugar pills to folks that want to lose weight, and folks are falling for it. When I discussed the issue with someone, their main argument is that they lost weight! It might have something to do with the 500 calorie a day diet they are on. Seeing is believing, you say? Well, take a look at this guy—if homeopathy works, he’s drinking his own piss!
The body is a strange and wonderful thing, capable of much more than some gives it credit for. Enter the placebo effect. Sometimes a placebo effect is all that’s needed to make things like dieting easier. Make a fancy Harry Potter sounding remedy like Antimonium crudum, put on a good show, and you could make a person believe that your magic water works. It’s really, obviously, that simple. It helps to get backed by authority figures like the Royal Family of England. So should naturopaths and other quacks be allowed to make money from duping people and taking credit for a placebo effect? That’s another topic for another time, but homeopathic diets definitely make my weird diet list.
I did pretty good here, only skipping one push up/pull up routine. I am dropping this routine in favor of the weight lifting that I’ll explain later.
Diet: 6
After a bad cheat day on Monday, I did well the rest of the week. Then there was Friday. I called in sick to work and my whole night was screwy. Then the day was screwy. The bottle of wine didn’t help either. Saturday started off on the right foot, and would have ended on the right foot if I just ate half the serving of pad thai. I did well, I ate half the serving and put the rest in the fridge. Then I got hungry later and ate the rest. Then I ate some of the leftover garlic chicken. Then I washed it down with a drink. All that might have something to do with the crappy weigh-in this morning.
Motivation: 9
Bring on the weights! I decided to up the resistance training and got a set of dumbbells. I haven’t lifted weights in a long time, and it should be interesting. My wife will also be joining me for some training, and I’m interested to see the results in a couple months. I found a simple dumbbell workout targeting mostly major muscles, and hopefully won’ t have to buy too many more weights in the process!
One more thing of note: this was week 26 since I started tracking my workouts. Six months of a healthier me! Just for laughs, here’s my stats from six months ago:
Weight 216
Workout:
M,W, F–5 minute warmup walk; alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes
T, Th, Sa– (1 set of 10 each) pushups, bicycle crunches, reverse pullups
Compared to today:
Weight: 193
M,F–5 minute warmup walk, followed by 5 mile jog
W–5 minute warmup walk, followed by 800m intervals @9 min/miles (about 3 miles total)
T, Th, Sa–Push up/Pull up routine (usually around 110 total pushups over 5 sets, 3 full pullups, and 20-30 variable assisted pull ups)
You’ve all heard before–walk 30 to 60 minutes a day for health. There are many studies, such as this recent one, that tout all the great benefits of the daily walk. Most reasons commonly cited for walking for exercise have to do with the simplicity of it. It’s true, there is no special equipment needed, it’s low impact, and anyone can do it regardless of fitness level–but is it enough to have a significant impact on health?
According to fitness trainer Tom Holland, walking doesn’t even count as exercise. He stated, “It really comes down to simple math. The caloric expenditure of walking is simply not enough to counterbalance food intake. A 140-pound person walking at 4 miles per hour burns roughly 288 calories in one hour. That’s about 4 Oreos worth.” He goes on to state that people often overestimate their intensity and calories burned.
It’s not an extreme view, and has some backing in science. In 2006, researchers published a study comparing a walking program to a more vigorous exercise program. Their conclusion was similar–any exercise program beats a walking program by a mile.
There are definite benefits to walking over, say, sitting on a couch and scarfing down snacks. It’s a good “gateway” exercise towards better fitness, but treating this as a main form of exercise is not a good thing to do. So walk, establish that “me time” for exercise, but pick up the pace as soon as possible. What worked for me was a Couch to 5K program. It starts at a nice easy pace over 20 minutes and after 9 weeks works up to a nice jog over 30 minutes.
Of course running isn’t for everyone, but you can use this strategy for any exercise program. Many folks want the fastest results possible, train too hard, and burn out. Yoyo exercising is just as bad as yoyo dieting. Slow down! It’s a lifestyle change, not a diet. First, work on establishing the habit. Do 5 minutes of any easy exercise on a regular basis. No matter how busy you are, surely you can spare 5 minutes. Slowly increase the time week by week. Before you know it, you can easily find 20-30 minutes to do a decent workout. Then you can work on the intensity. Starting slow and low will make it easy to establish new healthy habits and stick to those habits.
