Trying Something New. Or Am I?

So, I'm trying something new--unless it's just the same ol' same ol'.

The New York Times is all about it.

The "it" in question is high intensity interval training. All very well and good. Basically, it means you run like hell now and then.

So I gave it a shot tonight.

Felt okay--a bit exhausting.

10-minute warm-up run, 20 minutes alternating 1 minute of sprinting with two minutes of walking--not too daunting, this--then ten minutes of walking, a little jogging.

I figure the more I bring my heart rate down in the 'recovery' periods, the better.

But all the while, part of me was thinking: Now, God, now can I eat whatever I frigging want?

Can I go home and eat leftover Easter marshmallow chicks and some pastries from La Victoria bakery?

Can I eat the last few mint-flavored chocolate-covered graham crackers that Keebler makes to steal the thunder from those sweet little Girl Scouts. (They should beat the crap out of that flippin' elf. That is a smackdown I would love to see. God I'm high from the exercise! Listen to me! I'm fantasizing over girl-on-elf action.)

No, of course, I can't eat all that.

I'll have some pasta, though I usually try to avoid carbs at night (interferes with sleep, something about the blood sugar).

But this really brings it all home.

Is there, somewhere, a non-neurotic attitude towards food? Not in me there ain't.

Thinking of a friend's blog, it's like looking at a life from the wrong end of a telescope. She basically writes: this made me stressed, so I bought something to comfort myself or ate something to comfort myself.

And I'm just the same.

Funny how we all buy things, leisure products, that take time to consume, that are time--music, movies. Yet we don't have time to enjoy them. How many CD's do you have? Illegal mp3 or DVD downloads? Forget about gigabytes: what does iTunes give you as a total number of listening/watching hours. It's like we're all hoarding

And maybe the same thing goes for calories. I want to hoard more than I burn. (Big Idea: time is to the 21st century what calories and the vocabulary of energy were to the 19th century.)

It's like we're all asking all the time: "Just once, just once, for God's sake, can the laws of physics not apply to me? Might I not be the only one, nearly the only one, in the history of the planet, who was not constrained by so-called reality?"

And of course the answer is always 'No,' but that doesn't stop our almost-species-defining wishful thinking.

Indeed, the history of civilization might well be the history of a series of concepts invented by humans to try to think of ourselves as separate from nature.

There was "God." And "humanity." And "consciousness"--that was big in the 19th century.

All concepts meant to say: I am in this special domain where what I say goes. It's all about sovereignty. But we ain't got it.

The laws of physics have dominion over us. We're part of nature, and it just bugs the crap out of us.

(My dad used to have a cartoon: God and an angel, and God's saying, "So here's what we'll do. Let's take some of the smarter apes and give them a little more memory." And that's us.)

Burn all the calories you like. If you eat more, you'll still have a spare friggin' tire around your middle.

Unless you're that ultramarathon guy who runs like 100 miles. You hearda him?

He runs a marathon to warm-up, runs a competitive marathon, then runs another marathon or two--kinda like desert.

He can sleep while running.

In the middle of a run, he'll call ahead and order a pizza and a cheesecake. He eats it--and keeps on running. Doesn't throw up or shit. Just runs.

I hate him.

But if I were him, one pizza and one cheesecake would not be enough.

--E. R. O'Neill

Eight Miles in 82 Minutes.

Nice little run today.

From Gough and Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge, then back along Bay and down the Embarcadero to just north of the Ferry Terminal.

Eight miles in 82 minutes. 5.85 mph. Not so shabby--for me, anyway.

--E. R. O'Neill

Nice Run.

Only ten miles.

In 1 hour and 57 minutes.

But hey, there were hills!

Gmaps pedometer claims it's 1100 calories burned.

But everything else I read says that depends on your speed.

I'd imagine it would depend on your fitness, too--though I'm not sure which way.

I mean: if you're more fit, you're more efficient, therefore burning fewer calories.

On the other hand, if you're more fit, you're able to do more work, hence burn more calories.

Let's see, 5.13 mph burns about 1100 or 1200 calories--according to different sites.

Have I earned my veggie burrito yet!?

--E. R. O'Neill

Eat Food, Not Nutrients.

Michael Pollan is at it again.

And thank goodness for him!

His long piece on 1/28/07 in the New York Times argues what I've been saying.

Lots of other people say it too.

• Eat simple, whole foods. Emphasize fruits and vegetables.
• Avoid highly refined foods.
• Eat less but better.
• Get some exercise.

But Pollan emphasizes the way our focus on nutrition seems actually to have made us sicker.

"Nutrition" would be an expression of scientific reductionism--the idea that there are agents in food which cause specific effects, apart from the circumstances or contexts.

Pollan wants to emphasize culture, food as part of a way of life.

It's not just something present in or absent from the food that makes it good for you.

It's how it's made, where it comes from, how it's part of larger healthful patterns of life.

It may be familiar, but it bears repeating.

--E. R. O'Neill

Five Pounds in 24 Hours?

My weight's crept up.

While not exercising.

I hurt my calf while running--not enough warming up, no doubt.

Then I had a cold.

Counting calories, I sometimes was above 3000 in a day.

Too much.

My weight crept from 145 to 148.

Did you know that some online sites say the ideal weight for my height is 135 pounds?

I'm a stick at 135 pounds.

This page says most people my height and age weigh around 145, but then do I want to be most people?

This bizarre thing says that for white men my age I'm in something like the 10th percentile--meaning 90% of people weigh more, it seems.

This one says my BMI (22.7) is 15th percentile for men my height and age.

So I ran for two hours yesterday: from 24th and Potrero to Fisherman's Wharf--and back.

Usually I just run down there, then run a bit more on the Embarcadero, then take a train home.

Today I weighed five pounds less: from 148 to 143.

Yes, well I did run about 12 or 14 miles.

I'm sure it's "all water"--whatever that means.

The trouble is: I want to exercise and then eat all I like.

But apparently I can't.

So how many calories do I burn by running for two hours?

No one can tell me!

Or they do tell me, but the answers vary wildly.

I ate about 3000 calories yesterday--quite moderate really for that amount of exercise.

Getting my heart from 140 to 155 beats per minute for an hour (at my weight) may burn between 600 and 1000 calories. That's some latitude.

So in two hours I either burned 1200 or 2000 calories.

Subtracted from the 3000 I ate, that means I had either 1000 or 1800 calories.

Who knows.

The good thing is: I came home from running and had a salad with tuna and some few cookies. I snacked some more--soup, fruit, popcorn.

But not a quesadilla with steak.

Exercise is not a Get Out of Diet Jail for Free card.

How much an I indulge?

Time and experience will tell.

Is that steak quesadilla 1500 calories? Or 30000?

I may never know.

But I'm back to running, and that is all to the good.

--E. R. O'Neill

What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

This is brilliant.

It just shows what 200 calories of various foods looks like.

As you'd imagine, that's a lot of broccoli.

It's a small-ish bowl of chili.

It's three big eggs.

It's half a burger.

It's 2/3 of a muffin.

It's a mere handful of gummy bears.

It's a couple small pieces of bacon.

It's that simple!

--E. R. O'Neill

What Gives? Skeptical Me.

The more I exercise, the more I weigh.

It's a bit troubling.

Mind you, I tend to stop and eat a burrito after running 12 miles.

But still--damn, it's 12 miles!

I worked up to this slowly, truth be told.

It's mostly the pleasure of exercise, plus listening to music while I run.

I know it sounds crazy, but after 45 minutes, it's sheer pleasure. Probably the brain flooded with endorphins.

But back to my "problem."

At my tiniest I was nearly 135# at 5'7". Now I'm up to 147. But I must be healthier, yes? I mean I can run 12 miles in two hours. It's not extraordinarily fast, but it's reasonable.

My scale is no longer reliable about telling me how much fat I'm wearing. If it ever was reliable. Anyway, it used to go downward as I dieted and exercised. Now it tells me "Err 4"--which is not so helpful. I can't stomach the thought of plunking down for another--or more for a 'better' one.

Recently I looked at a chart of heart rates and whatnot. It seems that by keeping my heart at 130-145 beats per minute (BPM), I'm not working hard enough--vis-a-vis the maximum for a 44-year-old man.

So earlier this week I ran for two hours with my heart from 140-155. Then yesterday I kept it from 150-160. That was much harder. Basically, I had to run nonstop for 15 minutes before I could say sprint to get it higher then walk to relax a bit--which is what I prefer.

But you know, my body looks thinner. I think my tummy's a little flatter.

Jeans don't fit any better (when freshly washed). These are jeans with a 29-inch waist so I ought not to complain. Like that ever stopped anyone.

I would like to think my leg and butt muscles are getting so strong that it makes me weigh more.

145 pounds for a man of 5'7" is not really too big.

But skeptical me would like some evidence of improvement. (Is running further and faster not enough?)

--E. R. O'Neill