pour some...

I hope you took some time out of your busy day of turkey-brining or suitcase-packing or office-clock-watching (or whatever you usually do the day before Thanksgiving) to actually watch a little of that video. Ah, the 80s. The mullets, the jeans, the men in "muscle" shirts totally devoid of muscles. It was a special time. Ahem.

But we're not here to discuss my misspent youth. We're here to discuss SUGAR.  Which is totally on topic at my house since I just made (and ate) poppin' fresh cinnamon buns at 5 am, plus put some non-sugar free pumpkin syrup in my coffee. It's almost a holiday. Shut up.  Also?  This post is illuminating to me as it has brought to my attention that I cannot spell cinnamon without help. I seriously tried three different wrong combinations of vowels before I gave up and let spellcheck do it.

So here is my question for you.  (No, it's NOT "why can I not spell simple words?" Pretty sure that's 'cause my mom smoked when she was pregnant. Or something. God.)  My question is, do YOU care how many grams of sugar a day you ingest?

Some of my friends and co-workers will scrutinize a nutrition label and accept or reject a food based on how many grams of sugar are in it.  It's totally foreign to me.  I read nutrition labels to see how much protein and/or how many calories are in something. I used to check out how many carbs, or carbs minus fiber, were in something, back when I used to care about that. But I have never counted my sugar grams. (Something I've never been crazy about??? Huh. Well, there had to be one thing.)  I don't even know what's good, bad, or mediocre when it comes to grams of sugar. How many grams of sugar are you supposed to eat if you're on the healthy eating train? Pretty sure the answer is NOT zero, because fruit.  But I see hyperventilating on the interwebs because some blogger or other dared call a recipe "healthy" when it contains xyz grams of sugar, so I know there are people who take this shit uber seriously.  I'm not sure why, but then again, I tend to reject out of hand any scientific research that suggests I should give up cookies.

Those are really good, btw.

Another thing that bewilders me is how there are people who will avoid sugar-sugar, but will substitute for it in recipes with maple syrup or agave or molasses in the name of "health."  I mean, you know I will substitute the evil splenda for sugar in recipes which I will then call "healthy" but what I really mean is low calorie and full of protein. Since I'm pretty aware that the probable cancer I'll get from the splenda twenty years from now negates any health claims.  But maple syrup/agave/molasses aren't even low calorie and I'm pretty sure they spike your blood sugar as much as sugar-sugar. So where's the healthifying?  Disclosure in the name of total transparency: I do have agave in my kitchen for making things for a couple friends who don't use artificial sweeteners but yet would feel psychologically better eating something "healthier" than sugar. I don't wanna rain on their parade even if I don't quite get the floats. (Humorous Thanksgiving analogy there? YOU be the judge.)


And to show you how hopped up on sugar I was this morning, here are some pictures of me from the mid 80s that I decided to share. Just to, y'know, illustrate the bad hair and clothes and makeup, in case you didn't watch that video I picked out just for you.  (Also probably because my mom smoked when she was pregnant) I couldn't figure out how to make my scanner work correctly. So after five tries, I gave up and took pictures of the pictures with my phone and emailed them to myself. Such a technical genius.

1.) That's my mom's navy blue pleather sofa and maroon carpet, not mine.  My taste may have been tragic, but not THAT tragic.

2.) I think these photos prove without any doubt that NO ONE in my family could ever shoot a decent picture.  Unless you consider the off-centeredness and the cutting off of half a person's head to be valid artistic choices. In which case...did you own a navy pleather sofa too?

xoxo

Happy Thanksgiving!

omg, i'm the worst blogger evah

Sorry, guys. Work and life in general have been kicking my butt***.  It's not even that I don't have time to write--I have weekends off (mostly) after all--it's that I don't have the mental energy to come up with either anything interesting to say or an entertaining way to present something that isn't actually interesting.  I keep thinking I'm going to have a fitness adventure and try something new, then come back to report on it, but then it's like, who am I kidding? go to gym, do same things, go to same yoga classes I know I like, rinse, repeat, blah.

I take that back.  I did go to a yoga workshop last month that was more meditation than yoga and it was very cool (though not, obviously, a "fitness adventure.")  The same weekend I did that, I also went to two other yoga classes, which is two more than I usually go to. I was kinda thinking that between the yoga, the meditation workshop, and the acupuncture--I've started back at acupuncture, have I mentioned that?--I could probably claim to be the most relaxed person in the history of relaxation. Stop laughing. Okay, if you know me, you can laugh. Briefly. But seriously, I think there's some truth in it. One of my co-workers, who is a basket case of work-related stress and anxiety, said to me (and our boss) the other night that working with me was good for her because I talk her off the ledge when she's stressing about shit that can't be controlled. I was like, oh honey, no. If I'm the least anxious person in the room, Houston, we got a problem.  But who knows? Maybe I AM the most relaxed person in the history of relaxation.

I have done one other new-ish thing over the past month. There have been several mornings where I've left work at 4:45 in the morning and it's been just so delightful outside, weather-wise, that I just couldn't bear to go to the gym and instead kept walking on by it.  And just kept walking the 3 1/2 to 4 miles to my ultimate destination where I'd get on the bus or commuter rail to my house.  There is something other-worldly and delightful about walking right through the city of Boston in that hour between 5 and 6 am and if I were not the worst blogger evah, I'd have done a whole post on it complete with pictures I took. But, y'know. And now that the polar fucking vortex is upon us, I'm not foreseeing very many more early morning walks/opportunities to take those as-yet nonexistent pictures, so that post will have to wait till spring. Or never. One of the two. I will say this, however.  If you ever have the opportunity to take a long walk or run through a city at that hour of the day, when it's still dark or just getting light and there are people around, but not too many, and traffic, but not too much, do it. It's like another world. A very pleasant, alien world.  (All the traffic lights at all the intersections on Boylston Street are flashing at that hour of the day. WHO KNEW?)

Okay, enough being positive n' shit.  On to the complaint department.  Because I would also like to update y'all on what's been pissing me off lately.

1.) Wasting food.  I threw out a whole pound of ground turkey this morning that I forgot was in my refrigerator. The sell-by date was 11/11. Oops. I am a moron. Luckily ground turkey is dirt cheap, but I am still pissed at myself.  I also threw out a tupperware full of canned pumpkin that had gone moldy the other day. I've been making that pumpkin cream cheese bake I shared the recipe for quite a bit and since it only calls for 82g of pumpkin at a whack, that means leftover canned pumpkin in a tupperware. The last time I bought canned pumpkin, the giant can of it was only like literally 20 cents more than the can that was half its size. But buying the giant can does NOT save you money when it molds before you can use half of it, Andrea you moron, you. That's my economy tip for today, kids.

2.) My own ignorance of basic knowledge. So, when I could not make the pumpkin oatmeal bake I wanted for breakfast the other day due to sad pumpkin tragedy, I was kinda stymied about what I could substitute. I gave up and just made proats. Sigh. But it made me realize I don't know enough about the chemistry of baking to just willy nilly alter recipes and I should DO something about that. Like, what is the difference between baking powder and baking soda? Don't they do the same thing? Why do you need both in the same recipe? How did someone figure out you need 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp baking soda in that recipe? What would happen if you used 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tsp baking powder instead?  Does anyone know of a good book (or website even) that would explain the science behind baking to me?  It might save me from eating proats. Which I am SO over.

3.) Aggressive sales people.  I was in the Nordstrom activewear department the other day, purportedly looking at North Face jackets. Purportedly, because I can't not also look at all the other workout clothes if I'm in a 20 foot radius of them. It's a sickness. So, I'm browsing the sale rack when Uber Perky 19 Year Old Salesgirl gloms onto me and helpfully explains that the rack I am looking at contains size extra small to medium, while that rack over there contains large to extra large. "Just so you know." Um, thanks? I think I could figure that out on my own?  I move onto other rack. She follows me, making a comment on everything I touch, most of them prefaced with "just so you know." Finally, I am at a rack of black winter jackets and she has to come over to point out that there are actually two different types of black down jacket on that rack.  "Yes! One has a hood and one doesn't, and one is puffier than the other!" I say totally deadpan.  She doesn't get my sarcasm.  I leave without buying anything. Un-fucking-believable.

And, now, to end on a positive note, here are a couple of things that are not pissing me off.

1.) My new sofa that I bought during tax free weekend and which was finally delivered just before Halloween. It's very very comfy.  Toby thinks so too.

2.) These pants which are half-price at Athleta. They're having free 2 day shipping on the website right now, which is handy if, like me, overly aggressive salespeople have made you appreciate online shopping all the more.  Seriously, though, those are my favorite new workout pants. Just so you know.

3.) I'm on vacation from 11/21 to 12/1, woohoo. Maybe there will be a fitness adventure!

xoxo

***I also had Ebola. Or possibly a very bad cold. One of the two.

P.S. I saw a couple people online taking a fit at other people joking about their cold/flu/hangover being Ebola. Srsly? It's offensive to Ebola patients to poke fun at oneself by referring to one's admittedly minor ailment as a possibly deadly disease?  I guess I'm going to hell then.

peeeeee arrrrrrrrrr

I dunno if I've mentioned it in here before, but my friend adopted a new ginger kitten several months ago and named him Max. As in, one-rep max.  In an example of random coincidence, I had a friend in high school/college who back in the '80s also had an orange cat named Max. That Max weighed a whopping 25lbs, had a head the size of a grapefruit, and was called Max after Cedric Maxwell. (If you don't know who that is, you obviously were not a fan of the Bird-era Celtics. Your loss.)  But I am not here to discuss great sports teams of my youth or cats who were even bigger than my beloved fat Eddie (but, srsly, what's with orange cats and being jumbo-sized?), but rather one-rep maxes and PRs.


Max:

 (one-rep) Max:

(one-rep) Max:

(and just for a change of pace,) Eddie:

Mainly I would like to talk about PRs and one-rep maxes today so I can brag about how I went for one Sunday and got it. But in doing so, I've also got to talk about my not-so-glorious failure a couple weeks ago. That's the thing about lifting weights, kids. Sometimes you win. Sometimes gravity wins. The days that gravity wins, you can be pissed as hell. (Ask me about the time I [gently, I'm not a COMPLETE idiot] punched the side of the power rack in frustration.)  You can get down on yourself.  (Ask me about the million times I've told myself I suck.)  And after all that, sometimes you can try to figure out why gravity won.

So, yeah, a couple weeks ago I was at the gym doing rack pulls** and I was feeling good. Strong. I started out at 155x8.  It felt like I was picking up nothing, almost literally. Huh. Next I did 185x8.  Usually when I do these, I get about 6 reps at 185, but I have gotten 8 reps a time or two before. On this day, not only were the 8 reps doable, they didn't even feel difficult. I started thinking this was a day to go for a PR. Since my all-time rack pull PR was two plates*** (225) x3, and that was over a year ago, and since on a good day lately I've been able to do 225x2, I figured I'd go for a one rep max. And I figured that one rep max would be...235? But you don't (or *I* don't) just skip from 185 to 235. I did a set of 205x5 which was, again, what I've been getting lately on a good day. It felt good. Almost--but not quite--"easy."  Okay, I thought, I should be able to tie my rep PR at 225 and then get my one rep max at 235.  Took my proper amount of rest between sets. Pulled 225. Times two. Dammit. The fact I didn't tie my rep PR should have told me that despite how well the earlier sets had gone, it was not the day to try that one rep max. But I had gotten the idea into my head and sometimes ideas don't leave my head as promptly as they should. Sigh. I then tried three times to budge that 235 and couldn't even get it a millimeter off the rack.

I was pretty angry. I didn't punch anything though. Go me.  (Sigh again.)

Part of the problem was that someone had switched out a bench press bar for the oly bar that belongs in the power rack and the knurls on it were in a different place and also were very rough such that my palms were getting all torn up.  But I didn't want to use that as an excuse. The reason that bar did not move was NOT because my hands hurt, kwim?  On sober reflection, I was pretty sure that my progression was wrong, i.e. that the way I'd worked up to that 235 was not ideal.  

My pitiful amount of weightlifting knowledge may indeed be pitiful, but I do know that it's unwise to try for a one rep max too often. So I gave it a couple weeks and decided to try again Sunday, fueled by a blenderful of protein green smoothie, Dunkin Donuts iced coffee, and a whole wheat bagel.  And I did my progression differently. I started out lighter: 135x8. Then 155x8. Then 185x8. Then 205x5. And then I went directly to 235 and got that single glorious lockout. I wish I had video proof of it for y'all, but I was not filming.  

Mainly I'd have liked you to see the ridiculous new gym pants I was wearing.  I think I may have let on earlier that I Have a Problem with buying gym clothes. In that I, y'know, keep doing it. Especially when they're on sale. Athleta has these pants on sale.  I thought they were cute and I thought they were similar to some other Athleta capris that I have and like very much. And they have pockets. Well. They came in the mail and they are indeed pretty cute and very comfy and high quality and lalalala, but in direct sunlight they are far, far more neon green than that website photo would lead you to believe. I felt...conspicuous. 

Um, but that's a digression. We were talking about going for PRs and one-rep maxes. Allegedly.

Here are a couple articles about warming up for a one-rep max. I've read the T-Nation one ages ago and, yeah, apparently did not learn anything from it, because if it's to be believed I still did way too many warm up reps today.  My max might be higher than 235 if only I tested it correctly, huh?

Though according to this if my three rep is 225, my one rep should be 238, and if my eight rep is 185, my one rep should be 230, so 235 *is* in the right ballpark.  I tried a couple other one-rep max calculators on the interwebs and they all gave me the exact same figures, so I guess there is one scientifically accepted formula for this shiz. 

I'm sure this was all as boring as crap for those of you who don't lift and who don't want to read my links or play with that max rep calculator for like twenty minutes. Sorry. Here's a sleeping baby kitten and Klokov bending over for your time.

If there existed a picture of Klokov holding a baby kitten, I'm pretty sure the internet would explode.

xoxo

**I tried to find a video of rack pulls to throw in here in case there were those of you who don't know what they are, but 90% of them were people pulling from their knee height or above, which NO. I could probably pull 300 lbs if I were pulling from above my knees. God.

***I swear, half the appeal of lifting is the lingo. Throwing "I pulled two plates" into a conversation makes me feel so much less like your average middle-aged working stiff and so much more of a fucking badass. I know. SAD.

in which i tell you a secret

...and discuss how the decision I just made is probably gonna fuck up my health. C'est la vie!

Now, this is only a big secret in that I'm not supposed to tell anyone at work about it yet, but I figure the chances of anyone I work with finding this blog are about .3483 in one million.  I could be wrong about that. But it's my defense.

There's a new position being created in my department in the hospital and it was offered to me.  It's an overnight position, 40 hours, 6 pm-4:30 am, Monday through Thursday.  There are many reasons this appealed to me and made me express interest in the job and accept it when it was offered.  Shall we enumerate them? Oh, why not.

1.) Money! The shift differential amounts to an almost $7000/year raise. That's a lot--A LOT--of money for just changing your hours.

2.) I am not not NOT a morning person.  The hours of the job as it stands now, with the horrid commute, means I get up between 4:30-5 am four days a week and that is so far from what my body likes, it's not even funny.  It's been ten months since I started at this hospital and it's just now that I don't feel completely like death getting up at 4:30.  Plus, when I was recovering from surgery, then semi-unemployed/self-employed last year, and not on anyone else's schedule, I pretty much worked out that left to its own devices, my body would go to sleep around 1:30-2 am and wake around 8:30. I think adjusting to going to sleep at 8 in the morning is going to be a lot easier than adjusting to waking up at 4:30. I might be wrong. We'll see!

3.) The work itself.  My department has two divisions, which without going into too much boring detail basically are an inpatient unit and an outpatient unit. When I was first hired per diem, I was mostly in the inpatient, but as they offered me more hours and, eventually, a full time job, more and more of my work has been on the outpatient side. Which is fine, but it's also what I did for 25+ years at my old hospital job and, while I'm good at it, it's also very routine for me. The stuff they do on the inpatient unit, especially what the job involves overnight, is completely different, a new challenge, and just very interesting to me.

4.) The politics, etc.  It's a big department.  The number of people one has to deal with on day shift is exhausting to me as a mega introvert. And there's so much draaaaaaammmmmmaaaaaa.  Almost all the people I work with are perfectly nice individually, but get them together and there's always someone who's convinced they're working harder than everyone else or that they're getting the crap assignments or whatever. Or someone who takes offense to something someone else said. Or or or. It gets a little high school.  Plus--back to the mega introvert again--when we're not actually with a patient and we're at our computers doing work there, we're all in a big room and these people never shut the fuck up.  Ever. As a matter of fact, the other day two of us were in there (everyone else was with a patient at the moment) and we were both working away quietly when our supervisor comes in and asks why we're not talking and says it's too quiet. Kill me now.  Overnights right now is just one person (who are thus used to working by themselves quietly) and my new position will be to help them out during their busiest hours.  The woman who works Mon-Wed in particular is an absolutely delightful person and I know we will be able to work very well together collaberatively.

5.) Did I mention it's Monday-Thursday? Andrea will actually not be working any weekend days (aside from occasional coverage) for the first time in ten years. There are so many yoga classes and workshops that happen on Friday night or Saturday afternoon that I haven't been able to go to with my schedule as it is, so many things with friends on Saturday that I can't participate in...  Looking forward to being more in tune with other people's weekends!

Segue...so, mentioning that I'll be able to go to my favorite teacher's Friday yoga class again, plus attend some of her workshops, brings me to the on-topic part of this post. Not that you people aren't fascinated by the minutiae of my friggin' life, I'm sure. Ahem.  Anyway, one of my first thought was how all this was going to play into my fitness life. As it were.  One bad thing about the hours is that, if I take public transport, I can't actually get home at 4:30 am. However, there *is* a Y within convenient walking distance of the hospital that opens at 5 am. My thought is that it will work out perfectly for me to end my shift at 4:30, change at the hospital, grab a snack/breakfast , and then hit up that Y when they open. I'd be able to get my workout in and still be home before 7:30 and ready to collapse into bed by 8.

I was wondering, though, if there was any information on the web about how working overnights effects muscle growth or fitness, so I tried to do a little research last night. I couldn't find anything about that with a cursory search, but I did find out a whole lot of scary shit about how working overnights is gonna give me a heart attack or cancer.  The cancer thing especially worries me because apparently, melatonin is a natural cancer preventative, and people who sleep during the day and are in artificial lighting at night just do not produce the normal amount of melatonin in their bodies. And supplementing with melatonin is not the same as the stuff your body produces on its own.

It's kinda scary. But not scary enough for me to pass up what feels like a really positive career opportunity.

This all happens in September, kids.  If anyone has any suggestions for adapting to night shifts, any links to info on how, if at all, working overnights effects your fitness, or articles debunking that my lack of melatonin production is gonna kill me, I'm all ears.

xoxo

my first biometric screening (tm)

That's it. I am officially going to start referring to myself as a Healthy Living Blogger. Y'know, despite the fact that I drink beer. And wine. And the occasional hard liquor. And more coffee than your average village in Columbia. And eat lots n' lots of cheese. Some of it in the form of large bowls of mac n' cheese. And, oh yeah, I also eat limited edition confetti poptarts. And at least one brownie every Friday ever since I've been forced to go to this lunchtime conference at work where there's a whole table full of them. And I get less than 6 hours sleep a night most nights of the week. And I do "cardio" not cardio. But yes, boys and girls, despite this plethora of regrettable health habits which should serve as inspiration to actually no one, I stand before you today (ok, I sit before you balancing my laptop on my crossed legs, which is also a shitty health habit) and declare myself Queen of Healthy Living.

My HDL yesterday was 74.

I'm sure everyone reading this is aware, because *you* are all in tune with your health and fitness n' shit, but optimal value for HDL (i.e. "good cholesterol") is 60 or above. Fourteen muthafucking points over optimal, okay? I feel like I should have been given a gold star. Or a t shirt with the number on it. Something. Nope, all I got was a cheery, "You exercise, don't you! 'Exercise is medicine.'"

How'd this all come up, anyway? Well. As part of my shiny new employer-contributed-to health insurance, we have a thing every June wherein if you do three simple things (an online survey, an attestation that you do not smoke, and an in-person biometric screening in the cafeteria) you receive $400 off your health insurance for next year. And my screening was yesterday. They did a finger stick for (non-fasting) cholesterol. They took my blood pressure. (I tanked on that because I have documented "white coat" syndrome.)  They weighed and measured me and provided me with my BMI. The good news is that my BMI is 21. The bad news is that OMFG I am now 5'1.  I have shrunk a whole inch. I was so outraged by this, lulz, that she did it twice to make sure. Nope, 5'1. At this rate, I will be 4'11 by the time I'm 80.  

I'm looking into one of these.

Not srs. 

Well, a little srs.  I don't WANT to end up 4'11. Sad face.

The other blow to my ego was that they tested my body fat percentage with one of those handheld doohickeys and, despite my firm conviction that I am about 22-23% body fat, the bastard thing told me I'm 26%.  Not too outraged over that because I know those handheld things are inaccurate enough to be basically worthless and change wildly just due to how hydrated you are and so forth, but also because according to the little chart the cheery nurse showed me, a woman my age is optimally *supposed* to have between 24-32% body fat. So, yeah, I'm perfect there too.  

Queen of Healthy Living, all y'all. 

Cough.

xoxo

cold fat and klokov

Oh, hi guys. I'm on the home stretch of my miserable diet body transformation, and while I'm not quite as lean as I was immediately pre-surgery in 2012 (damn surgical menopause), I now weigh the same and I *am* lean enough to be noticing some alarming interesting things going on in my body.

You can see where my ribs connect to my sternum in-between my boobs.  I freaked out when I noticed this and pulled out my anatomy references to see if there was, like, some part of my pec I was supposed to be developing there to cover that shiz up. But no. It's all fascia there with fat over it and when the fat is gone: chicken bones between your breasts! Woohoo!  Apparently the pro-ana girls call the ability to see your entire sternum and the ribs connected there to your "xylophone" and covet it as greatly as they covet the fabled thigh gap, but it really is not attractive.  I think the only way to be very lean and not have that is to have gigantic fake tatas that are positioned really unnaturally close together. And that has, y'know, it's own aesthetic problems. Chicken bone chest it is! At least until I gain some fat back.

Meanwhile the only place left on my body that does still have a significant amount of fat on it is the back/side of my thighs. Bulgy Polish Catcher's Thighs for the muthafuckin win!  Those saddlebags will see me through a war, a famine, or possibly the zombie apocalypse.  But they are getting smaller. Last night after I finished working out it was 9:30 and I was blissfully alone in the women's locker room, all the cardio bunnies and pool ladies having sensibly already gone home. As is my wont, I thus took the opportunity to wander around in my undies, closely examining my fat, muscles, and veins in the mirrors.  Like a douche.  I was interested to note that my thigh fat was bright red (in contrast to the locker room pallor of the rest of me***) and when I touched it, it was ice cold.  This pinged something in my brain. I thought I remembered reading something ages ago about how if your fat is cold after exercising, that means it's being metabolized.  I was all excited to go on my weightlifting message boards this morning and ask my smart friends about it.

Well.  One of my smart friends who vaguely remembered that cold fat meant *something* went and did the web search for me.  And I am saddened to report that what it means is the exact opposite.  Cold fat in a woman's hips and thighs means it's stubborn fat, fat that's very difficult to get rid of, and part of the reason it's difficult to get rid of is that there's very little blood supply to it, so it's difficult to mobilize those fat cells outta there and into the bloodstream.  The little blood supply is why it's cold. Duh. The answer to this is apparently fasted cardio.  Or not.  This battle of the metabolic nutritionists makes little difference to me as fasted cardio ain't ever gonna happen.  I already get up at 4:30 am on work days and I sure as hell don't care enough about getting rid of my saddlebags to get up any earlier. Besides, the zombie apocalypse is probably closer than you think.

Meanwhile, while I was getting my friends to use google for me, another friend's journal contained this Klokov video:

If you don't know who Dmitry Klokov is, what's wrong with you?  Um, I mean, if you don't know who Dmitry Klokov is, he's a Russian weightlifter and one of the strongest, most flexible, and coolest humans on the planet.  He's also not *too* hard to look at.  The things I could do to those thighs...

I complained to my friend that FINE, now I was obviously going to waste my whole day off youtubing more Klokov video. To which she replied, that's not a waste. Another friend popped in to say that she follows his instagram and that's a sweet sweet rabbit hole you probably want to fall down...

So, in recompense for your having to read about the weird shit my body's doing, here's some more Klokov for you.  Enjoy!

It's amazing. Who foresaw that skinny kid would become KLOKOV?  Obviously someone did.

xoxo

***Still no tan. Working on it.

i take issue

I came across this article today, which claims that, according to a survey, the average woman goes on twice as many diets in her life as she has lovers.  I'm sure it says something (unflattering) about me, but my immediate reaction was, "Huh. Only twice as many?"  I think for me it's more like 4x as many.  I could list for you every guy I've ever boinked, but not every attempt at dieting.  This probably means I should be sluttier. Or less eating-disordered. Or possibly both.  DON'T JUDGE ME.

Besides, both my occupations are heavily female-dominated.  This means I've worked with a lot of women over the years, and let me tell you.  A significant fraction of them started a new diet just about every other Monday and were throwing in the towel by Thursday.  Since most of them were in relationships and not out at the club every weekend fucking random people, the two-to-one statistic still seems bogus to me, even if we're assuming I am less promiscuous and more crazy about my food and body than the average chick. (For the record, I'm not sure I am. On either count.)

So, the question becomes, why do women diet so much?  They're not ALL trying to win supplement company transformation contests.  Maybe it has something to do with advertisements like this.

Or this.

Or this.

How much of this has to seep into your subconscious at a young age before you just "know" that, as a woman, you're supposed to always be making the number on the scale go down? How much has to seep into your subconscious before you think eating disgusting 90 calorie snacks of "diet food" is perfectly normal and acceptable?  How much before you start feeling guilty or full of self-loathing when you do eat the real piece of cheesecake or the actual sugar cookie?

For the record, even though I myself am dieting at the moment and was so hungry after the gym today I could have chewed off my own arm, I would no sooner eat a Fiber One brownie than I would eat dirt. What I did eat while waiting for a decent enough interval to pass that I could make and eat dinner was raw baby carrots*** and ginger tea. When I posted that online, one of my friends who's also doing the challenge said that she'd staved off pre-dinner hunger with ginger tea, raw carrots, and raw broccoli.  (I am *so* gonna win this thing.  Her broccoli probably added an extra 5 calories, ahahaha.)  But seriously. I know it probably sounds elitist or even ridiculous from someone who admits to thinking pb&j quest bars are delicious, but I cannot conceive of eating a vaguely brownie-like substance just because it's only 90 calories. For 90 calories you could have an actual cookie. That tastes good.

This whole 90-calorie food business pisses me off almost as much as the time several years ago that I read an article where some self-satisfied little snot of a nutritionist sniffed that *half* a baked potato is a serving. I'm sure I was just overly sensitive because ever since I was a young child, I've been eating a whole damn potato by myself. God. What a gluttonous pig.  I've mercifully blocked out whatever else was in that article, but I'm pretty sure it was one of those that told women they should be eating 1500 calories a day. When not, y'know, dieting.

Gah.

So, anyway, yeah. Back to my thesis.  I don't believe that the average woman has only been on 16 diets in her lifetime. Unless she's under the age of 25.  It's just too pervasive in our culture.

xoxo

***two things about baby carrots, if you'll indulge me.  Firstly, I was deeply disappointed (and I am not even kidding you) when I learned that baby carrots are not actually baby carrots, they're just regular carrots cut into smaller pieces. Next you'll be telling me those baby corns you get in Chinese food aren't really babies. Or corn.  Or something.  Secondly, my friend and I, through rigorous scientific experiments conducted at Cranes Beach, Ipswich MA for the past six summers, have ascertained that the only food seagulls will not eat (and therefore will not steal from out of your beach bag when you leave it unattended to go in the ocean) are baby carrots.  To control for the fact that perhaps they are averse to the color orange, we tested them with Doritos.  No.  Seagulls are down with Doritos.

a book i didn't hate!

I know, I know, I generally only review books I loathe so you guys can listen to me froth and snark and bitch and eye-roll.  But since I've actually recommended this one to other people and it's kinda sorta blog-topical, I'm going to break with tradition and write a positive review.

Oh, Andrea, what the hell book are we talking about?  This one, kids:

Disclaimer: I love this pop science shiz, but I'm well aware when reading it that the author could be citing all the studies that support his thesis and ignoring the ones that don't and that if you're not in the field yourself you'd have no idea.  Mr Epstein, however, seems pretty good about presenting conflicting opinions and data and saying hey, there are only a few experts in the world studying x and they disagree with each other, so I was lulled into believing what he told me.  You all can read and judge as you want.

The most fascinating part of this book for me were the tidbits sprinkled throughout about what physical attributes make a person world-class at any given sport or athletic activity. It's not always what you'd think. For instance, do you know what trait all major league hitters have in common that sets them apart from the general populace?  I'm a huge lifelong baseball fan and it never occurred to me. Hint: it's not anything that can be improved with HGH or any other performance-enhancing drug.  Likewise, what kind of body do you need to succeed in the NBA? If you're sitting at your computer saying, "you need to be 7 feet tall, Andrea, duh," you'd be only half right. Yes, most NBA players are freakishly tall, but more than that, they have freakishly long wingspans.  Even for very very tall people, they have longer arms than normal.***  According to the book, this helps explain the racial disparity in pro basketball. Black people, as a general rule, have longer limbs compared to their torsos than do white people as a general rule.  As one of the scientists quoted in the book said puckishly, it's not so much that white men can't jump, it's that white men can't reach.

I guess I should mention that, yes, the book delves into why certain racial and ethnic groups seem to excel at certain sports and acknowledges that that conversation is uncomfortable for a lot of people.  You can't really deny it out of some kind of misguided political correctness. There are a lot of blond Scandinavian people, but not all Scandinavian people are blond. There are a lot of short-limbed Eastern European people, but not all Eastern European people have stubby legs compared to their torsos like yours truly. Those who do, however, are optimized for the sport of weightlifting and this is part of why Eastern Europeans kickass in international oly lifting. There are physical, genetic differences between people of West African and East African ancestry which explain why Ethiopians win all those marathons but the greatest sprinters in the world are Jamaican.  Actually, the Jamaican sprinter thing is fascinating and the book has a whole chapter exploring the controversy about why Jamaica? and particularly why a very small area of Jamaica?

Moving away from world class athletes to the rest of us, another fascinating study the book references took a bunch of normal people of varying ages and fitness levels and put them on a highly-controlled aerobic training program aimed at increasing their VO2 max for x weeks.  Some people made huge gains. Others made...none.  And it didn't correlate with how good you were to start with.  Some people with great VO2 maxes made huge progress. Some made little. Some people with crap VO2 maxes improved a lot, some didn't.  (And--this killed me--there were/are some people walking around in everyday life who never trained a day in their existence, who basically can and do sit on the sofa eating Pringles and playing World of Warcraft and when you measure their VO2 max, it's extraordinarily good. We hate these people, right? I mean, just a little. C'mon now.)  There was also a similar study done with strength training that showed similar results: put a varied bunch of regular people through the same training program and some gained a whole bunch of strength and muscle and others, not so much. What gave me pause with that is, they controlled the training but they didn't control the nutrition (or at least didn't report controlling the nutrition). So, from my perspective, it's entirely possible that the people who didn't make gainz just weren't eating enough calories and/or protein while the people who did were. Eat to grow! It makes me wonder if there's some similar confounding factor in the VO2 max study that affected the people who didn't improve and I myself just don't know enough about running/aerobic training to know what it could be.

Anyway, I could go on all day talking about interesting shit I read in this book, but instead I'll just suggest you buy and read it yourself.

BTW?  What all major league hitters have in common?  Better than 20/20 vision. You need extreme visual acuity to pick up the ball the second it leaves the pitcher's hand, register its position, and the position of the seams on it, etc, to then unconsciously draw on the database in your head built up from many many years of practice and study to almost instantaneously figure out where that ball's gonna be when it reaches the plate. All the practice, study, and lightning-quick reflexes in the world ain't gonna do shit for you if you can't see the minute details on that baseball when it's 90 feet away.

xoxo

***The takeaway being, if you as a parent are trying to decide what sport to nudge your offspring towards and they're always outgrowing their sleeves before anything else, buy them a hoop and a ball and in 15 years maybe they'll be buying you a Mercedes and a new house. It's worth a shot, eh?

randomosity

As longtime readers and friends know, sometimes your blog hostess doesn't have (and cannot successfully fake) enough coherent thoughts about one topic to fill up an entire post, so she is forced to throw together a bunch of unrelated crap and pretend it kinda goes together.

Admit it. Deep in your heart, you look forward to this.

By the way? Before we move on from that Game of Thrones meme, how awesome/disgusting/awesome are these?  If I had any baking talent whatsoever, I'd make some.

Courtesy of Not Your Momma's Cookie

Where was I? Oh yeah.

First order of business, only very very loosely related to this blog's topic: the royal OB/GYNs.  Read a little blurb this morning that the two gentlemen who delivered the heir to the throne of Great Britain yesterday consisted of a.) the Queen's gynecologist and b.) the doc who did Camilla's hysterectomy.  How weird would it be to be the Queen's gynecologist?  Does she have to change into a drafty paper gown like the rest of us? Do you think she is still holding onto her little purse when she's in the stirrups?  (Did I just make you picture the Queen in stirrups? Did it then make you imagine your own little old grandmother in stirrups? I've got some brain bleach I can sell you...***)  Secondly, I dunno, but the knowledge that Camilla had her lady parts yanked out makes me feel a weird sense of solidarity with her I never thought I'd have.

Secondly, this post was linked to on Already Pretty yesterday.  I hadn't particularly heard of the Fuck Flattering movement/project/whatever before, but I will say that being 5'2, I have always had a fairly jaundiced attitude towards fashion articles suggesting I wear x to look taller and avoid y so as not to appear stumpy.  Who says I want to look taller?  I have never had any problem with being, like a candy bar, "fun size."  (Well, okay, I do bitch about not being able to reach the top cabinet shelves and, before the T was uniformly air conditioned, having my nose at other people's pit level during summer rush hours was fairly unpleasant, but those are practical, not aesthetic, concerns.)  Furthermore, ain't none of those styling tricks fooling anyone anyways.  Put me in 4 inch heels and I don't look 5'6, I look like a short woman in big shoes. Sometimes I wanna look like a short woman in big shoes, but that doesn't mean I think I look tall.  So I'm pretty simpatico with the "fuck flattery" thing. Wear what you like because dressing to camouflage what your body actually looks like is fruitless and silly.

However. That linked post made me sad.  Those of you who are regular readers will know this, but let me restate it to be plain: unlike a lot of "fitness" people, I do not demonize overweight people.  I don't think being fat is a sin.  I don't think being fat equates, necessarily, to being unhealthy.  I think there are some extremely attractive fat people, just as there are some extremely attractive muscular people, and extremely attractive skinny people, and extremely attractive average-sized people.  I push back hard against the idea that there's such a thing as a bikini body, that anyone should have to look a certain way in order to be entitled to wear a bathing suit at the pool, a shmexy dress at the club, or a pair of tight yoga pants in the gym. Fuck all that. Nevertheless that post made me sad, because it was plain as day to me that that young woman, despite her bravado, really does not feel positive about her body and appearance.  For god's sake, she calls herself ugly.  Now maybe she's reacting to other people having called her ugly at some point in her life. Maybe she's taking back the word.  I dunno. I do know that the whole tone of that blog post reeks of deep insecurity. The subtext is not that she's wearing a crop top because, shit, she thinks crop tops are so cute and fun and she thinks she looks adorable in it.  She's wearing it to say "I know you think I'm ugly, so I'ma wear what's gonna accentuate that *to you*, to look even uglier in your eyes, just to prove I don't give a fuck." Which proves she does give a fuck.  I can't see it as truly holding up a positive body image.  And I say that with great empathy as someone who's struggled with her own body image at many points in her life.

Finally, and we won't even pretend this is on topic (except that it is for people who like to run, walk, or bike outdoors!) meet my latest favorite thing:  wundermap.  OMG, you guys, I can look at real time radar down to the street level.  This just saved me from heading out for a walk to the CVS an hour ago when, though it wasn't raining and it actually looked like the sun was poking through, there was a huge patch of heavy rain heading right for me.  I do this all the time now.  If the weather says scattered thunderstorms or 50% chance of rain or whatever and I want to take a walk, I pull up wundermaps and see if there is in fact any rain coming towards me and how far away it is. Brilliant!  Stops me from inadvertently getting soaked and/or deciding to stay home when in fact it *isn't* gonna rain in my vicinity any time soon.

That's all I got!

xoxo

***actually, I saw my own grandmother's hooha quite a bit during her last year of life. Didn't really require brain bleach, 'cause face it, without it, I wouldn't be here, capice?

a b c d e chromium

My history with taking vitamins and/or minerals is checkered.  Whatever they use to coat vitamin pills with generally makes me nauseated.  Taking them even on a full stomach has, historically, made me pukey.  I swear that a good 50% of my "morning sickness" was in fact a reaction to faithfully choking down those horrible horse-pill prenatals.  And then all those years that I was anemic or borderline anemic--long before my uterus actually tried to kill me, it was doing its best to cripple me, yo--and I was supposed to be taking iron supplements, I hardly ever did for more than a month or two running, because the nausea and world-class constipation they caused seemed actually worse than the weakness and dizziness and compulsion to chew ice (look it up!) that having no freaking red blood cells engendered.

Somewhere in my 40s, I discovered adult chewable vitamins and then adult gummies. For the first time in my life I could take a daily multivitamin without adverse effects. And they were yummy too.  Okay, it's a well known fact that I sorta have the palate of an 8 year old, other than the fact that 8 year olds don't like beer or Irish whiskey, but seriously. Gummy vitamins are delish. I am partial to these of late:

They're readably available at CVS and reasonably cheap, especially since they're frequently on sale and I always have xtrabucks.

Now, I know there have been studies recently suggesting that even taking vitamins is unhealthy and liable to lead to an early death.  I dunno.  I prefer the results of the recent study that said three cups of coffee a day are awesome for your health. I've got that one covered.  (Oh, hush, I never said this was a health blog. I drink alcohol, mainline caffeine, eat cake, am addicted to Quest bars, and still agree that kale tastes like "dirt and sadness". I just go to the gym and lift heavy shit a lot. It's a fitness blog. Also, a digression blog. Deal.) ANYWAY. Maybe I shouldn't even be taking vitamins, but I seriously am not convinced that they're doing me any harm and I feel marginally better when I think I'm making up for whatever's in kale that I'm missing out on.

To get to the point of this post, and there is one I swear to you, recently there was a thread on a message board I frequent asking what multivit everyone takes. A few of us were spreading the gummy vitamin luv.  I just checked back into the thread this evening after a few days to find there were a bunch of posts saying that gummy vitamins were crap and that you don't absorb the nutrients in them. (Which, if they're gonna kill me, that would be a good thing anyway, right?)  Furthermore, cheap vitamins are crap and you need to buy the expensive "quality" ones.  Further investigation proved this advice to come from, oh yeah, mainly supplement company reps whose employers sell expensive-ass "quality" multivitamins. Go figure.

But since I never let my natural cynicism get in the way of actually looking shit up, I googled "gummy vitamins inferior."  I got three pertinent results. One from what appeared to be a supplement company selling expensive vitamins.  One from a healthy living blog probably written by the sort of person who thinks kale tastes better than ice cream. And the third from a message board for people who've had weight loss surgery. Apparently these bariatric patients are at risk for malnutrition and thus must both take vitamin supplements every day and be frequently tested for vitamin deficiencies. All the people in that thread who took gummy vitamins testified that their blood test results were fine and that, no, they were not having any problems from taking gummy vitamins rather than pills.

Maybe it's just because they're telling me what I want to hear (coffee's better for you than kale even!) but I'm choosing to believe the bariatric patients over the supplement company shills.  Besides, I can't afford 45 dollar vitamins, I've got Quest bars to buy. God.

xoxo

damn, hope the 401k holds out

Why? you ask.

Oh, well, see, I'm on track to live to be 95.  In fact, according to the example health survey I took yesterday in my NSCA manual, just being a human female who's reached the age of 50 in the year 2012 means my life expectancy is 83 years.  Which seems pretty rash of them to tell me considering I've just had a brush with what my pcp charmingly termed "borderline cancer", but hey! I'm sure the statistics work out somehow that even people who've survived a brush with real cancer get factored in. But, anyway, once you add in the extra points I get for all my good health habits and vital signs and family history n' shit and subtract the points I rack up from my not-so-good health habits and conditions, I end up with 12 extra years. Huh.  Frankly, I'm not betting on it.  And if my personal trainer administered this test to me and then gave me those results, I'd probably snort and ask wtf I was paying him/her for then.  (I guess it works out better as a business model if you can convince the client they're gonna die 12 years early. That'd probably motivate at least a couple months of gym attendance. WHO SAYS I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT COMMERCE?)

Oh, yeah. Anyway. Statistics. I have only a very vague notion of how they work, despite having taken two semesters of the damn class when I was 18 (in preparation for a degree that I never ended up pursuing, naturally). Taken and aced, I might add. It's all lost to me now, till the day my neurosurgeon electrically stimulates that portion of my brain while fixing an aneurysm or something. (I bet that would take a few points off your longevity score, yo.)  Being my normally pessimistic and anxiety-prone self, I tend to only believe the statistics when they are negative.  Therefore, I fail to believe that chances are good I'll live to be 95. Hell, I fail to believe chances are good that I'll live to be 83. In which case, why haven't I cashed out that 401k and taken a nice long European and/or Caribbean vacation yet? It's a mystery.

I do, however, believe the scary ones and feel free in applying them to myself.  For instance, apparently 1 to maybe even 2% of women who have laproscopic hysterectomies (which I did), especially those who have robotic surgeries (which I did not) have a complication called vaginal cuff dehiscence, which can include bowel prolapse. Often this is triggered by sexual intercourse.  (Large intestine falling out your hooha post sex=biggest mood-killer EVAH. In my humble opinion.) But it can also be triggered by the valsalva, just from coughing or sneezing.  Or, for that matter, the valsalva from squatting and deadlifting, I would imagine. Though the number of ladies who squat heavy weights would appear to be smaller than the number who sneeze, cough, or have sexytimes, so they probably are less likely to show up in the literature.  Even more terrifying, sometimes cuff dehiscence happens with no apparent external trigger.  Yup, just standing there minding your own business and the next thing you know, you're in excruciating pain and your colon's popped out to say hello.

I would be happier if I had never read this little collection of facts on the internet, including hearing horrifying testimony from women it's happened to, but it's 2012. The internet is there. You can't stop the influx of information. If you're a glass half-full type, however, you think, "hey, the chances are 99% that my stitches aren't gonna fail for mysterious reasons."  

If you're me, you think, "holy shit! one person in a hundred...that's effing common." And then you think about how birth control is only 98% effective even when used correctly, and the fact that your kid beat the anti-conception odds. So then you think, "huh, if I was one of the 2% who conceived even when I was trying hard not to, if I was the tiny minority then, I'm probably not gonna be in the tiny minority this time." Then you remember that statistics doesn't work that way and that those factors are totally separate from each other and you have the same 1-2% chance of cuff dehiscence as any other patient who had your surgery, all superstition aside. THEN you curse the fact that you remember one fucking thing from two semesters of stats class. Sigh.

Then you decide maybe you should just reject science and go with the whole superstition thing. 

To sum up, if you need me, I'll be busy chanting so that none of my remaining internal organs fall out after sex or in the squat rack or while buying overpriced yet delicious pumpkin poundcake at Whole Foods. Also so that Fidelity invests my money better in case I do need it in thirty years.  Happy Thanksgiving!

xoxo

a pain in the a**

As some of you all may know from previous internet whining (the best kind, because no one can reach through their screen and slap you and tell you to man the fuck up), I'm in pain. 

It started out innocently enough. Last Saturday afternoon I was walking from my office to the gym when, for no clear reason, my hip flexors locked up.  They loosened a bit by the time I got there and I was able to lift just fine (and even PR'd on my rack pulls...210...because bragging is just as attractive as whining, y'all). I didn't however squat, because I felt like my hips were just not flexible enough for that at the moment.

Sunday a friend and I took a day trip to Portland (east coast one, in case you forgot where I live), a little endeavor that required about 4 1/2 hours total in the car. Sitting in a car is not kind to one's hip flexors, as we're probably all aware. On the way home, I ended up sitting crosslegged in the passenger seat, as that was the only way I could get my hips comfortable.

Monday a.m., I foam rolled every part of my body that could be foam rolled.  Tuesday I lifted again and Zercher squatted, then went to the Sox game.  The seats in Fenway are also not kind to one's hip flexors and it was a long game with a rain delay. By the time I got home, I was really stiff. Went to bed and had a hard time getting comfortable.  Woke up feeling stiff and uncomfortable all over, but took some ibuprophen and didn't think much of it.

Then Wednesday afternoon I had an appointment at the gynecologist, which is a whole nother boring medical story and right now we're sticking to this one. You're welcome.  I decided I would walk there. About half a mile from my house, my left lower back, hip, and upper leg started to really hurt. This was not the "hip flexors stiffening up" that I'd had walking on Saturday. This was pain, and I wondered if I would even be able to make it all the way there. I did, and actually started feeling better while I was there. So much so that I stuck to my original plan and went to the gym after for some cardio on the elliptical, some farmers walks, chinups, and stretching. I spent most of Wednesday evening sitting on my sofa doing some stuff online while watching the game. When I got up to go upstairs, ow.  Hip and low back were screaming again. Hard time getting comfortable in bed again and only able to lie on one side.

Thursday I woke up a mess.  I desperately tried everything I could to get my left sided hip and low back pain to lessen so that I could, y'know, walk and stand and go to work. I foam rolled and found a really, really tender spot right below my rear pelvis. (Piriformis? I thought. But since it's hard to palpate oneself, especially when you can't see what you're doing and you're in pain, I wasn't completely sold on what muscle I was in.) I put an ice pack on my back/hip while I was blowdrying my hair. I took a handful of ibuprophen. (We'll worry about my liver at a later date. It's not like I don't also love beer.) And I made it to work. Where it soon became apparent that neither sitting, standing, or walking was comfortable. I made an emergency massage appointment after work.

Where, yes, it was determined that my piriformis and piriformis tendon are inflamed. Massage, ice, rest, and, yup, ibuprophen were the recommendations.

Do y'all know why a tight or inflamed piriformis hurts so much? Here are some helpful diagrams.  Google image search is back to being my biatch.

Yes, that's correct. When your piriformis is acting up, it presses on your sciatic nerve. Your sciatic nerve doesn't like that shit and it tells you all about it with PAIN. In the ass, literally. And the leg, the hips, the low back.

I knew all that from massage school. As a matter of fact, I once upon a time did a group project on piriformis syndrome. It was supposed to be multimedia. My friend Sandy who was in another group (and whose type A tendencies once earned her 200 points on a paper where the theoretical max was 100) did a powerpoint presentation. My group had an abstract model of the pelvis, femur, piriformis, and sciatic nerve made out of coat hangers and string by the former art school grad in our group. We also demonstarted stretches. We got a better grade than you might think.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah. So even though I knew about piriformis syndrome, I was hazy on the details of what causes it and what you're supposed to do about it. Last night while I sat with an ice pack down my pants (as a friend said, just another typical Thursday night at Andrea's house!), I did some research. Turns out a lot of things can cause a tight and/or inflamed piriformis. I narrowed down a few that I thought were applicable to me. Tight hip flexors!  Tight medial hamstrings!  Leg length discrepancy!  Actually, I'm not completely sure my legs are different lengths, though many many many years ago, a friend's sister who was studying PT and using me for homework said they were. What I do know is that my pelvis is higher and twisted forward on the left and that contributes to my hip flexors tightening up.

What kind of things aggravate piriformis syndrome? Oh, walking, sitting a lot, running, biking.  Well, I'd done a lot of the first two in the past week.

And what do you do to relieve it?  Massage, ice, stretching, REST. I may have mildly freaked out when I read the recommendation to rest for 2-3 weeks.  How am I supposed to go 2-3 weeks without squatting and deadlifting, not to mention cardio?

Also, I refreshed my memory on the various piriformis stretches, some of which, I will admit, I kinda forgot about and have not been doing.  But then I came across this video.


That's an advanced piriformis stretch? I DO do that one.  Like every single time I stretch. I never ever leave it out. I have to admit, it kinda pissed me off.  Like, why is my piriformis misbehaving when I do the "advanced" stretch regularly?  But I might just have been cranky. An ice pack down your pants tends to promote that.

Here's hoping all your pains in the ass are metaphorical, kids, as well as few and far between! 

xoxo

the pump

Did you enjoy that little musical interlude? You should have. It's a great song. Duh. Now, onto some actual fitness-related content.

Yesterday, approximately 20 minutes into my workout, my forearms looked like this:



Um, minus the anchor tattoos. And the over-sized fists. But, kids, I had such muscle pump going in my forearms that they hurt. I felt as if my forearm muscles were going to burst my skin open, they were so full and tight. The flexors, the extensors, the brachioradialis, all of 'em. Pumped like a mofo. While it was uncomfortable--and messed with my grip--it was also amusing. So I thought I would explore the concept of the muscle pump a little.

Basically, muscle pump is when blood fills the muscle faster than it can be cleared, causing congestion. Many people love getting a good pump. For one thing, it makes your muscles look bigger than they actually are. Also, just like getting DOMS, many people feel obtaining a pump means they had an excellent, effective workout, even though lack of a pump (or DOMS) doesn't actually mean your workout sucked. But is the pump actually good for anything other than making your muscles look pretty in the gym mirrors or (if you're me) amusing you? Opinions seem to be divided!

ExRx.net has this to say: "Bodybuilders commonly perform pumping-up exercises before appearing on stage to make their muscles appear fuller. For most of us there is no real benefit from achieving a pump (except for boosting your ego)."

Tom Venuto would disagree: "... if you’re interested in bodybuilding or physique development, then maximum pump can be very beneficial.

Most bodybuilders and even most exercise physiologists would agree that workouts that produce maximum pump can provide up to 20-25% of the increase in muscle size. This comes from sarcoplasmic and mitochondrial hypertrophy and increased capillarization. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy looks good and is beneficial to bodybuilders, but you do tend to lose it more quickly with de-training."

And here's a dude who thinks muscle pump is so crucial, it's like an orgasm. "Most people that workout with weights and do not achieve this, are almost defeating the whole purpose of training. The pump can almost be referred to as a sexual climax because the same thing is happening. Blood is rushing into the muscle, therefore creating a wonderful feeling of increased circulation."

I don't even...

If you fall into the camp that believes muscle pump is actually an important goal to achieve every workout, well, there are lots of supplements that you can take to help you along! There's nitric oxide, a vasodilator that increases blood flow. (Kinda like Viagra? Huh. There's that orgasm thing again.) Nitric oxide is apparently generated from the amino acid l-arginine, so the two are often combined. Interestingly enough, wikipedia (which nevah lies) tells me l-argitine is necessary for the synthesis of creatine as well, and we all know how I feel about creatine, right, boys n' girls? Plus, wikipedia informs, arginine has also been used in the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Ohhhh, it's all coming together here. This must be why guys are so attached to the muscle pump. It simulates getting an erection. Or something.

Seriously? The feeling I had in my forearms yesterday? THAT'S what it feels like to all y'all when you've got a boner? Once again I must say: huh. I am so glad I was born with girl parts. In the immortal words of Elaine Benes, I don't know how you guys walk around with those things.

But since we've wandered off of today's fitness topic, lemme give you another music video that's on point.



You're welcome!

xoxo

and then i woke up and weighed 140

A good friend of mine spends a good portion of his "work" day forwarding me articles he thinks I'd be interested in. For the past two days, these have been solely depressing and infuriating stories about our baseball team's epic collapse and how much John Lackey sucks. Which is a topic for another blog and don't get me started. However, before all that, he sent me this tidbit from the NYT.

I won't bore you with my own theories about the relevance or lack thereof of "calories in, calories out." I will tell you that, on this my first official and intentional bulk, I have been amazed about how difficult it is to actually gain weight when you want to. As previously documented, I've managed about a pound a month and I am eating all the damn time.



(This morning I was up another pound to 119. However, I am very suspicious that it's only water weight from yesterday's SLDLs as my hamstrings are seriously screaming at me at the moment. I wish I were one of those people who knew how to make cute little stick-figure cartoons in Paint, because I'd illustrate. It goes something like this. Hamstrings: "Andrea! You think you were all hot shit throwing in the 135lb SLDLs yesterday, don't you? Well, you just try to get up from your chair now. SUFFER!" Andrea: "Ow." That would be much funnier illustrated. [Talking stick-figure hammies are hilarious. Trust.] Apparently this is NOT a full-service blog. I did, however, manage to put a parenthetical inside a parenthetical, and I know you all love that. Also? I have industrial strength arnica at home and I am too stupid to use it, even though I push it on all my friends. Sigh.)

In any case, the disturbing part of that linked article is, to me, the statement that an extra 100 calories a day will put on x amount of weight, but it won't show up immediately. Really? This is what all of us bulkers fear in the dark recesses of our hearts. That we'll be gaining weight (musclely muscle!) at a slow and reasonable and controlled way but then, oops!, all of a sudden we'll wake up obese. I may have even had a bad dream about this, but the one I had the other night about contracting head lice was even more horrifying, so I shouldn't really complain about what my subconscious vomits up.

I promise you this. If the worst comes to pass and I continue eating and eating and eating and eating more because I apparently am not gaining, and then suddenly one morning find myself three sizes too big for my pants, I will spare you all the underwear pictures. You're welcome. More full-service than you thought!

xoxo