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There was an interesting article in Endocrine Today, dated September 10, 2008 reporting on a Norwegian study conducted during 2004-2005.  The full article, entitled “Interval training may be the best type of exercise to affect metabolic syndrome”, can be read here but I’ve included a few pertinent sections below.  Basically, the researchers compared the effect on patients diagnosed with metabolic syndrome of aerobic interval training vs. continuous moderate exercise vs. a control group.

I’ve snipped the part that details the actual protocols the researchers used for the moderate vs. the interval exercisers.  You can read the details at the link above, but the interval sessions lasted about forty-five minutes including a ten minute warm up and five minute cool down and occurred three times a week.

Ok, here are some of the findings.

“Despite having similar effects on body weight and BP, the aerobic interval training group showed more improvement in insulin sensitivity, aerobic capacity and HDL levels. Along with higher insulin sensitivity, participants from the aerobic interval training group had lower blood glucose levels than participants from the continuous moderate exercise or control groups. ” Continue Reading »

Mark Sisson at Mark’s Daily Apple has ten excellent suggestions for exercise for those of us who have reached middle age.  His suggestions run the gamut from Tai Chi and Pilates to rowing and power lifting.  The primary reason for exercise as we age can be summed up in this comment:

“The body without regular, challenging activity and excellent nutrition will, to be frank, go downhill faster in our later years. But what people take for “natural aging” (e.g. the dwindling of muscle mass, the stiffness, the decreased mobility, etc.) is all preventable.  Sure, the stakes are higher now, but the potential for true fitness is as genuine as ever.”

I definitely agree with him that cross training is even more important as we age.  Plus, variety keeps things interesting and can mean the difference between getting my butt in gear or parking it on the couch.  And if you think regular fitness activity can’t beat back the aging process, check out the video at the bottom of this post.

I’m not doing CrossFit currently (although I’d like to try it in the future), but I stumbled across this homemade recipe for protein bars on the CF forum.  They’re not fat free or even low fat, but I’m eating more fat and fewer carbs these days so they look pretty good to me.     I think I’ll try making a few this weekend.  My thanks to Mr. Kurt A. Gross for posting his recipe.

1 scoop whey (vanilla or chocolate).
1.5 tbsp nut butter (or 1 tbsp nut butter + 0.5 tbsp coconut oil)
1.5 oz heavy cream

Mix whey and nut butter. It will seem too dry, almost flaky. Keep mixing. I just keep mashing it around in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Add the cream, a little at a time. Stop adding cream when you can knead it. Form into a bar, wrap it up and refrigerate. Makes 1 bar, multiply as needed. Tastes pretty good. Continue Reading »

Exercise to build muscle, lose fat and improve glucose and lipid levels.

The final piece of the puzzle is exercise.  My previous exercise regimen consisted of running 2-3 miles several days a week and lifting weights 2-3 times a week.  Unfortunately, it was predictable and boring and, when winter rolled around and it was rainy or cold or damp, it didn’t take much for my motivation to wane.  As with any habit, repetition reinforces the action.  So, the longer I “took a break” the longer the “break” continued.

It’s not as if that exercise program was without benefit.  Lifting weights helped me maintain and increase strength and I noticed a definite deterioration in strength when I took my extended “break”.  Running (which I enjoyed for the most part) provided a certain level of cardiovascular fitness.  Both weight lifting and running are weight bearing exercises which are helpful in preventing osteoporosis as we age.  I was fitter than most people my age, but I didn’t look it.

The drawbacks to this routine were that my body fat percentage didn’t budge and I was burned out and bored.  There was also the pesky problem with my blood sugar and lipids.  If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, I needed to make some changes.  Enter circuit and interval training.

For the foreseeable future, I’m using Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training.  I was trying to decide which circuit training program to buy when I sort of “accidentally” bought TT.  Accident or not, Turbulence Training is well known and highly recommended and I’ve been using the program for a few weeks.  I’m working out more intensely than in the past and find that the supersets and variety make the workouts fly by. Continue Reading »

Improve and overhaul my diet.

This is a big one because I have a sweet tooth and it’s easy for me to delude myself into believing that my diet is better than it really is. With that in mind, and knowing that moderation is more difficult for me than total deprivation, I decided to make drastic changes to what I eat.

The basic dietary guidelines are:

1. No junk
2. Minimize packaged and processed food
3. Drastically lower carbs; get most carb calories from vegetables and low glycemic fruits
4. Increase lean protein and fat (yeah, increasing fat was a surprise to me, too)
5. Use targeted fasts to decrease overall caloric load and improve insulin sensitivity

Junk food is out. That means anything made with white sugar or flour….donuts, cakes, cookies, bagels, ice cream, etc, etc. I’m minimizing packaged and processed foods which will help reduce my intake of high fructose corn syrup (very bad for lipid, glucose levels and overall general health) and other unsavory chemical concoctions. That doesn’t mean I’ll never have anything that comes in a man-made package, but I’ll check the labels carefully and only succumb when absolutely necessary. (There’s the added benefit that limiting packaged food will also create less trash for the environment.)

One change that has already resulted from limiting packaged and processed food is that my consumption of protein and energy bars has decreased from at least one per day to none. They were a quick and easy snack for me, but were far too readily available if I started eating out of boredom. Plus, as processed food goes, they’re healthier than a Twinkie, but they still contain ingredients that were dreamt up in a lab somewhere. The money that I used to spend on bars is now being spent on vegetables. Continue Reading »

In my first post, I gave you some background on my current health issues and what my plan is to correct them.  This post will be the first that goes into more detail on that plan.  I hope it’s helpful to you.

Take my meds as prescribed by my doctor with the goal of being able to eliminate them at some point in the future by improving my diet and exercising; take supplements that may have a positive impact on lipid and glucose levels.

This is pretty self-explanatory.  I’m currently on one, soon to be two, cholesterol reducing medications.  Although my blood glucose is higher than it should be, I’m not taking any meds for it at the moment.  I want to preempt the need for any diabetic drugs and then reduce and eliminate the drugs I’m taking now.

Since I’m not taking any drugs for blood sugar control now, it will be easier to ascertain any positive impact my diet and exercise may have on my fasting glucose levels then it will on my lipids.  In addition, I’m researching the supplements listed below to determine which ones I want to include.  I already take chromium, CoQ10, EPA/DHA, lipoic acid, vitamins C and E, and recently added additional magnesium. Continue Reading »

It’s time to get serious.  I’m not happy that my doctor finds it necessary to double my cholesterol lowering medication AND add in a new one to handle my triglycerides.  Plus, she tells me that my fasting blood sugar was 150 in my latest blood work.  It’s been hovering around 130-140.  Can you say “metabolic syndrome”?

My latest blood test was completed shortly after my mom left for home.  She had been visiting for a couple of weeks and I had been eating all the homemade cookies, brownies and cakes she loves to make.  Of course, I don’t understand moderation when it comes to her baking and my blood test revealed the dirty secret that I had overindulged when I was in no position to indulge at all.

Before I received these latest results, I’d been telling myself that my diet was pretty good.  I’d been telling myself that I would start working out again tomorrow.  But I’d been lying. Continue Reading »

It’s been a month since I wrote anything.  How pathetic is that?  I haven’t been totally sitting on my butt doing nothing, though.  I’ve been looking into a new diet and exercise program for myself which will soon be explained in a short series of posts.  Basically, my diet and workout routine have been terrible and non-existent, in that order, but I’ve spent the past month following a new dietary approach and I’ve actually been working out again.

For years, I had been doing the long, slow slog of endurance cardio…riding my stationary bike for a mind-numbing hour or running 3-3.5 miles several times a week.  Sometimes I’d throw in a hour run on the weekend.  My weight training consisted of two to three days per week of three sets of 10-12 for most body parts;  upper body during one session and lower body the next.

Frankly, I became bored and burned out and ditched everything over this past fall and winter.  Then, when spring arrived and I felt motivated to start running again, I developed a problem with my knee (the one that was scoped just a year ago) and the doc thought it was a good idea to cut back on running.

I was bummed because I like running even if I’m not a gazelle and even if I had to build up my endurance again after months of inactivity.  I have three areas within 15 minutes of me that are hard packed dirt trails along San Francisco Bay.  Except for the constant annoying wind which slows me down even more and the damn geese in attack mode when the little goslings are born, I love going out there and forgetting about my life in the concrete jungle. Continue Reading »