Month: January 2016

fitness

Exercise and chemotherapy (Guest post)

Michelle Lynne Goodfellow2 Comments

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Before I started adjuvant (post-surgery) chemotherapy for breast cancer, I had this fantasy that I was going to be the fittest, healthiest chemo patient the world had ever seen. In fact, early in my cancer journey, after I had a pre-mastectomy boudoir photo shoot, I decided that once I got my breasts cut off I was going to quickly achieve the body I’d always wanted – strong, muscular and athletic.

Well, I probably don’t need to tell you that real life intervened. I do love my post-mastectomy body, but the first (pre-chemo) months after my surgery were filled with me working like a demon at my paid job in order to get as much work done as possible before chemo might leave me too sick to work, and that didn’t leave me with much time for working out.

I did get to aikido five days per week before my chemo started, but had to give it up once the chemotherapy drugs made me vulnerable to infection. It’s just too risky for me to be grappling with several people each class, in a busy community centre.

Besides, I was still working full-time for the first six weeks of my chemotherapy, putting in extra hours to tie up some projects before I started my current sick leave.

The reality is that chemotherapy has temporarily changed my life. I don’t know why I expected it wouldn’t. But anyhow, here I am at nearly the half-way mark, and I’m wondering what happened to all my best-laid plans.

The good news is that, now that I’m on sick leave from my job, I have more time to look after myself. And I have a new fitness goal: look after my body first. Seems like a good plan for someone who’s had cancer. My body would have died quickly – more quickly than I might like, anyhow – if I hadn’t received treatment. Why not invest some time and energy into keeping it alive and well as possible?

Putting my body first means making sure that I’m getting enough rest, and eating food that’s nourishing. (After a couple of months of gobbling down comfort food and junk food – especially over the holidays – I’m taking the time to prepare satisfying, home-cooked whole foods from scratch.)

Putting my body first means getting some kind of exercise every morning before sitting down with a book or a movie, or before doing something creative like drawing, sewing or writing.

Putting my body first means not overdoing it, either. Now is not the time to get in the best shape of my life. But I can do little things that make a big difference. I walk up and down the stairs in my condo building (all 14 storeys) once each day. It takes me about 5 1/2 minutes. If I feel well enough, I can even do micro “sprints” – walking up a flight or two as fast as possible.

I do this seven-minute high intensity workout every day. Again, depending on how well I feel, I can adjust the intensity. But it’s only seven minutes, so it’s not too taxing.

I start each day with 20 minutes of gentle qigong exercises that warm me up and get my blood flowing. I often do a few yoga poses, too.

I have a bunch of physiotherapy exercises from injuries in the past year. I rotate through those exercises as I feel able to. (The ones for my knees and ankle will prepare me to get back on the aikido mat when my chemo is over.)

I take short dance breaks throughout the day; I put on some of my favorite music and bop around my living room.

I also have some basic movements from aikido that I can practise, and that will help me get up to speed quickly when I get back on the aikido mat.

(Walking is also a great exercise during chemo, and you may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned it. I live in Canada, and it’s cold and yucky outside right now. Walking in the dead of winter? Nope. Not interested. I do walk to all my chemo treatments and cancer-related appointments, because I live close to the hospital and parking is outrageously expensive, but that’s it.)

I’m just about to start a new chemo drug that is especially hard on the body’s immune system. I’ve read recently that exercise can boost the immune system by increasing white blood cell production. Doing as much light exercise as possible will help me stay healthy when I’m immunosuppressed.

I’ve also read that regular, moderate exercise can help combat the fatigue that comes from chemotherapy, and chemo patients should make a point of exercising in order to help improve fatigue. This makes me feel good about taking the time to do some moderate exercise. So far I haven’t experienced much fatigue, and I want to keep it that way.

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You may also be interested in these blog posts by Michelle about her breast cancer experience:

Michelle Lynne Goodfellow works in nonprofit and small business communications by day, and also enjoys writing, taking photographs, making art and doing aikido. You can find more of her work at michellelynnegoodfellow.com. Michelle has also written about her breast cancer journey on her blog, Kitchen Sink Wisdom.

fitness

Fitness and the Normative Body

Tracy I3 Comments

One of the great privileges that Sam and I both have as professors in the Department of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research is that we actually get opportunities to talk to smart students about fitness as a feminist issue.

As we did last year, we got to guest tonight lecture in the Women’s Studies course, “The Body.” This time, our colleague Andrea Allen invited us.

Sam spent her half talking about the “obesity epidemic.” When I got there, she had a slide up about HAES and was adeptly dealing with questions about health concerns and size diversity.  I love the point she made about the poor outcomes when doctors “prescribe” diets and exercise to their overweight patients.

If there was a medication that had a 5% chance of making things better and a 20% chance of making them worse, she said, no respectable physician would prescribe it.

The students had a short break during which they could process the message — diets, as a rule, don’t work. If we want people to thrive physically, we need to take the focus off of weight as a measure of fitness and emphasize movement for its own sake instead.

For my half, I started off talking about the panopticon, self-surveillance, and the normative messaging about the ideal feminine body that we are all supposed to conform to. I could pick out the Women’s Studies majors because their hands flew up when I asked if anyone knew what “the panopticon” was.

I got to talk about women working out in sheds (appropriate outrage on the faces of the students) and that ridiculous and irresponsible fat-shaming research that says people should keep a mirror in the kitchen to eat in front of if they want to lose weight. Ugh!

I engaged the class in a discussion of the way fitness culture excludes a great many groups of people by failing to represent them. to welcome them, to be accessible to them–women, people of color, disabled people, people over 35, people who lack the time or the money to be able to participate.

I’m not teaching my own classes this year, so I had fun with the students. They caught on quickly and there were lots of heads nodding. I like to think that exposing them to at least some critical thinking about fitness at an early age makes it more likely that they will learn to question some of what we assume is true.

And some of them said things that made it clear that they’re already starting to do that, like:

  • poverty doesn’t just render fitness pursuits less accessible because of money, but also because of time
  • when diversity is represented in fitness media, it’s really only gender diversity. You might get a mixed group of older white people (but there are no young people with them), or white para-athletes (note that the only “disabled” athletes we ever see are those who compete at elite levels), or people of color but they’re young, with bodies that meet the normative ideals
  • the body is a site of empowerment because it enables self-expression
  • women are in a lose-lose situation because they either do “lightweight” physical activities (like aerobics classes) or they are unfeminine

And just like last year, by the time we got to the end not a single person was willing to defend the claim that it’s impossible to be fit and fat or that thin=fit (maybe they were thinking it, but I like to think that they were all convinced). If that’s all they take away, that’s a good start.

It was an enjoyable evening with a great turnout (despite a snow storm). I hope we get invited back next year.

 

 

fitness

You say goodbye, and I’ll say hello

Sam B2 Comments

It’s January. And whether you are a fan of New year’s resolutions or not (I’m not. See New year, new goals?) it certainly feels like many of us like the idea of a clean slate. It’s the whole “new year, new me” thing. (I like Jenn’s New Year Same You better. You’re pretty great now. Really.)

What are you saying goodbye to in 2016? For me, I make my best changes when one thing replaces another so I tend to focus on additions. Whether it’s the boring (eat more vegetables, add in the protein) or the fun (wear all the party dresses, teach in fun shoes, dance!) I like to add.

But Cheryl is interested in giving up the things that get in the way of her happiness. For 2016, she’s giving up gossip, people pleasing, and perfectionism. That’s a nice way to think about change in the new year.

What gets in the way of your happiness? Can you have less of it in 2016?

 

burning

fitness

Are we home yet?: How cycling changes your perception of distance

Sam B6 Comments

imageDriving home from Toronto the other day I realized again just how my sense of distance has changed since I started riding. I think of “home” as places within my riding range. So Westchester Bourne totally counts as home even though I don’t take that exit. It leads to Belmont and Nilestown, frequent cycling destinations.

Over time of course that range has changed. I remember laughing one time because I realized that a corner I once struggled to ride as far as now counted as “almost home.” Ilderton and Vanneck is still about 25 km from my home and at one point there and back was my longest ride. In fact, the first time I encountered that intersection I’d driven my car to the edge of town first with the bike on a rack on the back.

But now? Now I think of that final 25 km–10 of which is noodling on the multi-use pathway–as pretty much home. There’s only 15 km of fast riding left. And then a slow noodle…

I love how cycling has connected to me to the network of country roads, small towns, and coffee shops and diners around London, Ontario.

How about you? Do you know the names of all the small towns and coffee shops within a 100 km range of your home town? How far from home starts to feel “almost there”? 

fitness

Have You Taken Your Pulse(s) Lately?

Tracy I12 Comments

Is it just me, or is the category of “pulse” foods one of those trends that just appeared out of nowhere.  I mean, I’m vegan, so lentils, chickpeas, and dried peas aren’t anything new to me.  I just grouped them in with “legumes” before last week.

But now, the ever-evolving world of healthy eating has come up with a new (to me) name for these things: pulses.  According to Pulse Canada (yes, there is a national organization devoted to pulses), here’s the difference between your everyday legumes and your pulses:

Pulses are part of the legume family, but the term “pulse” refers only to the dried seed. Dried peas, edible beans, lentils and chickpeas are the most common varieties of pulses. Pulses are very high in protein and fibre, and are low in fat. Like their cousins in the legume family, pulses are nitrogen-fixing crops that improve the environmental sustainability of annual cropping systems.

What got them into the limelight is that the United Nations has declared 2016 “The Year of the Pulse.”Read the press release here. Why should we care about pulses? Because they…

are not merely cheap and delicious; they are also highly nutritious source of protein and vital micronutrients that can greatly benefit people’s health and livelihoods, particularly in developing countries.

The CBC Radio One program, Fresh Air, interviewed Canada’s ambassador for the International Year of the Pulse (yes, we have our own ambassador), Chef Michael Smith, before he hosted his launch event, a dinner featuring pulses.

Their show notes include the chef’s recipes for Chocolate Brownies (featuring black bean flour–let me know where you find that) and for Pulse Tacos (in which lentils plus your favourite beans or chickpeas take centre stage).

You can even take “the pulse pledge,” where you pledge to eat something with pulses at least once a week for the next ten weeks. Throw some chickpeas on your salad. Steam up some edamame (is that a pulse or just a legume?). Make a batch of dal. Whip up some delicious-looking Lemon Poppy Seed Pancakes. You can find that recipe, plus a whole bunch more, on the Pulse Pledge website.

And when you sign up for the pulse pledge, you’re given the option of getting a new pulse recipe every (day? week? I can’t remember what they said but I soon will know) for the next ten weeks.

I like this pledge, and it’s not just because I already eat pulse foods just about every day.  I like it because eating these foods on a regular basis, particularly in place of animal-based proteins, is a good way to serve our own health while also taking care of the planet’s health (if you weren’t aware, livestock agriculture emits a lot of greenhouse gases, thus making it a large contributor to climate change).

And the UN claims that pulses are a great way to address rural poverty:

Pulses also offer a great potential to lift farmers out of rural poverty, as they can yield two to three time higher prices than cereals, and their processing provides additional economic opportunities, especially for women.

Take the pledge. If you’re not already eating pulse foods regularly, now’s a good time to experiment with what they have to offer. Cheap, delicious, and great plant-based protein sources, pulses are a food trend (if you can call it a “trend” — the UN does, even though we’re only two weeks into the pulse year) worth jumping on.

I’ve already signed up. And I’m planning to make this split pea soup on the weekend.

 

accessibility · fitness · traveling

Sneaking movement in: The airport edition

Sam B4 Comments

Make your day harder! I love that slogan when it comes to everyday exercise.

And I do it. I lift weights waiting for the bathroom in a busy house. I run around campus between buildings and the parking lot. I don’t go so far as doing squats, burpees, and lunges while the microwave does its job, or the kettle gets ready to boil, but I admire those who do.

I’ve also incorporated it into my house design, by not making changes. There’s no second story laundry. Instead hampers of clothes get carried down to the basement and back up again.

I also aim to get lots of movement when I travel. I don’t use a suitcase with wheels. Instead, I carry a back pack. Mostly I avoid moving sidewalks. I’m glad they’re there for people with mobility issues and that’s not me. I often take the stairs instead of standing on the escalator. And usually I reach the top first.

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The back pack helps. No dragging the wheeled suitcase up the steps.

I’ve written a bit more this here.

There’s one airport though where I do use the escalator. Canadians, can you guess?

I’m just back from the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association. This year it was held in Washington, DC and I flew Porter out of Toronto.

Billy Bishop Airport, I love you. But those steep stairs, not so much. Even the escalator is a bit daunting.

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Photos from the Ports Toronto website. Available for download here.

How about you? Brave enough to face these stairs? (I’m not yet) What other strategies do you use while travelling to get some exercise?

The new US dietary guidelines, or: just tell me—are eggs good or bad this year?
fitness · nutrition

The new US dietary guidelines, or: just tell me—are eggs good or bad this year?

catherine w5 Comments

Every so often, the US government convenes an expert panel to gather the newest research in order to review and revise its dietary guidelines. The newest version, out this week, is here.

News flash: the main message of the report is this:

people should

  • eat more fruits and vegetables
  • eat more whole grains
  • eat a variety of proteins
  • restrict sodium intake
  • restrict sugar intake
  • restrict saturated fat intake

We shouldn’t drink much alcohol, either.

The guidelines don’t say anything about laughing while eating salad alone, but I’m sure that can’t hurt.

salad

With that level of advice, one wonders how much money the US government spent on such shocking news for the eating public. But they did lay out some dough for this lovely graphic below:

graphic

So eggs are back in favor. Eggs were in trouble in 2012, when the press reported the results of a study  concluding that eating egg yolks contributes to atherosclerosis (plaque build up in arteries, increasing risk for heart disease) almost as much as smoking. Yes, you read that right. Almost immediately, the study was shown to have many limitations. Basically, researchers interviewed a bunch of patients with heart disease and asked them, “hey have you smoked?” and “hey, have you eaten a bunch of eggs?” Because many of those patients answered, “uh yeah, I think so”, the researchers made this conclusion.

Well, of course it wasn’t exactly like that, but it’s not that far off as a description.

I bring this up because, for me, the eggs-good-eggs-bad-eggs-good nutrition pendulum is emblematic of the problems with nutrition and dietary research. In brief, here are three contributing problems.

  1. Evidence for nutrition research is hard to gather.

There’s a great article out this week from FiveThirtyEight (thanks, Matt, for telling me) that is both informative and amusing (a worthy goal for all of us writers); it talks about the ways nutrition researchers gather evidence for studies. One way (that divides up into some different methods) is to ask people what they ate recently. It turns out that people’s reports aren’t very reliable—they overestimate amounts or frequency of some foods and underestimate others. Another way is to enroll people in lab studies where their food intake is totally controlled and monitored. This is a problem because results based on those studies don’t apply well to eating in the real world.

The fivethirtyeight folks also did their own food research and ran some analysis to find correlations (these people know from statistics) and released this table with lots of specious correlations. The small p-values on the right indicate that they have very strong evidence for those correlations. However, there’s no reason to believe that consuming table salt has a real-life connection to having a positive relationship with one’ internet service provider. In sum, all sorts of relationships can be found, but targeting the important nutritional ones is very difficult, more so given the sorts of evidence we have been able to gather.

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2.  Nutrition policy is politically charged.

As soon as the guidelines came out this week, there was a spate of harsh criticism, charging the various food lobbies (meat in particular) with using their influence to obfuscate or bypass the scientific committee’s results (found in their report here). One consumer website here said this:

Some public health observers see a big win in these guidelines for the meat and soda industries. Harvard’s Walter Willet commented that “there are clear benefits of replacing red meat with almost any other protein sources — but the meat lobby is very powerful in Congress. The Dietary Guidelines Committee was also quite explicit in their recommendation to limit sugar-sweetened beverages, and that’s not talked about in the guidelines at all.”

If you’re looking for even more fiery criticism, look no further than here for a knowledgeable if vitriolic political critique. A couple of highlights: the author David Katz points out how the guidelines talk about emphasizing “nutrient-dense” foods and reducing sugar intake and saturated fat intake, when the scientific report language was much clearer: processed and junk foods and red meat and processed meat intake should be reduced, as well as consumption of sodas and other sugar-sweetened beverages. But the food and soda lobbies are powerful and were successful in getting the language of the guidelines to be vague or not helpful to consumers. Read the guidelines for yourself here and see what you think.

3. Nutrition guidelines make all sorts of values claims and value judgments about foods.

In the guidelines, the messaging is that many foods are considered “good” or “bad”, which makes eating seem like a moral act. And that’s weird and bad for us. Tracy has blogged a lot about the destructivenesss of the “good/bad” dichotomy for foods. Here and here are just a few of her posts on this topic. For me, setting up foods as being “good” or “bad” is a quick prelude to setting myself up for being “good” or “bad”, depending on which foods I happened to eat that day. Trying to live a life with meaning, productivity, connection and satisfaction is hard enough for all of us. Why add this other burden of trying to be a “good” eater? Yes, we want to be healthy (whatever that means to each of us), and happy (ditto). There are lots of paths to those goals. Guidelines can be useful, especially when they’re backed by strong science. But moralizing them is beyond the bailiwick of science, and in general a bad business for our well-being. So eat eggs, don’t eat eggs—it’s up to you.

 

fitness

Walking shouldn’t be weird

Sam B15 Comments

The scene is a hotel in a large American city. I’m at a conference and heading out the front door to run an errand and meet colleagues at a restaurant down the road. I’ve Googled the directions, looked at the map, timed it all out, and put on my comfortable walking shoes. The only thing I need to know leaving the hotel is whether to turn left or right.

I shouldn’t have asked.

“Where are you walking to?”

I give the address.

“That’s too far to walk.”

No, it’s not. I’ve got the map. And Google says it’s 31 minutes away.

“That’s a long way.”

I want the exercise.

“But it’s cold and it’s raining.”

<Fact: It’s 6 degrees Celsius.>

I’m from Canada. This is warm. And it’s just mist. And I’ve got my umbrella.

“Okay then.”

The concierge shakes his head disapprovingly.

Now to be clear I don’t think this is an American versus Canadian thing. I’ve had similar reactions from hotel staff in Winnipeg and Calgary.

In New York walking would be normal. In Chicago walking downtown would be fine. In Toronto and Montreal, ditto. You walk.

But some cities culturally aren’t walking cities. Walking shouldn’t be weird.

See The US Surgeon General’s Call to Make Walking a National Health Priority.

The U.S. Surgeon General is calling on Americans to “step it up” — that is, to do more walking. He says this easy and free activity could prevent serious health problems.

On Wednesday, Dr. Vivek Murthy launched the “Step It Up” campaign in Washington, D.C., a national effort to promote walking and wheelchair rolling. He calls it a powerful tool to prevent chronic health problems.

“The science tells us that 22 minutes of brisk walking or moderate physical activitycan get you these health benefits of reduced risk of heart disease and diabetes,” Murthy explained.

And I love, love, love that he’s including wheelchair rolling in this campaign. Yay for inclusive fitness!

 

 

Sat with Nat

When am I fit enough?

natalieh (she/her)8 Comments

I’ve asked this question of myself, my doctor and my health coach, when will I know when I’m fit enough to sustain my health and well-being?

I’ve been thinking about that a lot as I’m looking at my health. My eating habits are at a stable place where I hit the vegetables I need and enjoy food without binging. 

My cardio is 2-4 times a week and I walk about 10,000 steps a day. 

I’m feeling good, is this my sustainable fitness level? Is it enough?

There has to be a point I get to where I’m no longer aiming for more or better or faster but I don’t know yet what that looks like.  

 
Have you picked a benchmark or defined “fit enough” for you?

fitness · sex · weight loss

Orgasms are not a weight loss tool!

Sam B6 Comments

I saw the following make its way through my social media newsfeed–To stay healthy, masturbate as much as possible!

See also the 30 Day Masturbation Challenge.

Happy January! (There’s a challenge for everything it seems. I saw the Lentil Challenge today.)

We’re a health and fitness blog so I clicked. I was also curious. The health benefits of orgasm have been in a the news a lot lately but they are almost all talking about the health of men. It’s usually reduced prostate cancer risk they’re on about. And in general I’ve got a beef with health news headlined as universal that’s really only about men.

But no. This story didn’t make that mistake. It’s actually about the health benefits of masturbation for women. Nice! But but but…It does tout weight loss as one of the advantages of regular masturbation.

Really? Honestly? Truly? Yes.

Okay, less stress, better sleep, but weight loss? I guess because it’s about women and orgasm there needs to be a weight loss tie-in. Geesh.

“According to the 2009 University of Michigan study, orgasm helps the body release oxytocin, the “love and bonding” hormone. Oxytocin release lowers cortisol, the main stress hormone chronically elevated in many women that can lead to stress eating and weight loss resistance. In other words, higher levels of oxytocin make us happy and keep those emotionally-triggered food cravings for sugars, cheese and other “happy foods” at bay.”

There’s lots to hate about that but one of things that bugs me the most is the idea you can tell something about someone’s sex life from some totally unrelated fact about them, like their weight. Hey, fatty bet you don’t get much self love!

I’m not sure if there’s a name for this particular fallacy, drawing a connection between two unrelated things about a person. You know one thing about a person and so you think you also know another.

Here’s two more examples.

Some years ago a new age-y male friend, sex positive but with a serious woo streak, told me that he thought my fear of death meant that I wasn’t having good enough sex. Why do men feel qualified to make judgments about this? Was he going to be offering up his own skills to fix things? Sigh. It also might be just a little mansplain-y given that I teach and write a bit about death. But whatever. What’s the idea behind his claim? Good sex equals feeling transcendent, connected with the universe, less individual, more a part of something larger. I agree about all that. But frankly it doesn’t make me feel better about death. I want to survive as me, not as part of the ether. See Shelly Kagan on death and survival if you want to hear more about what philosophers tend to think matters when it comes to survival.

The other concerns a topic that I get so angry about that I can barely even write a paragraph even though I’ve had a blog post sitting in the drafts folder for months. It’s emotional eating. Understanding and ending emotional eating is supposed to end your weight woes as well. What’s the idea? When you’re stressed, angry, or sad, instead of dealing directly with your emotions you eat instead. Maybe. But I’m not so sure that emotional eating is always a bad thing. Food is one of the ways we make ourselves feel better, celebrate with friends, drown our sorrows, etc. You can’t deny the emotional significance of food for human beings.

Worse though is the idea that you can tell something about someone’s emotional health from their size. Oh us chubby emotional eaters! Fat people aren’t really happy. They’re just covering up. Inside they’re crying and eating cupcakes to feel better. No no no. Me, I eat cupcakes because they taste great.

Back to orgasms, have lots if that’s your thing.

But for God’s sake please don’t masturbate for the sake of weight loss. Just don’t.

bigO