From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Sat Apr 12 2003 - 07:52:14 MDT
Those who know me off-list are aware that I'm no paragon of extropian
purity when it comes to my own personal fitness. Slothful and
vice-ridden, I've often thought that if Max and Natasha were the
poster-couple for "the extropian lifestyle," I must be the "before"
picture. Well, among my other flaws, I'm vain, so recently I have had
to come face-to-face with the consequences of my bad habits. Partly at
my urging, Max and Natasha got scuba certified last year and, now that
they've moved to Texas, we're about to go on our first dive trip
together in Mexico. There's nothing more disgusting than a fat,
middle-aged bald guy in a wet suit. Of these, the thing most under my
control is my weight, so a couple of months ago, when we decided on the
date for our dive trip, I decided I'd try to do something about my
physical condition.
Six years ago or so, when I was about to turn 40, I went through another
"crisis" -- deciding that I would lose weight and try to get into shape.
And I did: On my 40th birthday I was in the best shape I'd been since I
was 25, with a flat stomach and at least a little muscle on my
otherwise-pear-shaped frame. But I paid a price for the latter,
especially. Going to the gym without guidance -- and pushed by vanity
and the looming four-oh -- I overdid the weight training. I have
arthritis (how bad, I only learned later), and ended up hurting myself
in a number of ways. By the time I was 41, many of my joints were
wrecked. The chronic pain I found myself in worked as a steady
disincentive to exercise, and my trips to the gym ended up becoming less
and less frequent. I got into a bad pattern: Infrequent workouts in
which I'd lift too much, hurting myself again, which kept me away from
the gym for longer and longer periods. My professional work also became
more time-consuming so that, three or four years ago, I just stopped
going to the gym. Meanwhile, my poor eating habits kept putting the
pounds on. By this last New Year, I was as weak as a kitten, still had
lots of joint pain and had gained 40 pounds. All of this combined to
create a constant, nagging feeling of what I can only call self-loathing
that undermined my confidence on just about every level.
Three things have changed and, as a result, I've experienced an amazing
turn-around. First, the new class of "Cox-2 inhibitor"
anti-inflammatories are now on the market and my arthritis pain is all
but a thing of the past. I couldn't take the old kind of
anti-inflammatories because they caused me intense nausea. If, like me,
you've got joint and connective tissue problems and haven't tried the
new anti-inflammatories -- do it. I take Vioxx every day now and am
essentially pain-free, a major and positive change in my life.
Second, I got a very good coach to teach me how to exercise without
hurting myself and who has developed a workout regime for me that looks
sustainable. The friend who took me under his wing is ten years older
than me, so he knows the challenges of middle-aged fitness (and also
happens to have been a former member of the Israeli national basketball
team, so he's a life-long athlete who really knows what he's doing).
The key has been to accept the limitations that age and my arthritis
impose on me and work around them. I had to suck up my pride and accept
that during the first month or so I was lifting very little weight and
able to do only very limited duration sessions on aerobic exercise. I
learned that the important thing is to tire my muscles without stressing
my joints, so we did a "12-10-8-10" regime, in which I did 12 reps with
very low weight then, after a short rest, did 10 reps of the same
exercise with a slightly increased weight, and so on. This is a PERFECT
pattern for basically starting "from scratch" as I was and building some
basic muscle strength from almost nothing.
A second crucial lesson I've learned is that doing the exercises with
the proper form is essential to getting the exercise you need without
hurting yourself. Back when I was doing things without guidance I was
jerking too much weight, stressing my back, neck, legs and elbows all
the time. Now I've learned that you can isolate the muscle group you
want to exercise and keep stress off the parts of your body that can
easily be hurt. I'm now lifting more than twice the weight I was when
we started two months ago, and have had NO joint pain at all -- NONE.
This is nothing short of miraculous to me and has been proof to me that
doing things RIGHT beats doing things with just EFFORT every time.
There are now many exercises I'm doing that I could not do AT ALL just
two months ago. And all of this has been achieved with just TWO ONE
HOUR WORKOUTS PER WEEK. I'm flat amazed and owe a deep debt of
gratitude to my friend who showed me this relatively simple formula.
Finally, I've been on a fairly radical Atkins-type diet for six weeks
and, as of this morning have lost TWENTY POUNDS in that time. Now I
know that there's still some controversy about the low-carb,
high-protein Atkins formula, but I don't feel like I've done any harm to
myself at all and the results are clear. The first week or so was
pretty tough: I just LOVE sugary, carb-heavy sweets and my libertine's
personality is apt to over-indulge in such things all the time. But
once I got through a period of withdrawal (during which I felt like
ripping someone's arm off every time I saw a cookie) -- this lasted
about a week, it became much easier and, being able to basically gorge
on protein as much as I liked -- which I have done without shame -- made
it easier. Once your metabolism kicks into ketosis, fat starts to just
melt away. This element of the diet is very important, since getting
visible results is an important psychological factor. I can weigh
myself every day and almost every day see some impact. A belt I'd just
about busted out of is now on its last notch -- in the good direction.
Suits I haven't been able to wear in three years are now part of my
wardrobe again -- if not exactly in the latest style.
The combination of all these factors having dramatic results in a short
time is nothing short of astonishing to me: Being twice as strong, being
pain-free and carrying 10% less weight has made me feel like I've been
transformed into some kind of superman: I walk lighter and feel much
better. Even without the sugar and carbohydrates in my diet, I have more
energy as a result. Given that many in our group have sedentary
"brain-worker" lifestyles and a survey of any EXTRO meeting reveals a
good deal of extra poundage and not enough lean muscle, I thought I'd
share this story. If I can do it, anyone can.
Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www.gregburch.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Apr 12 2003 - 08:04:31 MDT