Differing exercise requirements for aging women

A recent study (appropriated from here) underlines something we've discovered to be true over the last few years: that women's exercise requirements actually increase with age. Or their dietary intake needs to decrease. Or a combination of the two.

In our experience, exercise and a popular diet (South Beach) were not enough to bring my 50-year-old-plus wife's weight down. She followed that diet pretty scrupulously and we were fairly active--much more so in the summer than in winter, since this dates to before we started strength training and riding stationary bikes over the winter. But we still did quite a bit of walking during the colder months. After an initial weight loss of a few pounds on that diet and intermittent exercise regime, her weight would start to go back up. It was obvious something wasn't working.

What finally brought the weight down and kept it there (she was up to about 170 and is at 125 now--and no, I don't want her to lose any more) was cutting the South Beach diet portions down and increasing exercise. She replaced one of the daily meals in the South Beach plan with one of their recommended snacks, to be specific. And we began our current, year-round exercise regime.

So she eats two South Beach meals per day and the third meal is replaced by a South Beach recommended snack (e.g., apple with peanut butter or small shrimp cocktail), and in addition she has the other two snacks the diet advises (one between breakfast and lunch and one between lunch and dinner). That eating plan in combination with our new exercise regime, has allowed her to lose about 45 pounds and keep it off (fingers crossed!). She's been at the target weight for close to 6 months now, incidentally. I'm very happy with that and so is she.

In any case, the study I mentioned seems to offer an explanation for why it was so difficult for her to steadily lose, then keep off, the weight. The article follows.

Women Need 60 Minutes Daily Exercise To Prevent Weight Gain -Study
By Jennifer Corbett Dooren
Dow Jones Newswires

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A new study shows women need 60 minutes of moderate daily exercise to prevent weight gain as they age if they consume a normal diet.

The findings suggest women need more exercise than the current guidelines of 150 minutes a week, or 30 minutes five days a week, of moderate-to-intense activity. The study is being published in the March 24/31 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"I don't want people to throw up their hands and say I can't do it," said I. Min Lee, the study's lead researcher and a doctor and associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

She says women who consume a normal diet and are already at a normal weight can beat middle-age weight gain by working out intensely for 30 minutes a day by running, cycling, swimming laps or working out at a gym.

"If you are willing to sweat it out you can do less," Lee said. Weight-gain can also be prevented with 60 minutes of moderate activity like walking, a leisurely bike ride or playing catch, for example.

Federal exercise guidelines of 150 minutes a week of moderate-to-intense activity are designed to prevent disease and obtain other health benefits. However, a 2002 report by the Institute of Medicine suggested 60 minutes a day, or 420 minutes a week is needed to prevent weight gain.

Lee explained that the basis of IOM's findings have been questioned so she and other researchers decided to look at the issue again with a group of women participating in the federal Women's Health Study. She also said the goal of the study was to look at women who weren't dieting and were consuming a normal diet to see what impact physical activity has on weight.

The study looked at 34,079 healthy U.S. women who consumed a usual diet from 1992-2007. The women in the study were all age 45 and older at the start. The average age of women in the study was 54.

The women were given a questionnaire about the amount of exercise or activity they engaged in per week at the study start and then at three-year intervals. Women's exercise activity was tracked for an average of 13 years while weight changes were tracked over a three-year period.

Overall women gained an average of 5.7 pounds in the study. However, women who were normal weight, or those with body-mass index of less than 25, maintained their weight if they exercised for 60 minutes a day. Women who exercised less generally gained weight.

Lee said that for overweight or obese women that 60 minutes a day of exercise wasn't enough to maintain weight, suggesting calories also need to be cut.

"These data suggest that the 2008 federal recommendation for 150 minutes per week, while clearly sufficient to lower the risks of chronic diseases, is insufficient for weight gain prevention absent caloric restriction," the study author's wrote.

As I've written earlier, at certain times of the year (mostly in winter) we might exercise as little as 140 minutes a week--a bit less than what the current guidelines suggest for women. When the weather allows cycling outdoors, however, we exercise far more than that. Heck, any typical Saturday or Sunday when the weather is nice sees us doing a minimum of 150 minutes on the bike at one time, and we might even do twice that or more.

How insomnia can hinder physical fitness

Today I have a good example to share of how insomnia can hinder physical fitness. It might seem counter intuitive that a lack of sleep or troubled sleep could affect one's fitness life. But it can.

I suppose the most evident way insomnia could hinder fitness would be in the feeling of exhaustion that can accomnpany insomnia, and the hindrance that could cause in exertion: if you're already feeling physically drained owing to sleep deficit, are you going to be able to push yourself less hard than you would were you well rested? The common-sense answer to that question appears to be affirmative; yes, you should be less capable, having not rested properly, of pushing yourself.

But the hindrance I want to write about today is of a somewhat different character. It's actually more simplistic, involving scheduling.

As my readers will be aware, I suffer from insomnia. Last night, for example, while not by any means a really bad night, was a pretty restless one. I slept a little less than one hour before I awoke. After that I was unable to get back to sleep. I finally decided to get up and walk/sit to see if that would calm down some intestinal discomfort that seemed to be interfering with sleep.

I didn't want to be up for very long because I have to leave town briefly today, so I laid back down at around 2 A.M. I had already begun to doubt at that point whether I'd be in a condition to get up at 6 A.M.: you see, since I would be missing my stationary bike session this evening owing to the trip I'm taking, I had hoped I might get up early and do that session in the morning.

Well, I was not in a condition to arise at 6 A.M., so I missed doing the stationary bike session I had planned. Now, fortunately in this case, I had a little extra time later in the morning before my departure. So, though I overslept the session I had planned for today, I was able to work it in a little later after I'd gotten up.

But had my schedule been tighter, I might have lost my opportunity to exercise today owing to the insomnia problem. So, there's a concrete example of how insomnia can hinder fitness.

Super shake update

Just wanted to do another short entry on super shakes and how they've really made a big difference on strength-training days (for my purposes, strength training mean upper-body strengthening exercises). I posted earlier about retching problems I'd had when we do our strength training, and about how I hoped drinking a super shake on workout day might address that problem.

Drinking the shake on strength-training day did, in fact, help to alleviate the problem. And in this entry I just want to reiterate that and to recommend to anyone who may have this sort of retching problem when they work out that they should consider a super shake lunch/afternoon snack on workout days as a potential solution.

To be more concise, here's how the shake diet has helped me on strength-training days. We usually work out in the evening--around 6 or 7 P.M. I will eat a solid breakfast on those days and often have a mid-morning snack as well (yogurt, perhaps some fresh vegetables and/or some corn chips). But after about 11 A.M. I switch to what is essentially a liquid diet until supper (after the workout). So, most of a large supershake for lunch, then the rest later in the afternoon. This diet has made a big difference with respect to the retch factor.

Granted, you may not have such acute digestive issues as I have (I suspect a hiatal hernia). But using these shakes on workout days may nonetheless bring you some relief if you have the retch sensation during your workout.

Now, the urge to retch is not limited to strength-training for me, though it is more pronounced (owing, usually, to supine or prone positions you assume when doing certain exercises). So the question I now face is, should I consider--now that the cycling season impends--doing super shakes on hard cycling days as well?

I've definitely given it some thought. I'll be providing updates on that.

BTW, the backs of my legs are a bit sore today--hamstrings, calves, behind the knees. I'm guessing that's from yesterday's ride and owes largely to the fact that I ride an upright bike for off-season, stationary-bike training, while during cycling season I ride a recumbent on the road. Slightly differing muscle groups are involved in each of the two configurations.

Cycling season officially opens! (or: Two-thirds of a geriatric triathlon?)

We officially opened the 2010 cycling season today by hitting the road for the first time this year. Was it ideal weather for it? No, far from it. It was pretty cool (a little over 40) and the roads were still a bit damp from the rain/drizzle we've been getting all week.

No, I'd like to cast this as a valiant attempt to inaugurate the season, but the realist in me won't let me get away with that. Truth is, we had an errand to run. And the errand needed to be done on the bike. And today was finally a clear enough day and we had enough time to actually do it.

What was the errand? Well, we've finally decided--after five years of ownership--to take the bike into the shop for a full tune-up. And since we ride a recumbent tandem, we can't just throw it in a car or something and take it there. It would take a truck or van to do that. Or simply riding it in to the shop, which is what we did. The shop's only about a 5 mile ride from us.

Which brings me to the geriatric triathlon part of this entry. We actually need to leave the bike with them for about a week. We ride it there and drop it off . . . so, how do we get back?

Some might take the bus. Others might ask a friend for a ride. But us? We walked. We took a slightly shorter route to get home, so it ended up being a little over 4 miles. There's our two-thirds geriatric triathlon for you: 5.25 mile bike ride and 4 mile walk.

Joking aside, it felt great. I'm glad we did it--both the riding and the walking. I look forward to doing it again when we pick up the bike, probably next weekend.

And we are really, really glad, in all seriousness, that we've been able to kick off the 2010 cycling season so early--even if it's with a paltry 5.25 mile ride. We'll be putting in many, many more miles over the upcoming months, God willing, so lots more miles are to be added to this modest beginning.

More walking, shoulder update

Did some more walking today, though probably only about 3 miles or so. So when we got home we did a few minutes of intervals on the stationary bikes as well (half of our usualy 20-minute session). Itching to get out on the road now that the snow is melting apace.

I haven't written about my shoulder problems for a few months now. That's actually a good sign: it means it's not been bothering me much. I think it's now about as good as it's gonna get. What that means is that it will probably always bother me to some extent--if it remains like it is now, it will be mostly just a bit stiff.

I think I have an idea about what exercise was causing me difficulty: a sort of lat pull-down movement I was doing back in Soloflex days. Now that most of our upper-body strength training involves calisthenics and use of some dumbbells, the problem has pretty much been resolved.

I do feel a little stiffness in the other shoulder (left) these past few days, though. But this time it's actually behind my shoulder--like maybe in a muscle that goes between the upper part of the tricep over by the shoulder blade. We'll see whether that goes away.

About the poll I added

I added a poll to my blog yesterday. It's set to last for about 2 months--yeah, so this is a low-traffic blog and I need to add extra time in hopes of attracting more participants. So, what's the poll about?

Well, it relates to a fitness blog I check on with some regularity, located here. This guy does an insane amount of fitness activity. Reading about his regime and thinking about my own comparatively modest endeavors I get to thinking . . . how long will this guy last?

I don't ask that with any malice. He seems nice enough and writes engagingly. But in my view he's going way, way beyond what is necessary for his health.

Will it hurt him to do so much more than the minimum necessary for maintaining good health? Who knows? He might end up with some sort of stress injury, which could have a greater or lesser impact on his health. Or he may not. But the real question at stake here is whether you can exercise too much. And I don't profess to have an answer to that question--certainly not with respect to the physical component of fitness.

I can, though, attest to the psychological aspect of overdoing fitness. I know from my own experience that it is possible to burn yourself out by doing too much: I learned some lessons about that back in my bike racing days. When that happens, it becomes drudgery, something you have to force yourself to do. Which is one step along the way to ceasing to do it altogether.

There are ways to deal with that, one of which is to introduce variety. That's what I'm doing in my own routine and it seems to be something fitbomb (the guy has never revealed to me his personal identity, so I'll just refer to him by the name of his blog) may be doing as well--though I'm not sure he's adopted it as a strategy: he may just be trying out all the latest fitness fads.

Which brings me to another possible motivation for him: perhaps he's doing what he does, in part, because it's popular? He's got a ready-made community of fellow exercisers that buy and perform the same sets of commercialized fitness regimes he does. Because of the promotion the creators of the routines engage in, the products are popular and glamorous. I don't discount this as a possible motivating factor for him.

But there's a flip side to the popularity aspect: what happens when, as happens with all fads, fitness wanes in popularity? Would he be doing what he does if most people held that fitness pursuits were a waste of time? Would he be able to sustain what he now does with the rise of this sort of attitude?

Aside: you might detect from these remarks that I am not a believer in progress. I do not hold that humanity has evolved to a point where the importance of fitness has permanently impressed itself on the collective consciousness and will remain with our kind in perpetuity. No, being a keen student of history I see those kinds of assumptions as naive and ill-advised. The time will come again in our history--provided our race survives long enough--when fitness will seem like a waste of time, mark my words.

Enough philosophizing . . .

All this being said, I do suspect fitbomb may be doing what he does for reasons that differ from the reasons I'm doing fitness. He seems fairly young--maybe early thirties? So he's doubtless still got a pretty good energy level. He seems not to have been in really bad shape before he started his current exercise craze, though he does admit to not being terribly athletic earlier in his life.

Me, on the other hand, I've turned to fitness to try and address some serious health issues. Not that I've been terribly unfit at any point in my life either. But I'm probably quite a bit older than this guy and my body--as is typical of bodies starting at around my age--is starting to deteriorate. Thus, I see fitness as mandatory for me if I expect to lead a decent life in the years ahead. In short, I should be maintaining at least my current level of fitness for the rest of my life.

I'm not sure these sorts of thoughts have entered fitbomb's mind because he may not yet have faced his mortality in such an urgent way as I have. Perhaps for him fitness will end up being some sort of fad, a phase he goes through during a certain brief portion of his life? Hard to tell.

But what I do sense is that he's overdoing things a bit, which can lead to burn-out. Now, granted, I do not know this guy. He might be a sort of manic personality, someone who was a hyperactive kid, and so may be capable of maintaining such an intense level of fitness for a very long time.

Whatever the case, the poll is designed to address some of these questions. How long do you think he'll be able to keep this up? My own feeling is that it won't last too much longer--maybe another year. I'm really guessing here and, if I knew this guy personally, I might have an entirely different opinion, knowing his personality. But not having that sort of information, I would have to guess that it won't last very much longer.

Find the poll at the top of the right hand column of this page and weigh in with your vote (I've included a screenshot of the poll in this entry: find the real, interactive poll at the top of the right column of this blog).

4.5 mile walk in place of cycling

Today was one of the days when we decided to replace our cycling with walking. It was such a nice spring day out and we had some errands to run. So we decided to get our exercise and do errands at the same time.

We could have actually made this about an 8-mile walk. But that seemed to me a little too large an increase in mileage. We currently walk in the range of 1-3 miles on some days and increasing that amount by more than twice so suddenly seemed unwise to me. So we drove a bit of the way toward our destination and walked the rest. In retrospect I think we could have done 6 miles without causing ourselves too much distress--mainly joint pain, at our age. But hindisght is always 20/20, as they say.

Of course the walking was nowhere near as intense as the cycling we would have done today. But that's fine: we don't need to be intense every time we do activity, we just need to remain active. I'm not trying to set any records. I'm shooting more for the sort of slow-and-steady-wins-the race philosophy

I've created a new poll on this blog but I'll wait until tomorrow to explain further about that.

Laxness in breathing exercises heightening blood pressure?

I kind of got out of my rythm of breathing exercises a couple of weeks ago when I made a trip out of town. I've had a hard time getting back to that rythm (twice a day, morning and evening is what I'd been aiming for). Today I had a higher reading than I've seen in a while (150/87): is it related to laxness in performing my breathing exercises?

Other factors could be at play. I had kind of a rough night last night for one. Then, I really rushed over for my blood pressure appointment today since I got a late start. Then, since today was strength-training day I didn't take hydrochlorothiazide.

Tough to say how much role laxness in performing breathing exercises played. What's certain is that I need to get more regular and frequent about it in order to see if it comes down at the next appointment.

To interval, or not to interval?

Somehow I only recently began to wonder to myself "is it really necessary to do intervals on every day we do our stationary bike riding?" Simple question and a simple answer occurred to me promptly: "no, it's not necessary."

According to my by-gosh by-golly technical reckoning, we should get benefits from intervals even if we do them on only 2 of our four cycling days. We're not training for the olympics here, after all, folks.

I decided to implement the new policy pronto. So from here on out we'll be doing intervals on 2 to 3 of our 4 weekly stationary-bike days. On the other days we'll do our usual ca. 30 minutes of spinning.

Anxious to see what will be the effects of the intervals--if they're noticable at all--when we'll hit the road a little later this spring. Stay tuned.

I'm still here

Was out of town for a few days so I missed a couple of cycling sessions last week. But I made up for that to some extent by doing some fairly vigorous snow shoveling. We're still here and still exercising--just tonight we did our usual strength training. And tomorrow intervals. Once I get fully settled in again I'll be posting some more substantial entries.