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Thursday, April 5, 2007
Fallacies and untruths — Uncovered!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Winning the Fitness Challenge has been one of the greatest things in my life. (Okay, besides meeting my husband, having kids, buying a home and wonderful milestones like that.) Why? you ask. My answer is two-pronged: 1) My need to have my eyes opened to the fact that I CAN DO THIS. 2) The fact that I need help and couldn’t do it alone.
Frankly, I didn’t think I could ever get healthy. I had pretty much thrown in the towel on having a normal body. I truly thought I was “too far gone.” I was too set in my ways, too flabby, too out of shape to do anything. Too in love with food to change my eating habits. This experience has taught me that all of those things were actually huge fallacies. I know they were UNTRUTHS because I am, in fact, “doing it”!!
A few more fallacies I held dear: Personal trainers are jocks who work with jocks. A personal trainer would laugh in my face. Again, I have found the total opposite to be true. The trainers I have met and worked with at Fitness Together in Sandy Springs — Kelly and his crew including Kevin, Andrew and Candice — have been incredibly supportive, helpful and caring. Yes, they are in great shape, but they don’t look down on people. Many of their clients are, well, not in the best shape. So they are used to working with people like me; they saw me as just a regular person and not some horrid fat lazy slob. (It was a relief, actually. I was pretty afraid to go at first.) They want me to do well. What a great team to have on my side!
I’ve noticed the two other Fitness Challenge winners have about a million people each supporting them and pulling for them to succeed. But all of us AJC readers who are trying to get healthy don’t necessarily have a huge support system. So if you don’t have tons of people supporting you every day and helping keep you positive and feeling good, what do you do? I’m embarrassed to admit that I like to flex my new arm muscle (I actually now HAVE a muscle in my arm!) and feel how hard it is — that helps keep me excited about this process! Does anyone have any other advice for people who don’t have a huge network or support system?
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Keep It Movin’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I say this all the time to clients, “move it or lose it.” But it really is true. Just about every system in our body will atrophy, decline, wither, weaken, or become inefficient if it is not regularly challenged and/or utilized.
The definition of this decline in the skeletal muscle system (the type of muscles that move your body) is called sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is a greek word meaning “poverty of flesh.” Sarcopenia is a universal part of the aging process. The process of gradual muscle loss starts in your thirties and becomes significant in your fifties. At age 80 more than 50% of people will have clinically determined sarcopenia that is defined as 2 standard deviations below the mean of the average healthy population.
The impact on this loss of muscle mass is enormous. It decreases your ability to recovery from injury, illness, or disease because muscle mass stores nitrogen and amino acids that are essential for our autoimmune system to function. And it decreases your ability to function by decreasing your strength, balance and endurance. Sarcopenia costs our country $18.1 BILLION dollars each year in healthcare expenditures.
The really wonderful thing is that sarcopenia is preventable through regular resistance/strength training. Just as regular cardiovascular exercise is important to keep our heart and lungs in good shape and prevent disease as we age, resistance exercise helps to keep our muscular system from wasting and strength from declining. And don’t think you can’t build muscle/strength if you are over a certain age. Studies have shown that men and women in their nineties can build muscle mass and strength with resistance exercise.
Does anyone have creative ways they make sure they incorporate strength training into their workouts?
