In the past, I've seen a number of references to research studies which showed very clearly that merely 'visualizing' something, like shooting hoops (basketball), could result in skill nearly as good, after some time, as the people actually practicing.
I'm a mind-freak so I've always found this fascinating.
So I was really intrigued by this blog article referencing research which allegedly found that you can build nearly as much muscle by visualizing building it as by actually working on it physically.
While I don't expect this to make many buff dreamers, I do think it is an intriguing consideration for existing bodybuilders when it comes to what they are doing with their minds while working out.
http://jonathanfields.com/blog/brain-buff-research-thoughts-on-strength-fitness-weight-loss/
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Lifting the Weight of Emotion
It's taken me a year to get around to confessing this. I confessed to my journal buddies, and to a trainer friend, and now on my blog.
Have you ever had one of those situations where you're having some feeling or experience, and it's powerful and real for you, but you feel like telling anybody about it makes you sound like some kind of lying whining goon? You just feel so stupid you don't even want to bring it up. Well that's how I feel about this.
I'll summarize it like this:
Weight lifting hard seems to be stimulating my body in a way that invokes a ton of emotion. I suspect it is stored biochemical based on past emotion. It's not positive. It is fear and rage and more, a flood of a million feelings at once, so powerful that the first time it happened, I dropped my dumbell and nearly ran from the room, and went into denial and 'forgot' about my interest in weight lifting for six months.
It's happened repeatedly now. It profoundly affects my doing it at all, or more than several minutes.
I love weight lifting. Love it. I think it's the greatest feeling, I think testosterone is the coolest natural drug ever, I think I feel so good when I am lifting that it's almost a different personality on me entirely. Much more tough and competent and physical.
So anything that interferes with that is a problem. I've never heard of anybody having their bodybuilding interfered with by an emotional problem. That's just ridiculous, it seems to me.
It made me wonder if my self-therapy about a horrible childhood, a two year period (mostly) during which I gained ~200 lbs (age 22-24), might have instead just 'insulated' me from my own body, my own emotions. It wasn't long after that I broke through the sociopathic repression of emotion, and who knows?--maybe it was the massive fat that somehow made my body feel less threatened by that; maybe all that stored biochemical of the past is there, stored under the myelin sheath of the nerves as the Biogram theory postulates, and weight lifting is stimulating, releasing it or something. I don't know. I have theories but I don't really understand it.
All I know is that weight lifting as a physical thing is awesome and I have no problem with it and am driven to do it. But the emotional overwhelm that seems to kick in some minutes in now -- it didn't used to. (?) -- has made it an incredibly difficult, challenging activity.
This is July 2008. It's basically been a year since I was doing any regular workouts. I'm down to 366#, which with an over 500# high weight is not so bad, but I've got a very long way to go. Exercise is starting to feel critical.
I'm starting to WANT to do it. I believe this isn't just because I'm lighter. I believe that my average insulin is lower over time and my body is hence able to access more of my stored fat for energy. I did a glucose test recently and my numbers were pretty good:
Fasting: 60 (I'd fasted too long, it was late afternoon)
~110+ fast-acting carbs (orange juice, & blueberry smoothie)
15 minutes later: 130
1 hour later: 107
2 hours later: 97
I'm certain my blood sugar wasn't anywhere near that healthy a couple of years ago, when eating just about anything would nearly put me into a coma a little while later, when I had huge very dark patches under my armpits from insulin resistance. My body seems to be healing somewhat, from eating well. Thank God!
So this is a new month and I feel it's time to start again.
And if what I'm lifting is less about iron and more about the weight of my emotion, so be it. If I need to play angry rock at 160 decibals and scream my head off while doing it, so be it. Maybe on some level the physical work is forcing me to experience a part of myself I wouldn't otherwise, that sitting comfortably, sedentary, never forces me to face. It's difficult. But I guess it's about time.
PJ
Have you ever had one of those situations where you're having some feeling or experience, and it's powerful and real for you, but you feel like telling anybody about it makes you sound like some kind of lying whining goon? You just feel so stupid you don't even want to bring it up. Well that's how I feel about this.
I'll summarize it like this:
Weight lifting hard seems to be stimulating my body in a way that invokes a ton of emotion. I suspect it is stored biochemical based on past emotion. It's not positive. It is fear and rage and more, a flood of a million feelings at once, so powerful that the first time it happened, I dropped my dumbell and nearly ran from the room, and went into denial and 'forgot' about my interest in weight lifting for six months.
It's happened repeatedly now. It profoundly affects my doing it at all, or more than several minutes.
I love weight lifting. Love it. I think it's the greatest feeling, I think testosterone is the coolest natural drug ever, I think I feel so good when I am lifting that it's almost a different personality on me entirely. Much more tough and competent and physical.
So anything that interferes with that is a problem. I've never heard of anybody having their bodybuilding interfered with by an emotional problem. That's just ridiculous, it seems to me.
It made me wonder if my self-therapy about a horrible childhood, a two year period (mostly) during which I gained ~200 lbs (age 22-24), might have instead just 'insulated' me from my own body, my own emotions. It wasn't long after that I broke through the sociopathic repression of emotion, and who knows?--maybe it was the massive fat that somehow made my body feel less threatened by that; maybe all that stored biochemical of the past is there, stored under the myelin sheath of the nerves as the Biogram theory postulates, and weight lifting is stimulating, releasing it or something. I don't know. I have theories but I don't really understand it.
All I know is that weight lifting as a physical thing is awesome and I have no problem with it and am driven to do it. But the emotional overwhelm that seems to kick in some minutes in now -- it didn't used to. (?) -- has made it an incredibly difficult, challenging activity.
This is July 2008. It's basically been a year since I was doing any regular workouts. I'm down to 366#, which with an over 500# high weight is not so bad, but I've got a very long way to go. Exercise is starting to feel critical.
I'm starting to WANT to do it. I believe this isn't just because I'm lighter. I believe that my average insulin is lower over time and my body is hence able to access more of my stored fat for energy. I did a glucose test recently and my numbers were pretty good:
Fasting: 60 (I'd fasted too long, it was late afternoon)
~110+ fast-acting carbs (orange juice, & blueberry smoothie)
15 minutes later: 130
1 hour later: 107
2 hours later: 97
I'm certain my blood sugar wasn't anywhere near that healthy a couple of years ago, when eating just about anything would nearly put me into a coma a little while later, when I had huge very dark patches under my armpits from insulin resistance. My body seems to be healing somewhat, from eating well. Thank God!
So this is a new month and I feel it's time to start again.
And if what I'm lifting is less about iron and more about the weight of my emotion, so be it. If I need to play angry rock at 160 decibals and scream my head off while doing it, so be it. Maybe on some level the physical work is forcing me to experience a part of myself I wouldn't otherwise, that sitting comfortably, sedentary, never forces me to face. It's difficult. But I guess it's about time.
PJ
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Mosey
Well! Good thing I wasn't in a hurry to get all fit and trim or anything, since I've not been working all that hard on it the last week! But I'm slowly shifting my stance and focus here, so I think it's going to be fine. Probably another couple weeks will slide me fully into something worth talking about.
Things I DID do:
1 - Mowed the front lawn again. Sheesh, it grows like crazy.
2 - A very minor amount of weight lifting from a rocking chair.
Geez, that sums it up.
Things I DIDN'T do:
1 - finish shoveling the soil into containers (maybe today)
2 - plant everything in the containers
3 - rake the backyard (a huge job, zillions of tiny twigs and long grass)
4 - mow the backyard
So hopefully the next few days will see me finally catching up.
Each month, at the turn of month, my kid and I have what she calls 'awesome day'. We go to the olive garden for lunch, then we spend all day in the bookstore, drinking mocha frappes and reading. Sometimes we go somewhere else and she can buy something, like a shirt or shoes or something. Sometimes if we aren't stuffed we'll go somewhere for a late dinner (like 9pm) or just dessert (like outback). The date has to match when I get my paycheck so it's seldom exactly at the first/last day of the month. This month it is this Saturday the 24th.
Hence, our "summer of lowcarb" plans have been set for the 25th, after that. Not that it isn't an always-thing, just that we really want to focus this summer. It's a set-apart time because she's out of school.
Except my body decided yesterday ... to make my start date yesterday. I didn't really want to. I had carby stuff I wanted to eat! But sometimes my body seems to have a mind of its own, and it flatly refused. So this means I'll be going off LC just as I got into ketosis, on Saturday, then back on again. Gah. That is never a good idea, it's hard to do (the going back on and staying there after eating megacarbs). But oh well... I will make it work. Even a few days not eating badly will make me feel more energetic I'm sure.
Having had about 10 carbs in the last 48 hours or so, after being at a normal carby diet (a few hundred a day) for quite awhile, I already feel like eating anything with carbs. Last night the kid asked me to make her oatmeal, but I had to admit that if I went near it, I'd eat it, so... NO. She's been on LC with me before so she knows what it entails. I'm starting to get in that mode where I think vegetables sound good. This definitely indicates approaching ketosis, since they never sound good otherwise. By the time asparagus sounds orgasmic, I'll be within 24 hours max of a hard Ketosis.
Tonight the kid has Karate which means I can't do jack 'cause I'm busy driving her to it, waiting an hour, then back, and added to getting off work and dinner and getting her ready for bed, that's my night. (Welcome to parenthood. "You will have a life again in approximately 18 years.") But I talked with Ry and we've agreed to do a more regular stint at the walking park at least a few times a week, so I don't lose the cardio fluency. I sort of dream of the day when I can rapidly walk the whole thing without it being all that hard.
Which reminds me, there is this thing I'd really like to get. It's a vest (they have male and female forms) that holds small weights, usually 1 or 2 lb rods the vest is designed for. They call it a weighted vest. You start out wearing it around empty or with a pound or so, and then you gradually increase the weight, so it gives your whole body time to adapt. I was thinking it would be kind of cool if I were able to gradually add weight as I lost weight, so instead of losing that muscle I might get to keep it. Is this a crazy idea? It seemed kind of neat to me. I would already have bought one a year ago except my concern that it might not fit me. Hopefully if I can lose another 25# or so the extra large will.
I'm planning to take measurements again -- as frightening as that is! -- and my weight the day we 'officially' begin LC again (5/25), as well as do a fresh survey of what weight I can lift and whether/how many of various exercises I can do. I don't yet have any specific goals for the summer or for the rest of the year except "better than I can do now."
That's all for this week. Hopefully next week I can say I've caught up on tons of garden stuff, shipping stuff, got a new weight training plan together, done some walking park, and been lowcarb for 8 days (minus 1). I should have all my starting numbers, weights and exercises as well.
I'm pretty excited about this summer and the rest of the year. I know it'll be a lot of work, but I'm sure I can do it. It's just a matter of focus and intent.
Things I DID do:
1 - Mowed the front lawn again. Sheesh, it grows like crazy.
2 - A very minor amount of weight lifting from a rocking chair.
Geez, that sums it up.
Things I DIDN'T do:
1 - finish shoveling the soil into containers (maybe today)
2 - plant everything in the containers
3 - rake the backyard (a huge job, zillions of tiny twigs and long grass)
4 - mow the backyard
So hopefully the next few days will see me finally catching up.
Each month, at the turn of month, my kid and I have what she calls 'awesome day'. We go to the olive garden for lunch, then we spend all day in the bookstore, drinking mocha frappes and reading. Sometimes we go somewhere else and she can buy something, like a shirt or shoes or something. Sometimes if we aren't stuffed we'll go somewhere for a late dinner (like 9pm) or just dessert (like outback). The date has to match when I get my paycheck so it's seldom exactly at the first/last day of the month. This month it is this Saturday the 24th.
Hence, our "summer of lowcarb" plans have been set for the 25th, after that. Not that it isn't an always-thing, just that we really want to focus this summer. It's a set-apart time because she's out of school.
Except my body decided yesterday ... to make my start date yesterday. I didn't really want to. I had carby stuff I wanted to eat! But sometimes my body seems to have a mind of its own, and it flatly refused. So this means I'll be going off LC just as I got into ketosis, on Saturday, then back on again. Gah. That is never a good idea, it's hard to do (the going back on and staying there after eating megacarbs). But oh well... I will make it work. Even a few days not eating badly will make me feel more energetic I'm sure.
Having had about 10 carbs in the last 48 hours or so, after being at a normal carby diet (a few hundred a day) for quite awhile, I already feel like eating anything with carbs. Last night the kid asked me to make her oatmeal, but I had to admit that if I went near it, I'd eat it, so... NO. She's been on LC with me before so she knows what it entails. I'm starting to get in that mode where I think vegetables sound good. This definitely indicates approaching ketosis, since they never sound good otherwise. By the time asparagus sounds orgasmic, I'll be within 24 hours max of a hard Ketosis.
Tonight the kid has Karate which means I can't do jack 'cause I'm busy driving her to it, waiting an hour, then back, and added to getting off work and dinner and getting her ready for bed, that's my night. (Welcome to parenthood. "You will have a life again in approximately 18 years.") But I talked with Ry and we've agreed to do a more regular stint at the walking park at least a few times a week, so I don't lose the cardio fluency. I sort of dream of the day when I can rapidly walk the whole thing without it being all that hard.
Which reminds me, there is this thing I'd really like to get. It's a vest (they have male and female forms) that holds small weights, usually 1 or 2 lb rods the vest is designed for. They call it a weighted vest. You start out wearing it around empty or with a pound or so, and then you gradually increase the weight, so it gives your whole body time to adapt. I was thinking it would be kind of cool if I were able to gradually add weight as I lost weight, so instead of losing that muscle I might get to keep it. Is this a crazy idea? It seemed kind of neat to me. I would already have bought one a year ago except my concern that it might not fit me. Hopefully if I can lose another 25# or so the extra large will.
I'm planning to take measurements again -- as frightening as that is! -- and my weight the day we 'officially' begin LC again (5/25), as well as do a fresh survey of what weight I can lift and whether/how many of various exercises I can do. I don't yet have any specific goals for the summer or for the rest of the year except "better than I can do now."
That's all for this week. Hopefully next week I can say I've caught up on tons of garden stuff, shipping stuff, got a new weight training plan together, done some walking park, and been lowcarb for 8 days (minus 1). I should have all my starting numbers, weights and exercises as well.
I'm pretty excited about this summer and the rest of the year. I know it'll be a lot of work, but I'm sure I can do it. It's just a matter of focus and intent.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Alternative Exercise
(I'm reviving this blog, and about time.)
OK, so lately I've been doing that very odd thing that people did before they had gyms and personal trainers: I've been exercising by doing something constructive.
I have to rake, then mow, then weed-eat, the property. That's a lot of work for me. Granted, I live in a tract home, but it's still a lot of work. I have to stop and rest on the porch bench for awhile between each part. But I'm getting better at it.
I worked (and paid my housekeeper to work) on the garage for months now and I can actually walk all the way through it to "get to" things like the lawn mower, tools, etc. -- what a concept! This is great and makes doing things a lot easier. Used to be that after DP moved in I had no idea where to find anything (and when I found it, it would invariably have been left out to rust), and the effort of even getting a couple tools to DO something was just off-putting. Now I'm starting to get my life and property organized again -- I spent over a year since he left doing almost nothing besides working, coding (though not much of that anymore), and working on cleaning out the house, yards, and garage.
I have regular watering, weeding, and just finished all the amending and planting, for my backyard garden. It's a standing garden which is great, but that also means you're doing stuff leaning over with a hand trowel, not a tiller and a shovel, and trust me, two-year weeds as thick as my wrist and three feet deep are still hard work. It was abandoned for two years and I'm just restoring it this spring. Still much work to do on the overall area but at least the beds are planted.
I spent half the day today shoveling half my potting mix -- this is a dumptruck load in my driveway of a 'soilless mix' that is spaghum peat moss, pine fines, perlite, and something else I forget -- into containers (20 - 70 qt containers) to add to the garden collection. It started raining huge drops, but the minute I finished my mad rush to cover it all--2 minutes, if that--the rain ceased.
Got distracted with work, kid, shopping etc. I'm considering trying to mow the lawn before the storm arrives since it's already too long again and I won't be able to mow for a couple days after it rains. Trying to start the lawnmower nearly injures me so it's more a matter of my courage than my energy at this point. In my attempt at procrastination, I'm blogging instead.
***
OK, so lately I've been doing that very odd thing that people did before they had gyms and personal trainers: I've been exercising by doing something constructive.
I have to rake, then mow, then weed-eat, the property. That's a lot of work for me. Granted, I live in a tract home, but it's still a lot of work. I have to stop and rest on the porch bench for awhile between each part. But I'm getting better at it.
I worked (and paid my housekeeper to work) on the garage for months now and I can actually walk all the way through it to "get to" things like the lawn mower, tools, etc. -- what a concept! This is great and makes doing things a lot easier. Used to be that after DP moved in I had no idea where to find anything (and when I found it, it would invariably have been left out to rust), and the effort of even getting a couple tools to DO something was just off-putting. Now I'm starting to get my life and property organized again -- I spent over a year since he left doing almost nothing besides working, coding (though not much of that anymore), and working on cleaning out the house, yards, and garage.
I have regular watering, weeding, and just finished all the amending and planting, for my backyard garden. It's a standing garden which is great, but that also means you're doing stuff leaning over with a hand trowel, not a tiller and a shovel, and trust me, two-year weeds as thick as my wrist and three feet deep are still hard work. It was abandoned for two years and I'm just restoring it this spring. Still much work to do on the overall area but at least the beds are planted.
I spent half the day today shoveling half my potting mix -- this is a dumptruck load in my driveway of a 'soilless mix' that is spaghum peat moss, pine fines, perlite, and something else I forget -- into containers (20 - 70 qt containers) to add to the garden collection. It started raining huge drops, but the minute I finished my mad rush to cover it all--2 minutes, if that--the rain ceased.
Got distracted with work, kid, shopping etc. I'm considering trying to mow the lawn before the storm arrives since it's already too long again and I won't be able to mow for a couple days after it rains. Trying to start the lawnmower nearly injures me so it's more a matter of my courage than my energy at this point. In my attempt at procrastination, I'm blogging instead.
***
I haven't been weight lifting for a long time. I'd like to re-start that. I had a long list of issues that interfered--by which I mean, interfered with my personal priorities, because obviously, had I wanted to do it more than I didn't, I would have.
I've been walking off and on, with the kid. My city has a walking park with a 1-mile track. It's surprising how fast cardio facility increases if you just move regularly. I remember realizing this decades ago with bicycling, that it would only take several days in a row of doing it to move from so wiped out I had to stop ten times and gasp for my life, to doing vastly more, faster, with no rests, and being ok with it.
At right is a pic of the kid (11-Apr-08) at the walking park with me. She's wearing my severely oversized (for her) sweatshirt.
The cardio-facility fades fast though. If I don't move much for a couple days, it seems like I lose a whole lot and have to spend a couple days recovering facility I had previously.
Eating crappy food takes me down fast, since it not only adds oxygen problems (gluten foods give me asthma which worsens sleep apnea so I'm O2 deprived), and some asthma, but all the water-bloating that goes with eating a lot of carbs too, which affects how limber I am, how stressed my heart is from bending over, etc. My "fitness level" can change radically in two days for better or worse just depending on whether I'm eating steak and eggs vs. pasta and tacos.
I have cooking goals this week, like roasting a whole chicken and using the carcass for a soup; whipping egg whites stiff for a variety of experimental, vaguely breadish recipes; making more cocoa coconut oil/cream bites; and I got a few different "Black Angus" burgers and steaks at Super Walmart frozen section I want us to try. Tonight we must do stir fry and use our broccoli and colored bells before they go bad, with chicken and some gluten-free soy sauce.
My eating goals are mostly to refocus. All in all, my eating has sucked off and on for the last -- well actually, for about the last 17 months to be honest -- but fortunately that means it is "ok" about half the time, I haven't gained any weight back. I still weigh 375 on LC (390 if I fall off--I hold about 15lbs of water weight for carbs if I'm not LC) which is sort of miraculous given how much crappy eating and lack of exercise I've had a lot of the time.
My exercise goals for the moment are still centered on the reality around me:
- Get all the soilless mix into all my containers, which means shoveling and wheelbarrowing.
- Get all the containers with drainage holes in them (not on the bottom but on the side near the bottom) which means a lotta time with the drill. (Yes. Smart people do that part FIRST. That is simply not how the timeline worked out.)
- Get all the weeds that 'recovered' in the garden totally out of there.
- Get the front lawn mowed and edged again. It's a weekly job in Spring. This will be two weeks if I wait till next Saturday but it will be forest by then so I can't wait that long.
- Get the back yard raked and the bazillion twigs (from arm-thick and 10' long to zillions of finger-size twigs, from the old ice storm) outta there so I can finally mow and weed-eat back there, before the grass is taller than me.
There is a big long list of OTHER stuff I ALSO need to do -- but not this week.
I've been reading about lectin/protein intolerances and I really want to make a bigger effort to get totally off gluten. Although I'm not giving up cheese at this point, I'd like to reduce the amount of dairy I intake as the protein, caseine, I react with craving to which tells me I have some allergenic reaction to it. (It doesn't escape me, the irony that I spent my whole life eating two primary foods that I am probably literally intolerant to. It's no surprise I'm huge but it's rather amazing I'm not dead already.)
I also need to get back to my note-taking on the Gary Taubes book 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' as well since even looking at the book as I walk past tends to inspire me back to eating meat/eggs/veggies. Boy that book was convincing. If I were on the jury, some people would already be hung! The man may be the first person who can make even my tendency for "overkill" look pitiful and weak. It's only for really good readers who don't mind really dense material, but it's awesome for those.
And... I want to do another beginning of weight lifting. I slightly injured myself the last time, plus my back room kept getting one of the 8 cats into it (two know how to open the doorknob!) and using it as a litterbox, so even when cleaned up you just couldn't be in it due to the smell, which killed my enthusiasm frankly. The cats are going 100% outside as soon as this storm cycle is over so the horrendous flea situation we had last summer will not be repeated. Too many cats act like a wild pride--I am still waiting for DP to come get his so I only have my 4. (As usual, even long after I get rid of him again, still in some way he is managing to muck up some portion of my life! Oh well. I do love the cats, of course.) Anyway so within a week max I should have my "weight lifting room" restored.
The TV/VCR/DVD is there now. I got rid of the whole media tower, center, TV, and all our VCR tapes (many hundreds) not long ago on freecycle. We have DVDs only now, in a couple fat zipper books, and what visual stuff we have is in the back room, as it hasn't been used for much else.
A coworker sent me a Christian "walking" exercise DVD, something to do indoors if it's raining or something. That was nice of her. Also low-fat cookbooks. Apparently she either did not understand lowcarb that I mentioned repeatedly, or she is hoping to convert me, heh. It still surprises me that people think lowcarb is nothing but bacon and butter; several lowcarbers I know all but live on chicken and fish and broccoli and asparagus and things like that.
... that would not be me.
Anyway, I'm going to start posting on this blog hopefully weekly and talking about what exercise I have done, planning, and any subject matter that relates to exercise or my experience in that area. I think I've waxed on enough now...
... I have to go mow the lawn.
PJ
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
