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Posts on 60 in 3 might be a bit sporadic over the next week. My wife and I are finally going on our much delayed honeymoon. We’ll be spending the next seven days in the Grand Caymans. We’re going to try and get our scuba diving certification which I’m looking forward to. Other than that, it should be a pretty relaxing week, something I really need in anticipation of the next 19 months which are going to be all work and school.

And with that lovely thought, here are some articles I thought you might find useful.

This is an interesting article from CBS news which discusses the the whole “fit and fat” idea. This notion came about after several studies showed that it’s better to be overweight but physically active than reasonably weight and out of shape. Well, that may be true, but as the study points out, ideally you’re in shape AND at the right weight. just because you’re physically active doesn’t mean that extra weight isn’t damaging your health.
@CBS News

The next article is from Forbes.com and has an annoying tendency to pop up a welcome screen before it takes you to the article. However, if you’re willing to tolerate that, the article itself is very interesting. It talks about goal setting and how sometimes it’s better to set multiple goals than just one. It also mentions that combining complimentary goals it a great way to motivate yourself. I talked about this a couple of weeks ago in this post about goal setting. Having multiple goals is ok, but don’t overdo it and see if you can work on multiple complementary goals at once. You’ll achieve more and be more motivated.
@Forbes.com

I loved this next article. It’s a fascinating look at health studies and some of their flaws. If you’ve ever seen multiple studies with completely opposite advice and wondered how that was possible, go ahead and read this. You’ll be a lot more educated on what’s right and what’s wrong with “scientific” studies.
@WebMD

And from Parade, here’s a quick little article that discusses three common health myths and the truth behind them. I like articles like these. They quickly deflate those arguments people have against exercise and the excuses they use for being inactive and overweight.
@Parade

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A week or so ago I mentioned that you should be measuring more than just your weight. One of the measures I mentioned was resting heart rate. Well, I got a couple of emails from people asking how to measure heart rates and what do the measurements mean.

Please note that all of the numbers mentioned below are averages. They vary by age, weight, gender and a number of other factors. Please don’t try to apply these numbers to yourself without consulting with a doctor. They are intended only as a guideline, not absolute recommendation.

How To

Let’s begin with how to. There are a variety of places you can measure heart rate but the easiest I found is along the wrist. Place both your hands palms up in front of you. Now take one of your hands and place the index and middle finger of that hand on the outside of the wrist of the opposite hand. The fingers should lie together on the opposite wrist about 1/2 inch on the inside of the joint, in line with the index finger.

Feel for a pulse. When you find a pulse, count the number of beats in a ten second section of time and then multiply by 6. If you want to be more accurate, count heart beats for 15 seconds and multiply by 4, count for 30 seconds and multiply by 2 or count for 60 seconds. The more time you count for, the more accurate your measure.

Resting Heartrate

For resting heart rate, you should measure in the morning, a minute or two after you wake up. Don’t measure your heart rate if you just woke up from some horrible nightmare or especially exciting dream. Those tend to elevate heart rate and will make for an inaccurate measure. Try to measure on three or four separate days and then average the number for more accuracy.

Normal resting heart rate is about 60 to 80 beats per minute. It will be lower for people who are in good shape and it increases as you age.

Maximum Heart Rate

Maximum heart rate is the level above which your heart is in danger. You really shouldn’t cause your heart to go up this high. Maximum heart rate is roughly calculated as 220 minus age. There are more accurate formulas out there but this one will do for now. Note that maximum heart rate doesn’t really change except with age. It does not go up if you’re in shape. However, people who are in shape can take a lot more physical strain before their heart is pumping this hard. For example, a person who is in shape can run for miles and never even come close to this number while someone who is badly out of shape may be close to their maximum heart rate after climbing one flight of stairs. For most exercise, you should aim for 60 to 80% of your maximum heart rate.

So for me, being 34 years old, my maximum heart rate 220 - 34 or 186. My target heart rate for exercise is between 111 and 149 beats per minute. If it goes a bit over 149 that’s probably ok but I shouldn’t be close or over 186 for a sustained period of time.

Recovery Rate

Recovery rate is another important factor when it comes to heart rate. It measures how quickly your heart rate goes back to normal after exercise. To measure it, simply check your heart rate right after your peak exercise point. Now rest for two minutes and measure your heart rate again. The more in shape you are, the quicker your heart rate will return to normal.

So I measure my heart rate at my peak exercise point and find it to be about 140. Now I wait two minutes and measure my heart rate again. This time I find a heart rate of about 100. I subtract 100 from 140 and divide by 2 to come up with a recovery rate of 20 beats per minute. If your recovery rate is below 12 beats per minute, then you’re in trouble. It means your heart doesn’t recover very well from the stress you put on it.

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Heart rate is one of the most important measures of health and fitness that we have. It’s relatively easy to measure at home and is a far better indicator of progress and general well being than weight. Go ahead and give it a try, and don’t forget to consult with your doctor during your yearly physical.

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I had a conversation with a friend the other day about health and why it’s important.  He’s known me for a long time and he was wondering why I was spending so much time and effort on my health.  In his mind, it seemed like a pointless waste of time.  His argument against a healthy lifestyle came down to two facts:

• First, a healthy lifestyle does not guarantee you a healthy life.  You still have a chance to develop diseases like cancer and you can still be the victim of random occurrences like a car accident.
• Second, he pointed to stories in the news and in our circle of friends of people who lived a long and healthy life despite an unhealthy lifestyle.

His first mistake was overestimating the effort required to live a healthy life, but that’s a topic for another post.  However, his bigger mistake was a remarkable misunderstanding of statistics.

Statistics

Let’s understand something, being healthy does not GUARANTEE anything.  Just because I eat well and exercise does not mean I have a contract with the universe that says “this person lives a healthy lifestyle and therefore they will live a long and healthy life.”  The opposite is also true, just because you live an unhealthy lifestyle does not mean you void your body’s warranty and are guaranteed to have a heart attack at a young age.  You might in fact be one of the few who smokes two packs a day, eats 2lbs of bacon every morning and still lives to a ripe old age. There are no guarantees in life but there are statistics.

Each time you make a choice in how you live your life, you change the statistical likelihood of certain things happening.  For example, if you go to college your are statistically more likely to earn a high wage.  Is this guaranteed?  Absolutely not.  People will always point at success stories like Bill Gates who made billions despite being a college drop out.  Unfortunately, he’s the exception and not the rule.  If anyone points Bill Gates out as a reason to not go to college, tell them their ignorance of statistics is the reason why they SHOULD go to school.  Statistically, you are in fact more likely to make a higher wage if you go to college.  The same applies to health.

Health Statistics

Are you guaranteed to get cancer if you smoke?  No, not really.  Are you guaranteed some kind of cancer immunity if you live a healthy lifestyle?  Again, not really.  However, statistically, your chances do vary based on your behavior.

Let me use a simple example.  Everyone knows what dice are, right?  Roll a standard dice and you get a number between 1 and 6.  If a person with a healthy life style rolls a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, they avoid getting cancer.  For a person who smokes and has many unhealthy habits, those numbers change a bit.   They need to roll a 3, 4, 5 or 6 to avoid developing some type of cancer.  (By the way, these numbers do not represent actual studies, they’re just picked to illustrate a point).

Is the person with a healthy lifestyle guaranteed a long life?  No, there’s always the chance they could roll a 1.  What about the person who lives an unhealthy lifestyle, are they guaranteed some disease?  No, they could easily roll 3, 4, 5 or 5 for the rest of their life.

However, given a choice between a dice roll where a 1 means you die and a dice roll where a 1 and a 2 means you die?  Which one do you pick?

The Statistics of Sexual Performance

Here’s another example for all you guys out there who think health doesn’t matter.  Every time you want to have sex, certain things have to occur within your body.  Blood needs to flow in order for you to be able to perform.  Improper blood flow means impotence.

So each time you want to have sex, you’re rolling a dice.  In order to avoid impotence, you need to roll a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6.  However, extra layers of fat and a heart that’s completely out of shape are going to negatively impact your ability to perform.  So if you’re out of shape, you’re going to make your roll with a die that has the 6 replaced with an extra 1.

Sure, you might make that roll every single time and a healthy person might roll quite a few 1’s.  However, given a choice, which die would you like to roll with?  The one that has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on it or the one that has 1, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 on it?

Yes, Your Life Can Be Reduced To Simple Numbers

There are no guarantees in life, but there are a lot of statistics.  Not all of these statistics can be relied on and a lot of them can be interpreted in different ways.  However, what seems certain at this point is that a healthy lifestyle means your statistical chance of health issues ranging from cancer and heart disease to impotence and broken bones is reduced.  It’s not a 100% guarantee but it’s certainly worth while.

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Yes, healthy people can die and unhealthy people can live a long life.  However, on average, healthy people will have a healthier and longer life than unhealthy ones.  That’s why I choose to be healthy and that’s why you should too.

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There’s a new poll out from the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The poll asked 500 people about the calorie contents of their food. Care to guess the result? If you guessed that most people don’t know what’s in their food, you’d be right. You can find the article on the CSPI site here.

Don’t Eat What You Don’t Know

I don’t go to restaurants unless I know what I’m eating.  For local restaurants, that means asking them what they put in their food and how they prepare it.  For chain restaurants, it means not eating there unless they publish their nutritional content on their premises.  On premises means right there where you eat the food, not on the website.  Website nutritional info is great mostly for regretting what you just ate and doesn’t really help you make an informed decision when you order.

Let Your Voice Be Heard

If there’s a restaurant that does not publish nutriotional information then tell them you won’t be eating there anymore and then tell them why.  Enough of these opinions will make a difference.

Make Your Vote Count

I’m not a fan of big government.  I don’t think government should tell us what to do or how to behave.  I do however believe that governments have a role to play in making sure we have enough information to make an informed decision.  So I support government efforts to force restaurants to display nutritional information.  Let you congress man or woman know that you’d appreciate this sort of information and that your health is more important than lobbyist dollars.

Read Those Labels

Once you have the information, don’t forget to use it.  Information is useless if it’s not used.  Read it and then base your food decision on it.  If enough of us make healthy food choices, maybe restaurants will offer more healthy options.

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I know people who will spend hours researching the best shampoo for their pet or the best school for their kids.  Why not spend a little of that time researching what you’re eating?  The results may surprise you.

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Still on antibiotics for my eye. However, no more pain, my vision is back to normal and my eye doesn’t look like I’ve been awake for five days. Overall, a major improvement. And one reminder from my doctor to all of you, if you’re on an antibiotic prescription for some infection and you start feeling better, that does NOT mean you can stop taking the antibiotics. Go through the whole prescription, just as instructed. Otherwise, you risk reinfection by more antibiotic resistant bacteria.

And with that, some interesting articles from this week:

On a sad note, this first article from the Washington Post shows that for the first time since an epidemic in 1918, we’re seeing life expectancies drop. Take a look at this article. Three of the top four reasons for this drop are lung cancer, emphysema and diabetes. Three mostly preventable issues caused by personal life choices such as smoking and poor activity / exercise habits.
@Washington Post

For you Atkins devotees out there, here’s an interesting article from our friends down under at the Syndey Morning Herald. This article shows that you can still eat a high protein diet without consuming an excess amount of meat. This is one of my main two issues with many Atkins followers. First, they think all carbs are bad. Second, they think all protein is good. This is simply not true.
@Sydney Morning Herald

From the Denver Post we have this entry about getting the most out of your personal trainer. I think there’s a lot of valuable information here. Trainers can be an amazing resource if used right but they can also be a dangerous waste of money if they have poor skills, communicate badly or are inadequately trained. Research your trainer ahead of time and make sure you communicate exactly what you’re looking for.
@The Denver Post

Looking for a low impact workout that increases flexibility without being high in stress? Check out this article from the UK Herald that talks about Tai Chi and its benefits. It’s not exactly cardio or even resistance training, but it can still have a positive impact on your life. Remember, quite often, it’s the little things that matter. A 30 minute walk a day, or a session of Tai Chi, could have an amazing effect on someone who is completely inactive.
@The UK Herald

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The title of this post is a paraphrasing of a famous quote by Warren Buffet, the famous investor who’s one of the wealthiest people in the world today.  His point is that lots of things can be measured, but unless those measurements have meaning, then they’re useless.

How Do You Measure Your Health and Fitness?

What are you using as a measurable metric of your health and fitness?  That is, what number do you keep track off to see how well you’re doing fitness wise?  For almost everyone I talk to, the answer is probably weight.  Everyone keeps track of weight, including me.  Unfortunately, for most people, the ONLY number being tracked is weight.

We use weight to measure our success in controlling eating.  We use it to measure our success at exercise.  We even use it to measure our overall health, with people who weigh more being considered less healthy.  Well you know what, weight in and of itself is totally useless and if you’re using weight as the sole measure of your fitness, you’re making a big mistake.

What’s Wrong With Using Weight?

• No account for height - Do you really know how much you should weigh?  My wife is 6′ tall, how much should she weigh compared to my friend who is 5′2″?  How much more weight should your body carry per extra inch of height?  Do you know the ideal weight range for your height?
• No account for gender - On average, women have a higher percentage of body fat while men have a higher percentage of muscle mass.  So should a man and a woman, both 5′10″ weight the same?  Should I at 5′11″ weigh less than my wife at 6′?
• No account for muscle mass - Here’s the worst part about weight.  It can actually tell you you’re doing well when you’re getting worse and vice versa.  That’s because muscle is dense and fat is only a small percentage of your body.  So losing weight could mean losing muscle and that’s a bad thing.  If I stopped working out I could lose weight.  Sounds odd but it’s true.  As my muscle mass shrank, my body would weigh less assuming I controlled my eating.  So my weight could go down but my overall health and fitness would decrease.  If you started exercising, you might actually gain a bit of weight or at least stay at your current weight because the muscle you’re adding weighs more than the fat you’re losing.  However, you’d be far healthier, fitter and slimmer with the added muscle and reduced fat.

So Weight Is A Bad Measurement?

Not completely.  In general, weight loss does correspond with increased fitness and health.  However, if the only measurement you use is weight, then it’s meaningless since there could be a whole lot of other things going on.

What Other Measurement Should I Use?

• BMI - I’m not a big fan of BMI since it doesn’t take muscle mass into account, but at least it’s more accurate than weight alone.  There are numerous websites that can help you measure this.
• Body Fat % - A much more accurate measurement of how good the composition of your body is.
• Resting heart rate - Measure your heart rate when you wake up after a good night’s sleep to see how well your cardiovascular system is doing.
• Active heart rate - Measure your heart rate after 3 to 5 minutes of cardio exercise.
• Strength - There are a variety of these.  For example, see how many barbell presses you can do at a rate of one every two seconds.  For men, do these with an 80lb weight.  For women, a 35lb weight.  There are numerous other strength and flexibility tests.  A personal trainer can help you with these tests.
• Cholesterol and blood pressure - Have you had your physical this year?  If not, why not?  I’m a big fan of staying away from the doctor’s office and I try to avoid the “there’s a prescription drug for every minor issue” mentality that a lot of people have, but I do strongly believe in a yearly physical.  During this physical your doctor can help you check on a variety of health measurements.

So Which One of These Should I Use?

Ideally?  All of them.  Now before you panic, keep in mind that you don’t need to track them every day.  In fact, that would be a little crazy.  Realistically, you should track these monthly or even yearly.  For example, I track my BMI and weight once a month.  I track my heart rate measurement and do my strength tests every 6 months and I have a physical during which I find out my blood pressure and cholesterol once a year.  That’s a pretty minimal amount of time required to get a very detailed picture of how well I’m doing health and fitness wise.  I know people who spend far more time than this every month balancing their checkbooks, tracking their friends on Facebook and catching up on the latest episodes of Lost.  Are those things really more important than your health?

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Our nation is obsessed with weight.  We see it as the holy grail of health when it’s really nothing more than a paper cup filled with misleading data.  Combine it with a few other measurements and it might be helpful but on it’s own it’s pretty much useless.  So stop treating your health as a one dimensional subject that can be measured with a single number.

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It’s 1:45pm here in California.  I just came back from a beautiful 30 minute walk.  How about you?  Have you had your walk for the day?  If so, then good for you.  If you haven’t, why not?

I don’t have time for a walk

That’s a pretty poor excuse.  During my 30 minute walk, I made two business calls and one personal call which I had to make today.  If I wanted to, I could easily fill up the 30 minutes with business calls.  Heck, I could go walking during any number of conference calls and still contribute.  Besides, everyone needs a break once in a while.  How about spending it walking instead of sitting on your butt?

It’s too cold outside

Take a jacket.  Besides, the cold will do you good.  Cool air forces your body to spend extra calories in order to keep warm.  Unless there’s a snow storm outside or you’re somewhere like the Arctic, then it’s not too cold to walk.  And if there is a snow storm outside then find a place where you can walk indoors.

It’s too warm outside

Take your jacket off, or just walk a bit slower.

What’s the point of walking anyway?

It’s good exercise, it keeps you active and it’s a refreshing break from work that will allow you to be more productive when you come back.  In fact, a simple walk every day is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself.

I have uncomfortable shoes

So fix that.  Buy shoes that look good enough for work and are comfortable enough to walk in or bring an extra pair of shoes to work that you can put on for your walk.  Stop letting your clothing make your decisions for you.

I’m too busy

Really?  If so, why are you spending time reading this site?  We all waste quite a bit of time every day.  Why not use some of it productively by taking a walk?

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Stop coming up with excuses and start living a healthier life with a daily 30 minute walk.  Now why are you still reading this site when you should be out there walking?

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