The New York Times is reporting on a new study that says "Women With Mate Get Heavier. The study notes that women with children and a partner gain the most weight, but women with just a partner gain weight as well. Well, yes, of course. The hilarious thing is that the article seems at a loss to explain why this happens. One epidemiologist offered that "A more active social life may help explain why women with partners gain more weight. 'Think of going to a restaurant ... They serve a 6-foot man the same amount as they serve me, even though I’m 5 feet 5 inches and 60 pounds lighter."
Well, perhaps. But I think the answer is a little more obvious. Of course there are many reasons to gain weight, but women with children and partners just don't have the same amount of time to fit exercise into their day. They need to take care of their kids and they want to spend quality time with their husband. There just isn't enough time in the day to squeeze in the hour or so of exercise per day that leads to a stable weight (an hour to two hours if you want sustained weight loss).
Plus, it's hard to gauge how much you should be eating when there's a man around the house. Portions for him are naturally larger, so yours creep up as well. "As long as I'm eating less than him," you think, "it's all good." Not necessarily. Men can eat like up to a third more calories than women, which is a lot.
Finally, one of the most potent predictors of whether I will binge eat or not is having certain types of food around the house. With kids and a man in the mix, there is just a larger variety of food in the cupboards. There are sweets for the kids and salty snacks for the guy, and you're making meals that please kids and men (heartier fare) instead of preparing a salad for dinner. With just me and my daughter, I can buy single-serving packs for her snacks and lunches, and keep my own favorite sweets or potato chips far away.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
You Want a Toe? I Can Get You A Toe ...
Remember a few months back when I was bemoaning the fact that I wasn't hardcore enough because I didn't need to remove my toenails to further my running career? Well, the hardcore is definitely setting in. Long distance runners (and apparently even those like me who can only run a half-marathon distance at a shot) are notoriously plagued by toenails that turn black and fall off. Well, none of mine have fallen off yet, but I took off my shoes after a long run last week to find that, indeed, one of my toenails has started to blacken up. Yay! Or maybe not...
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Gym-Hopping
I worked hard last quarter. Yes, on Anatomy and Physiology, but I also took a one-credit weight training class and was responsible for lifting weights twice a week for an hour. Although I didn't get to my goal of benching 135 pounds, I believe the discipline of having to be in class twice a week and weight train for an hour at a shot (without the distractions of cardio equipment or other gym frippery) made me stronger.
But now I'm on break for two weeks and the PSU Rec Center is closed. Detraining commences!
Not really, because I had a plan. I would acquire free passes to several local gyms, pretending that I was planning to join. For your convenience, I've decided to review them here.
First up, L.A. Fitness.
The branch on 82nd Ave. in Southeast Portland is just a little more than a year old, and still has that new gym aura: The equipment is shiny and working well, the locker rooms are clean. There's a giant floor of cardio equipment and bunch of free weights with the space to use them (Often gyms will have free weights, but there isn't really much room to unrack them and actually do your lifting). There's a pool and a co-ed hot tub (points off for this--a single-gender hot tub in the women's locker room is so much better), and a single-gender sauna.
Getting a pass was super-easy: You just go to to the L.A. Fitness website and print up a one-time pass. Once there, the sales pitch was fairly low-key; the sales counselor let the low prices ($30 per month) speak for themselves.
Mid-afternoon on a work day the place was blissfully uncrowded. The other patrons were a multi-culti mix of young, buff SE Portlanders, mostly working out in the free-weight area.
Next, the Beaverton YMCA.
A friend had given me a week pass for the Y several months ago, and I found it fortuitously while cleaning out my purse a couple of days before Christmas. I immediately jumped on the highway and headed over there.
Guess what! The Beaverton YMCA is pushing kettlebell training! There are signs up for it all over the facility, and there's a delicious rack of kettlebells just sitting there. The bummer is that the kettlebells are all locked up and the training costs in addition to your membership. So I didn't get to get my hands on any of those sweet 'bells. (Although there was a Christmas-red one sitting on a counter with an ad for the training pasted to it. Every time I would walk by, I would think about whisking it off the counter and doing a few sets of swings with it.)
Anyway, I've hit the Y three times since the 23rd, and it's been worth the drive out each time. The facility has plenty of good weights and cardio machines. There's a cool balcony where you can do your stretches and while watching the players in the glassed-in racquetball courts. Each time I went, there were plenty of people there, but it didn't feel crowded. As befitting the Y, the vibe was family-friendly, with patrons about evenly divided between the middle-aged (my people!) and high school/college kids (some probably the offspring of the others). I loved the cardio equipment here--Precor machines that measure your heart rate and tell you if you are in the "warm-up," "fat burn," or "cardio" training range. I spent close to an hour and a half on the treadmill yesterday, alternating between running at 6.8 mph to get my heart rate up and walking on a 15 percent grade to burn fat. I won't be doing that at the PSU Rec Center any time soon--there's a 30-minute limit on the cardio equipment.
The Y has a lived-in look, which is nice when it comes to the work-out floor, but poses problems when it comes to the locker rooms. The ladies' showers are old and dingy, but clean, and there is an empty (!) whirlpool in the middle of the locker room. On the other hand, you don't have to bring your own lock--the lockers are free, you just trade your membership card in for a key at the front desk. Plus, complimentary mouthwash! And, best of all, the sauna seems quite new, and is one of the hotter saunas I've experienced. The only drawback is that two out of the three times I was there, it was filled to capacity with older Asian ladies taking the heat, so there was nowhere to sit down.
But now I'm on break for two weeks and the PSU Rec Center is closed. Detraining commences!
Not really, because I had a plan. I would acquire free passes to several local gyms, pretending that I was planning to join. For your convenience, I've decided to review them here.
First up, L.A. Fitness.
The branch on 82nd Ave. in Southeast Portland is just a little more than a year old, and still has that new gym aura: The equipment is shiny and working well, the locker rooms are clean. There's a giant floor of cardio equipment and bunch of free weights with the space to use them (Often gyms will have free weights, but there isn't really much room to unrack them and actually do your lifting). There's a pool and a co-ed hot tub (points off for this--a single-gender hot tub in the women's locker room is so much better), and a single-gender sauna.
Getting a pass was super-easy: You just go to to the L.A. Fitness website and print up a one-time pass. Once there, the sales pitch was fairly low-key; the sales counselor let the low prices ($30 per month) speak for themselves.
Mid-afternoon on a work day the place was blissfully uncrowded. The other patrons were a multi-culti mix of young, buff SE Portlanders, mostly working out in the free-weight area.
Next, the Beaverton YMCA.
A friend had given me a week pass for the Y several months ago, and I found it fortuitously while cleaning out my purse a couple of days before Christmas. I immediately jumped on the highway and headed over there.
Guess what! The Beaverton YMCA is pushing kettlebell training! There are signs up for it all over the facility, and there's a delicious rack of kettlebells just sitting there. The bummer is that the kettlebells are all locked up and the training costs in addition to your membership. So I didn't get to get my hands on any of those sweet 'bells. (Although there was a Christmas-red one sitting on a counter with an ad for the training pasted to it. Every time I would walk by, I would think about whisking it off the counter and doing a few sets of swings with it.)
Anyway, I've hit the Y three times since the 23rd, and it's been worth the drive out each time. The facility has plenty of good weights and cardio machines. There's a cool balcony where you can do your stretches and while watching the players in the glassed-in racquetball courts. Each time I went, there were plenty of people there, but it didn't feel crowded. As befitting the Y, the vibe was family-friendly, with patrons about evenly divided between the middle-aged (my people!) and high school/college kids (some probably the offspring of the others). I loved the cardio equipment here--Precor machines that measure your heart rate and tell you if you are in the "warm-up," "fat burn," or "cardio" training range. I spent close to an hour and a half on the treadmill yesterday, alternating between running at 6.8 mph to get my heart rate up and walking on a 15 percent grade to burn fat. I won't be doing that at the PSU Rec Center any time soon--there's a 30-minute limit on the cardio equipment.
The Y has a lived-in look, which is nice when it comes to the work-out floor, but poses problems when it comes to the locker rooms. The ladies' showers are old and dingy, but clean, and there is an empty (!) whirlpool in the middle of the locker room. On the other hand, you don't have to bring your own lock--the lockers are free, you just trade your membership card in for a key at the front desk. Plus, complimentary mouthwash! And, best of all, the sauna seems quite new, and is one of the hotter saunas I've experienced. The only drawback is that two out of the three times I was there, it was filled to capacity with older Asian ladies taking the heat, so there was nowhere to sit down.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
My Own Personal Half-Marathon
I'm so tired of going out for a long run in the afternoon and darkness (and the attendant cold) falling when I'm not quite done yet. Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice, which means--yay--that from here on in, the days will only get longer until summer.
To celebrate, I decided to go one more lap around the route I take that runs from the Steel Bridge to the Hawthorne Bridge. Each lap is 2.66 miles, and my max so far has been four, for a little over 10 miles. Today, I decided to push myself and run another lap. I ended up at 13.3 miles--an actual half-marathon distance.
Of course, my time was nothing to brag about, and I did end up walking for about half of that last lap, but it still counts! I was glad I pushed myself into the extra lap. I had been stuck at 10 miles for a couple of months and I realized that the reason was that, while I was semi-confident my body could pull off the extra lap, my mental game was not up to the task. But now that I've done it, hopefully it will become the new normal.
I guess I can't say I'm training for a half-marathon anymore. Now I'll say, "I'm training for a marathon." Boy, now that sounds scary, doesn't it?
To celebrate, I decided to go one more lap around the route I take that runs from the Steel Bridge to the Hawthorne Bridge. Each lap is 2.66 miles, and my max so far has been four, for a little over 10 miles. Today, I decided to push myself and run another lap. I ended up at 13.3 miles--an actual half-marathon distance.
Of course, my time was nothing to brag about, and I did end up walking for about half of that last lap, but it still counts! I was glad I pushed myself into the extra lap. I had been stuck at 10 miles for a couple of months and I realized that the reason was that, while I was semi-confident my body could pull off the extra lap, my mental game was not up to the task. But now that I've done it, hopefully it will become the new normal.
I guess I can't say I'm training for a half-marathon anymore. Now I'll say, "I'm training for a marathon." Boy, now that sounds scary, doesn't it?
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Best Day Ever
Well, maybe not the very best day, ever. That might still have to be the day my daughter was born. But today was close.
I went to work this morning to help get the Campus Rec Center ready for its "soft opening." Here are the tasks I performed: I ran up and down stairs with weight plates and other fitness equipment. I unpacked and assembled a medical-office-style scale and calibrated it. I re-assembled a medicine ball rack someone had put together incorrectly. I tried to get the personal trainers to practice using their calipers by putting them on me to assess my body fat levels, but it was a no go--the only disappointing thing about the day.
But other than that was all very satisfying work that beat the heck out of editing copy.
When I came home, I emailed my Anatomy and Physiology professor to check the grade on my final. Are you sitting down? I managed to get an A on the final and an A overall in the course. I nearly wet myself with glee and surprise.
I went to work this morning to help get the Campus Rec Center ready for its "soft opening." Here are the tasks I performed: I ran up and down stairs with weight plates and other fitness equipment. I unpacked and assembled a medical-office-style scale and calibrated it. I re-assembled a medicine ball rack someone had put together incorrectly. I tried to get the personal trainers to practice using their calipers by putting them on me to assess my body fat levels, but it was a no go--the only disappointing thing about the day.
But other than that was all very satisfying work that beat the heck out of editing copy.
When I came home, I emailed my Anatomy and Physiology professor to check the grade on my final. Are you sitting down? I managed to get an A on the final and an A overall in the course. I nearly wet myself with glee and surprise.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
A New Shirt for a New Life
When I walked into the gym a little more than two years ago, I NEVER could have guessed that the path I was starting on would lead to such a profound change in my life--not only in my body, but in my career aspirations. This week, I started my first job in fitness. I'm a student employee at the Portland State University Campus Recreation Center. I work in the Fitness Center. The facility is so brand-spanking new it gleams. There is a floor of fresh, new cardio equipment, including interactive Expresso Bikes, and a floor of shiny free weights and and fancy cable FreeMotion strength training machines. The elliptical machines are hooked up to a system that captures energy generated by exercisers to help power the building. There's a 1/11th of a mile indoor running track with a nicely squishy surface.
Meanwhile, windows wrap around the whole facility, bringing in lots of daylight and views of everything from the streetcars in Urban Plaza to Mt. Hood.
There were more than 700 people vying for a handful of jobs with Campus Rec, so I am very pleased that I landed one of them. Come and visit me there sometime--I'll be the Fitness Center staffer with a giant smile on my face.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Not as Fit as I Thought
According to the Wii, my fitness age is 70. And I thought all those muscle aches were from overzealous bench-pressing. Apparently, they are age-related.
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