Book Report Thursday: Food Matters

Mark Bittman’s book Food Matters outlines a way of eating that is socially responsible, environmentally friendly, and, you know, good for you.  This is a man who likes food, so you will not end up eating a bunch of twigs and pretending you like it if you follow his advice.

What we see a lot of in our culture is the worship of protein.  Protein is essential to our bodies, but we don’t have to worry about it.  Vegans have to think about it a little bit, but everyone else:  no problem.  We get plenty to meet our needs.  What Bittman does, in suggesting that we eat like vegans until dinnertime, is bring some useful perspective.  Plant-based foods are better for our bodies, better for the environment, and don’t all taste like kale (Plenty of people love kale.  I am not anti-kale, I just like other leafy greens better.).

Bittman describes what works for him.  This is a useful example for all of us.  What works for him might not work for the rest of us.  We are individuals and need to find our own paths to what works.

Best of all, there are recipes!  I find it much easier to get inspired with recipes.

If I had a hammer...

I like my Fitbit.  I even have a cool fancy bracelet for it made by my friend Suzanne.  But it is not the key to my fitness.

Part of the problem is that I am lazy.  Not so much in the sense that I won’t get off the couch (I’m still on tv restriction), but in that I don’t have the time/energy/patience to log all the non-step-taking activities I do, like Pilates and spin class.  I really tried to log my food, but found it a pain in my patella (a phrase invented by my then-3-year-old).  When they make a truly psychic tracker that knows everything without me having to enter anything, I’ll be right there.

I use my Fitbit to keep me honest with myself.  Too many days of minimal steps and I know I’m slacking.  I personally don’t find the little badge things motivational.  Its little messages seem slightly passive aggressive, encouraging me that I’m almost to my goal and then calling me an overachiever when I surpass it.

I’m talking about the specifics of one tool, but the point is broader:  no one magic piece of equipment is going to transform us.  I could write a similar post about my relationship with my spin bike or my weight rack or my Pilates reformer.  The tools don’t do the work; we do.

Remember that you are the boss of you, not your Fitbit, not the voices in your head, not the refrigerator, not even your trainer.  You do the work; you get the credit.

You are sentenced to...

I experiment so you don’t have to.  One day this weekend, I hardly moved off my couch.  I watched both football games and enough cop shows to convince me that the entire world is composed of victims and perps, to paraphrase Peter Wimsey.  I felt terrible.

I watch football because I love it.  I watch cop shows to quiet my brain.  It is okay to do things I love, less okay to do things that make me feel terrible.  So those hours I spent quieting my brain with football would have been better spent quieting my brain with exercise, meditation, or, hey, sleep!

The fitness point here is that sometimes we need to figure out why we do things that are not good for us and then find other ways to seek the same ends.  I revoked my own tv privileges yesterday, did approximately four hundred laps around an aircraft carrier, and took a nap.  Shockingly, my brain felt just as soothed and my body felt much better.

In other news, folks pointed out two interesting articles to me.  Check these out if you want:

Three Common Fitness Traps

Issues with Biggest Loser

Friday Exercise: Pretty Princesses

I used to call this exercise Evil Ball Abs because I felt that was descriptive.  A dear client protested that that was a mean name, so it has since been renamed Pretty Princesses.  No matter what you call it, it remains challenging.

The Amazing Stickie is demonstrating using an exercise ball, but the ball is not required.  It is mostly useful as a distraction from how hard your abs are working:  clearly you must be having fun since you are playing with such a great big ball!

To begin, lie on your back.  Enjoy this feeling; it is sadly temporary.  Hold the exercise ball between your hands and feet, arms and legs extended toward the ceiling.  Transfer the ball so that you are holding it with just your arms.  Lower both arms and legs until they are close to the floor, but not touching.  Raise arms and legs back to the ceiling, handing the ball to your feet.  Lower both arms and legs again and then raise them to the starting position.  One repetition includes lowering the ball on the head side of your body once and on the foot side once.  One repetition is a perfectly fine beginning set, but as you grow stronger, move up to five or ten repetitions per set.

If you feel strain in your lower back, do not do this exercise.  Try just lowering your arms with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor or just lowering your legs with your arms down by your sides.  As your abdominals get stronger, you will find you can do the exercise without lower back pain.

Thursday book report: Mrs. Armitage on Wheels

I love picture books.  Someone once told me my inner child is not very inner.  My outer adult, however, appreciates the fact that what we as a culture write for our children cuts to the heart of things.  So, with that in mind, I offer this report on a picture book dear to my heart, Quentin Blake’s Mrs. Armitage on Wheels.  And yes, this is more or less a fitness book, by my own quirky definition.

Mrs. Armitage loves to ride her bike.  However, she finds her bike lacking some important amenities.  One thing leads to another, until, in her enthusiasm, she creates a monster of a mess.  Undaunted, she moves along to the next challenge.  That is one of Mrs. Armitage’s best traits—boundless enthusiasm.

The book provides an example of an older person leading an active life—may I be as powerful at her age!

Further, in a funny way, she illustrates the problem some of us have when we get into something new.  We collect more and more stuff for our activity and lose the essence of why we were doing it in the first place.

Quentin Blake both wrote and illustrated this book.  His illustration style may be familiar to fans of Roald Dahl.  He has written other books about Mrs. Armitage, which are also delightful.

Should you feel the need for story time, check it out.  Or come over and I’ll read it to you, with sound effects.  (Ask my kids…)

Public Service Announcement (with guitar?)

Go outside and play.  This is useful advice both for fitness and for general wellbeing. 

The index of my brain is not working today, so I don’t remember and couldn’t locate the place where I read that an increased sense of depth perception can trigger a sense of wonder (William James?  Charlie Tart?  Carlos Castaneda?  One of those altered states kind of guys…), so you will have to take my word for it that someone did the research.  Point is:  go outside and look up; it will make you happier.  If you happen to be breathing hard at the time, so much the better.

It’s a lovely day.  Your bike is calling.

Obviously, should have posted yesterday...

At breakfast, Syd, my older son, mentioned that Seneca had something to say about the value of stating the obvious.  Since I state the obvious all day long, I thought I should look up the actual quote, which is:

People say, “What good does it do to point out the obvious?” A great deal of good; for we sometimes know facts without paying attention to them. Advice is not teaching; it merely engages the attention and rouses us, and concentrates the memory, and keeps it from losing grip. We miss much that is set before our very eyes. Advice is, in fact, a sort of exhortation. The mind often tries not to notice even that which lies before our eyes; we must therefore force upon it the knowledge of things that are perfectly well known.’

Seneca Ep. 94.25–26

Much of what needs to be done for fitness is “obvious.”  We know.  We just need to be reminded and encouraged to do it.

Go do what needs doing!  (And maybe not just in a fitness context!)

(This is a photo of a more fit-looking Greek statue, stolen fair and square and displayed in the British Museum.)