Diet/Exercise/Health/Wellness Support Thread

[mommusic]

^Even trained nutritionists don't have the latest info on diet. Like the government saying you should have 6 to 11 servings per day of bread/grains. I would be big as a house on that many servings! I probably only have 3 per day, and if a meal is carb-heavy in other ways (black bean soup) I won't ALSO have bread.

Plus people naturally think a "serving" is what they are served in a restaurant, which is generally a plateful of pasta and a basket of bread.

[BCEagle91]

> This was someone who didn't have an occasional splurge; this was someone for whom
> food was his raison d'etre.

I have a BIL like this. He's joined a gym. We shall see.

[interesteddad]

There's basically no evidence that cholesterol lowering meds improve health outcomes for women. In light of that, I would take the prescription for statins from the doc, thank him/her for being so helpful, and throw it in the trash on the way home. But, in your case, there's no number that even warrants suggesting statins. Your total cholesterol will be high because your HDL "good" cholesterol number is so high. That's a good thing; not a bad thing.

There's evidence that exercise increases HDL. Eating good fats like olive oil and fish oil also does. Your low triglycerides suggest that you are eating pretty low amounts of sugar and/or burning it off as fast as you eat it (makes sense with your daily running). Most of the triglycerides in the body are produced by conversion of excess sugar (fructose).

Speaking of prescriptions, I just had my one and only prescription (thyroid) transferred to WalMart pharmacy. They sell a whole list of generics for $4 -- which is less than the co-pay on generics ($10 now, I think) under my insurance plan.

[VeryHappy]

Ahhhh -- get thee over to the "Do Millionaires Shop at Wal-Mart" thread!!

[BCEagle91]

They shop at Marshalls.

[interesteddad]

If anyone ever figures out how to help someone "throw the switch" and change the way they think about eating (or smoking) on command, they will be a very wealthy person! Clearly, it is possible -- in fact, more than possible -- to throw the switch and change these behaviors, but I don't have clue how to help someone else do that. I don't even know what made me "throw the switch".

[interesteddad]

I spent more quality time with the stability ball today. I was able to do the one where your feet are on the ball and you bring your knees in and the dead bug one. Those are really, really hard! The one where you put your hands on the ball and try to bring your knee to your chest is impossible for me right now, so I'm going to work on just trying to keep my hands on it while keeping my back straight. I won't even discuss the one where you try to alternate touching the ground with your feet.

Fantastic! Just being able to do the leg curls and the dead bug is pretty impressive. The thing about this core stuff... you have to look at it as a long term project. Just have fun with it. Laugh about how hard it is. Do what you can do. Just keep doing it two or three times a week. A year from now, you'll see and feel the results.

There have been young whipper-snapper strength coaches at Boyle's forum who have been brought to the ground by the knee drive holds with hands on the stability ball. That is a VERY hard exercise. A good substitute would be stabilty ball plank with your forearms on the ball.

[VeryHappy]

^^^I used the bosu ball for that exercise the other day. Wobbling a bit side to side with the bosu was easier than wobbling front to back and side to side on the stability ball.

[BCEagle91]

But while supervised weight-lifting seemed to boost mental functioning among those struggling with incipient memory loss, aerobics-based activity programs did not confer a similar mental health benefit, the study team found.

"Most studies have looked at aerobic training, but this study compares both aerobic and strength training," explained study co-author Teresa Liu-Ambrose, an assistant professor in the department of physical therapy at the University of British Columbia. "And among people who don't yet have dementia but are already at a high risk in terms of mild memory and executive function impairment, our study shows that strength training, but not aerobics training, does have benefits for cognition."

Strength Training May Give Boost to Seniors' Brains - US News and World Report

[notrichenough]

Here's an excellent article on statins that just came out:

Statin Drugs & Side Effects ? the JAMA Debate | Naturally Lower Cholesterol Newsletter

An older article on cholesterol, really good though:

Natural Alternative To Balance Cholesterol Levels -- Health Newsletter

Jon Barron is really great, I'd recommend subscribing to his newsletter, it's free.

[interesteddad]

^^^I used the bosu ball for that exercise the other day. Wobbling a bit side to side with the bosu was easier than wobbling front to back and side to side on the stability ball.

The mountain climber knee drive holds are good exercise even putting your hands on a solid object like a weight bench or a solid chair or a kitchen counter.

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I used iPod nazi's four exercise circuit as the core section of my workout today. I only did two sets because, honestly, three sets is just too much on top of the warm up stuff, the power stuff (DB snatches and med ball), the weight lifting stuff. Two sets of those four exercises is pretty good core workout, but I was a little better at them today than I was on Saturday.

Today was the dreaded single-leg squats to a box. I'm slowly chipping away at them. I actually feel pretty good with them on the right leg. Left leg is a little shaky. Crazy hard exercise considering that it's basically just bodyweight.

[BCEagle91]

4 miles, 9:14 pace. Now I need to cook two pounds of chicken for the rest of the week. Not sure what I'm going mix it with but I should get the cooking done today.

[VeryHappy]

Turn it into a stir-fry, with lots of veggies and a little sauce, over rice. Or turn it into chicken salad, with celery and apple and a bit of mayo. Or cover it with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese (with a bit of Parmesan) and call it chicken parm.

Whatever you do with it, enjoy!

And congratulations on the long run with a good pace.

[BCEagle91]

Rice is a four-letter word.

I have a small tub of Trader Joes Green Curry Vegetables and some beef chili. I was thinking of taking one cup of each and mixing with 1/2 pound of chicken - that would make four lunches.

[interesteddad]

Here's an excellent article on statins that just came out:

Thanks, notrichenough. I thought that was good article. Good overview of the pros and cons.