re: #60 Slumbering Behemoth

Normally I just go to check out the college girls get all hot and sweaty… (no, I won’t exploit Charles’ wonderful new picture embedding here…)

Other than that… over the years I have had interests in body building (though that faded quickly), exercise (did some personal training), and dance and movement studies. Anyway, over the years I’ve cycled through periods of struggling with weight (grew up a “big” boy, as the euphemism goes…) as well as various physical challenges of which I won’t go into detail here but has taught me quite a bit about the need to understand my own anatomy.

Since coming back from Japan I’ve let myself add about 20 lbs (at my peak I used to do over 40 hours of exercising a week, alas I stopped that a few years ago) … so now I’ve put myself on a regimen to get rid of them. Each pound of fat represents about 3500 kCal (that is food calories), so 20 lbs turns out to be about 70,000 food calories.

Roughly 1/3 of my gym time is spent doing heavy lifts (for strength and function), about 1/3 on lighter exercises (for function and alignment), and about 1/3 on floor exercises (for alignment and core strength.) I’ll lose the 20 lbs by cutting back on my eating and doing a bit more exercises, probably adding about 5 hours/week. It’ll take me several months at my age. With chemicals it would go faster and I am old enough now to get a Dr. to legit write me a testosterone script, but I like the fact I still have hair so I will skip the easy route.

For you:

Bottom line: there is no magic.

Bottom line #2: what is between your ears is most important.

Bottom line #3: Being there trumps theory/talk.

For middle-age males the key issue is usually diet. The problem is that we use food as both a means of social interaction, bonding, as well as self medication. Being willing to change one’s eating habits - and that does not mean just the menu, but the true habit: the places, times, company, etc. is important.

From there it is also important to remember that our skeletal muscles serve two important functions: storehouse of amino acids, and for providing locomotion. Any male with functioning gonads can add muscle much more easily than a female. Muscles consume energy not just doing formal exercises but in everyday use. So the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn.

I’d have to see you in person to know what to recommend as for exercises, and while it is often just a sales pitch line by personal trainers, still, your “goal” is important.

So all I can do here is recommend that you pick 3 things, that is, physical activities - can be a sport, a dance, a martial art, hiking, - anything that gets you moving your body with your legs. Try to do each activity twice a week. That makes 2x3 outings, which will give you a day of rest. The step up in activity alone will make a difference.

For the surgery - strengthening the wall of the abdomen would be a good goal. I recommend floor exercises. That means a flat floor, not a bench. Learn proper ways to do crunches, avoiding using your hands to pull on anything. You have essentially three layers of “abs”, and the two most important are not what become the “six pak”.

Well, I could go on and on… but remember three things:

Diet - change of habits;
Activities - 6 days a week do something that moves your body;
Core - work crunches on the floor, don’t pull on your head!

/that’ll be $75 …