Hallelujah

BMI is in the news, again. On the heels of our initial testing yesterday a synchronistic plethora of related articles hit the blogsphere.

Much as we saw with the 220 minus your age HR debacle a few years back, this is simply a way to get peoples attention. Numbers will do that. Stats. Percentiles. Risk. And yes, scare tactics. If this is what it takes to get the 60 or so percent of Americas off their fat and lazy asses and into a structured program of better eating and regular exercise, then so be it. I am onboard. Lord knows I have tried many different approaches to accomplish this noble agenda, from bribery to example, and while there has been some success, the overweight/obesity numbers we see today indicate that there is more, much more, work left to be done.

So let's get on with the show.

Day one on the NBD (no bread diet) was interesting. I thought I might have been doin' the jones for a while as my blood sugar responded to the change. But we rode it out using a Zen technique called, ahem, attention. Works like this: Hunger pangs pop up. Understand them, acknowledge them, empathize with them, respect them. THEN LET THEM THE HECK GO. Next? Works every time, grasshopper.

I have so much to do today that 24 hours might not be enough. Packing and prepping for Mexico. Cabin clean up. Trip to the LBS for spare tires and tubes. I would love to get in a run sometime assuming that the park isn't under ten feet of water from the rains.

Speaking of good diet and exercise, here are a few of the articles that showed up yesterday. One from NPR, one from the Seattle Times, and here is a handy calculator to find your very own BMI. Seems 20 to 25 is the goal.

Equally as important is the fitness and movement side of the equation. I am on Chris Carmichael's mailing list, and his terrific newsletter arrived yesterday. The quoted section below particularly caught my attention. Any of this sound familiar? Chris is the coach of Lance, Craig Alexander, George Hincapie, Heather Golnick and hundreds of other world-class athletes. He is easily the best marketeer of coaching services out there today, as a quick trip to his site will attest.

Lastly, before I begin the aforementioned chores, here is as cool a video as you will find on YouTube. Please spend five minutes and check it out. You will be glad you did. However, please do NOT hang out in mall food courts waiting for a encore.

That alone would raise your BMI a point or two.

I took a few things away from the NY Times article that are very relevant for athletes in their 40s-60s:

• Protect your mitochondria: these powerplants in your muscle cells process fat and carbohydrate into energy, and when you lose mitochondria your performance goes downhill quickly. Exercising consistently and including hard efforts are crucial components of maintaining and increasing the size and number of mitochondria in your muscles.

• Don’t stop training or competing: Your peak performance markers and your interests may change as you grow older, but research is suggesting that staying engaged in training and competition keeps aging athletes out of the doctor’s office and adds life to their years, if not years to their life.

• Intensity is important throughout your life: I’ve written about it in "The Time-Crunched Cyclist” and “Time-Crunched Triathlete” and I’ve experienced it myself – athletes in their 40s and older, especially those who are short on training time, need more intensity in order to attain high-performance fitness. And the newer research is suggesting that higher-intensity training now may mean retaining the ability to train effectively decades from now.

George Frideric Handel had a less than perfect BMI (estimated at 32.6) but he wrote some beautiful music. Hallelujah.