My Health Journey

Blank chart I use to fill out my workouts Record-keeping is key to successful weight training. Though I have always recorded my exercises, I was applying the records far too automatically in determining what weights to use on a particular day. Looking back, it appears I have been increasing weights too fast, and adhering too rigidly to the plan. That, perhaps, can explain the frequent injuries I was having. After a year-long hiatus from weight training, I wanted to ease in gradually. I am finding the need to revise my strategy for weight training. The main observation is that my form degrades as I continue an exercise for more reps . As muscles fatigue, others pitch in to fill their place. The hip starts to move to assist the bicep, or the lower back moves in to help. That's not good because it's recruiting muscles other than the ones in focus, for a job they're not meant to do in the first place. Another observation is that I'm not training for an event. Rather...

One of my earliest goals when I started exercising was losing weight. Following the advice in No Meat Athlete , I wasn't counting calories or anything - just striving to eat healthy foods, including lots of fruits and veggies and whole grains, and to avoid processed foods. Then, more recently, I learned I had severe food allergies to nuts, and a moderate allergy to wheat.  Nuts I could give up, although they occur as ingredients in many a thing, from peanut butter, to marzipan, to almond soap and massage oil. Wheat is much harder to let go off.  We tend to eat wheat at almost every meal, and it enters many processed snack foods like cookies and crackers. I did some trials and found out I get less congested and can breathe and feel much better if I avoided those foods. However, given wheat's preponderance, I decided to cut down rather than eliminate it completely. To do this, I refined the two-step process I have relied on for the past few years. First, is the shopping li...

In Getting Enough Nutrition , I wrote about my increased interest in eating healthy. Fortunately, a year later, I heard from a friend about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Essentially, rather than getting their groceries from the supermarket, they contract with the local farm to deliver their produce. Pasta sauce from CSA farm vegetables The basil is also from the CSA farm It turns out this nice farm I pass along my way to work - a green oasis amid a growing suburban sprawl - has its own CSA program. For about $30 a week, I share in the produce of the farm, receiving a decent quantity of 10-12 different vegetables a week, all organic, in-season, and fresh from the earth. There are no guarantees as to what we get. We pay for our share at the beginning of the year, and receive whatever the earth gives, which bounty varies from year to year and depends on the weather. Thus we share the risks and rewards with the farmer, and the adventure of finding out what's in store...

Tofu Kebab, one of my culinary creations After starting exercise with weights, I worried about the adequacy of my nutrition. I am a lifelong vegetarian, and though I have lived healthy for decades on a vegetarian diet, I wasn't sure I was getting enough protein to build muscles. I got a few books on vegetarian nutrition. One was too technical and tedious, another a marketing ploy for nutritional products. Ultimately, however, one book really changed my life. No Meat Athlete by Matt Frazier was a curious but interesting and most practically useful guide. Half the book was about down to earth vegetarian nutritional advice, the other half about running. This is the book that got me started running, at age 41. I learned that my biggest concern with a vegetarian diet was not protein, but the dependence on processed food. I followed the book's advice and switched my diet nearly completely to whole foods, while eliminating much junk food. I ended up cooking more myse...

Though I have exercised sporadically throughout my life, I have largely neglected my health in between. By early 2013, I didn't like the way I look and wanted to change. The five years hence have been my most concerted effort to stay on a healthy path. I got into the habit of a daily walk first thing in the morning, which helped keep me calm through my divorce, and started me losing weight. Feeling the need for cardio work, and with no prior experience, I took up running at the eve of my 42nd birthday, and went on to complete three half-marathons and many shorter races. Nowadays, I augment my running with yoga, weights, hiking, biking, swimming, housework, …, whatever I can do to stay active. I lost 50 lbs. in the last five years, and am enjoying the financial pangs of downsizing my wardrobe twice.  What made this stretch so resilient is my realization that any health program I follow has to uniquely work for me, for my own strengths and weaknesses, taking into account my...