I was at the gym yesterday, just like any other day. I was doing some squatting and I between sets I just sorta hang out at the squat rack, scanning the gym. I’ll glance at whatever game is on TV, then I take a quick look at the clock to see how much rest I have left, then I scan all of the other people in the gym. I can’t help it, I’m always observing everyone else. I guess this is a normal human reaction…perhaps I’m a bit more judgmental than others. But I like to think that I don’t ‘judge’ as much as I ‘label’.

In any event, on this particular day I found that my observant eye kept coming back to a particular girl in our gym. She is a rather muscular girl, too muscular, as in drug  induced muscle. Now I’ve seen this person 100 times before and she’s a perfectly nice girl but for some reason today her presence seemed to stick out.

At what point does it become too much?

What I noticed was that she seemed to be training harder than everyone else, I noticed the expression on her face during each rep of each set…and the expression wasn’t want I expected. It wasn’t an inspiring look, I wouldn’t describe it as determination, or an expression of serious focus or effort…it almost looked…desperate.

Then I started looking at her overall presence and actions, and I couldn’t help but perceive her as a totally desperate person (again this is my own perception).

I’m not sure why I felt this way, but I think it had something to do with the fact that she is clearly using steroids and has long since past any feminine or even fitness model level shape, she now looks much more like a man than a woman. Her determination and exhausting effort to build muscle seemed like a vain attempt to change or fix some other issue in her life.

It actually made me want to leave the gym because for a moment I wondered if I also looked so desperate, and as I type this I realize why it bothered me so much.

It reminds me of my former steroid days when I must have looked equally desperate. I was over 250lbs lifting as much weight as I could and never satisfied, always wanting to lift more and be bigger…nothing was ever enough. And now I look at this girl doing the same thing…and I wonder, when will she figure it out? When will she realize she is already too big, and already past what looks good, or what is healthy? When will it ever be enough for her?

Some people may look at her as a beacon of drive and determination and an example of dedication and discipline, but all I see is a desperate person who will never be satisfied with their body.

I guess the moral of the story is that working out can become an unhealthy obsession if you find your way into one of it’s bizarre subcultures.

I’m not suggesting that this happens to all people who compete, or take bodybuilding or powerlifting seriously…BUT it can if you  let it.

As with anything, there is a sweet spot that is just right, and then there is a level that simply becomes too much that ceases to be healthy.

At some point you have to be honest with yourself to know if you’ve crossed the line from healthy exercise habits to an obsessive compulsion.

Knowing where to draw the line and creating a healthy balance is one of the keys to adopting exercise and weight training as part of a lifelong strategy for health and well being. The point is you must always be in control if it, and not let it control you.

John

So I’m at my favorite coffee shop the other day getting settled in for my morning routine of coffee, a snack, and some writing. I go up to the counter and order a coffee and a muffin. The girl behind the counter kinda knows me now and was even helping me count glasses of water a few weeks ago when I was experimenting with a water load. The point is she has some idea that I’m involved in health/fitness/working out as a career and thinks I’m ‘into health’ or something like that.

Would combining the fruit salad with the muffin make it healthier?

So when I simply ordered a muffin and coffee she responded with this statement “Don’t you want to add a fruit salad to that to make it healthy?”

To which I replied “oh that’s not necessary, I’m just gonna rip the top off the muffin and eat it, and throw out the bottom”

After I said that I got a lecture about being wasteful and starving people etc…as if my overeating on muffins and fruit salad is somehow going to solve the worlds food problems.

The moral of the story is that the prevailing mentality is that you can add more food and thus more calories to a meal in order to somehow make it more ‘healthy’.

Lets just look at the two options.We’ll take her option first.

She was suggesting I have a coffee (approx 100 calories) + a full muffin (approx 400 calories) + fruit salad (approx 150 calories) for a grand total of 650 calories for my morning snack.

My suggestion was to have a coffee (100 calories) + half a muffin (approx 200 calories) for a grand total of 300 calories for a very satisfying morning coffee and snack.

This is a classic example of the gap in understanding between what really matters when it comes to health, weight loss, and looking and feeling your best.

We cannot simply add more ‘healthy’ items to a meal to offset the supposed ‘unhealthy’ ones.

The total calories will always matter more than what those calories are comprised of.

This is to say nothing about the fact that I was not intending to eat only muffins and coffee all day. For my preference on that particular day, a coffee and half a muffin is exactly what I wanted and it fits with my health/fitness goals. There was plenty of time and opportunity for me to get my fill of veggies, fruit, and other higher fiber and so called ‘healthy’ items later that day.

The point is there is no perfect foods to eat, or perfect meal combinations to have. If you want a muffin go ahead and have one. If maintaining a particular body shape/weight/size/look matters to you then perhaps you need to pay attention to how many muffins you  eat, or how big they are (in which case you can use the muffin top only technique) instead of either eliminating them all together or even worse, adding even more food to your muffin snack just to make it seem healthier.

In the end total calories and how much you exercise is going to affect your overall health to a far greater degree than a complicated and calculated mix of ‘the right foods’.

John

It’s been approximately 16 months since I last had my blood tested and I just got my test results back today.

Everything checks out A-ok. Last time my HDL numbers were a little low, so I took a fish oil supplement which brought my HDL up nicely into a cardio protective range.

This is the stuff I take.

If I didn’t get my blood tested last year I wouldn’t have known that my HDL was low. I didn’t make any big dietary or lifestyle change, I simply added some fish oil and continued doing whatever else I was doing from an exercise and diet standpoint.

The point is that you’ve got to know where you are in order to know what you need to do (if anything).

For me the only thing that needed attention was HDL. The solution was quite simple as there is good research to show that taking a fish oil supplement that is high in EPA and DHA can have a potent effect on raising HDL. So I took the simplest approach and added fish oil. The specific brand I used was from BlueStarNutraceuticals. I am biased towards their brand because I helped them develop it, but I also trust them because I know the quality of the ingredients.

I’m sure there are plenty of other good fish oil supplements on the market. And if you’re going to take one make sure it’s got the highest level of EPA and DHA possible (these are the two essential fatty acids that we take fish oil for in the first place).

With that said, you probably want to get your blood tested first to know if you even need a fish oil supplement in the first place. There are other reasons to take fish oil besides low HDL. It can improve dry eye syndrome, it can help with some skin conditions as well as joint problems.

The point is to do some homework on whatever your symptoms are and why you think that a fish oil supplement might be right for you. Then if possible test whatever it is that you want to change before you take the fish oil, and test it again a few months later. This is the only way to know if it’s working.

For me the test was easy and the proof that it was working was pretty obvious as I had a defined number to look at.

For things like joint pain, inflammation, or dry eyes it’s going to be a bit more subtle and you’ll have to keep a journal of how you feel on a daily and weekly basis specifically about the given condition. Looking back through your journal will be the only way to notice if things are improving because these changes happen slowly and gradually.

If you start using fish oil and you think things are improving but your not sure, the only way to get a definitive answer is to stop the fish oil and see if your symptoms come back. It a minor inconvenience but this off-on-off approach is the only way to know for sure if it’s doing what you want it to do.

Better to know than to just be guessing.

John

P.S. If you want to check out the fish oil I used you can see it here > Omega Blue

I’ve just returned from having my blood taken for my yearly check up thingy. Blood pressure and heart rate are in a good position and in a ‘fit’ category.

There's no reason to worry.

Next is to see what the blood work looks like. Everything last year looked good so we’ll see what things look like this year.

While I was at the clinic I was chatting with the nurse and we ended up talking about people who don’t go for a physical because they simply don’t want to know if there is anything wrong or out side of the normal range.

This is troubling because the first step to getting your health in order is to know where you are right now. If something is out of whack I want to know about it so I can take the necessary steps to correct it…or at the very least do as much as I can in my power to get it as close to normal or optimal as possible before turning to medicine or any other kind of procedure.

Burying your head in the sand is the worst thing to do. Knowledge is power and the more you know about your body and your current condition the better you can decide how to proceed with your diet and fitness lifestyle.

Having your blood work done isn’t the be all and end all of everything related to your fitness and health, but it’s a vital chunk of information that you should be aware of. This is one area of health research that is a good predictor of certain health risk such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some related morbidities.

As I’ve stated in the past and will repeat here, I think there is a shape to health, and the closer you get to your ideal Adonis Index raito (for men) and Venus Index ratios (for women) the more likely your health measures will all be in good standing.

I say this because they type of life you need to live to get to AI or VI is also a life that requires some effort in the gym and some *some* discipline with your diet.

Add these things together with an eye to these specific body shapes and the picture starts to take form that ‘health’ isn’t a destination but rather it’s a process.

Your personal definition of health and how much you value it will determine how much or little info you want to learn about your body and how much action you will or won’t take.

The choice is always yours.

John

In the interweb age you can find ‘answers’ to any question you can think of asking, but this doesn’t mean you’ve arrived a ‘truth’.

A Psychic will give you an answer, but it isn't the truth.

This is largely how the diet and fitness industry works, delivering ‘answers’ without really delivering truth.

People want to spot reduce fat (scientifically determined to be impossible) but you can buy a diet book with the answer to spot reduction.

People want to gain more muscle than is genetically possible (think about that for a second, it’s genetically impossible)…but there are program to do just that.

People want to know how to lose weight without reducing their calories (again, this is impossible) but there are program that say how to do it.

There are even books on how to grow taller! Yes, grow taller.

The point is that if you have a question, there is an answer out there, but that doesn’t mean you’ve arrived at the truth.

The next time you have a question and you think you’ve arrived at the be all end all answer, do a bit more reading and see if there is an alternative theory. Getting a balanced view of what your options are is smarter than falling for the next too good to be true answer.

In the end you just want to reach your goal and having the truth is going to be the fastest way to get there.

John