My Plan For Health

A belly dancing class. Photo by Meredith James, via Flickr

Some of you have been asking how belly dancing is going. I am four weeks into an eight-week program at Habeeba’s, and I have to say that belly dancing is really hard. Harder, even, than I thought it would be, and I tried to keep my expectations in check.

On the first night, I learned that the rest position for belly dancing is basically a squat. You stand there, knees slightly bent, and your pelvis tilted outward just a little, so that your back is straight. Standing like that for an hour is really tiring.

Just hours after my first class, my legs started to ache. The aching got worse the next day, when it felt like my legs were going to fall off. Just walking was hard!

Photo by Meredith James, via Flickr

It amazes me how, every time I start a new activity, my muscles find a new way to hurt. But I guess that’s the point of pursuing many different forms of exercise. Muscles that aren’t often used grow stronger.

The instructors gave us a hand-out with exercises to do in-between classes (we only meet once a week) and I think those exercises are helping — I am not so sore after class now.

I do, however, feel a great deal of frustration during class, when I can’t seem to get a particular move right. This is the first dance class that I’ve taken in my entire life, and I found that it’s just like what I’ve seen in the movies or on TV. The instructor shows you a move. Then you do the move. Then you do it again. And again. And again. And again and again and again and again. And then you do it again. And then the instructor says, “Hey, that last time was better!”

Last week, we started using finger cymbals, or zills. They are way cool and lots of fun to play with. Their purpose is to accent the moves you are doing, so that you strike them together in time with the dance. But I discovered that dancing and playing the zills at the same time is beyond me, at least for right now. Habeeba’s gave us some sheet music so we could practice at home.

My zills and sheet music

This week, New York Times science writer Tara Parker Pope announced that she is going to keep a decades-long promise to herself, and run the New York City Marathon. As a former runner who is trying to get back into the sport, she’s worried about injuries. The lessons that she’s learning along the way are valuable for anyone who’s starting an exercise routine.

Her Tuesday post offered some words of advice from Olympian and marathon trainer Jeff Galloway:

The key to injury prevention is to start slow and continue to take frequent walk breaks during the weeks of training and the marathon itself… The first step for any new runner, he says, is to just get out there two or three days a week for about 30 minutes. Don’t try to run the whole time — that’s how new runners get injured. Decide what run-walk combination works for you.

But for me, the words that resonated the most came from Olympian and marathoner Kara Goucher in yesterday’s post:

Q: What can someone planning to run a first marathon learn from an elite runner like you?
A: I’m going to train at a different level than an average runner because I have the time to and the resources to, and that’s my job. But I can relate to your average runner absolutely. You just have to scale everything and put it in perspective of what you’re trying to accomplish. You’re asking a lot of your body no matter how fast or far you’re going. Running is something that hurts. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s a gift in my life. But it’s painful, and it hurts and takes a lot of time. Have patience. Stick with it and don’t expect results overnight.

Since I broke a foot while jogging two years ago, I’ve been terrified of it happening again. I do not jog, and the hardest surface I will walk on for exercise is blacktop. I wear cushy shoes and cushy socks and tape up my feet and — for the most part — stick to the elliptical machine. But there are other things I can do to avoid injury, as Galloway suggests:

Q: One of the big worries of new runners is getting injured. How do you deal with injury concerns?
A: I’ve had lots of injuries, stress fractures, shin splints, compartment syndrome, I banged up my knee. I know what it’s like to be hurt. In my running I’ve incorporated a lot more weight lifting and drills that give my body overall more athleticism. I think that helps prevent injuries. If you only have 30 minutes to work out, sometimes it’s more important to run 20 minutes and take 10 minutes to stretch and do weights and build your overall athleticism. I think that will keep you healthy.

This is very similar to the advice that my trainers have been giving me in the Faculty and Staff Fitness Program. To balance out my fitness routine, I’ve scaled back some calorie-burning activities to make room for ones that build muscle, flexibility, and endurance.

Forgive me if my blog seems a little off today. I’m having trouble reading my computer screen. The text seems jagged and jumpy. I’m also groggy and feeling a lot of sinus pressure.

Yesterday, I had a migraine. Still feeling the after effects.

I could blame it on some absolutely delicious smoked turkey that I bought at the North Market on Saturday. But he culprit could also have been the red wine I drank with dinner, or the storm front that came in over the weekend.

More likely, it was a combination of all three. That’s what I learned at the Lunch & Learn program on Diet and Migraine offered by Michal Hogan, registered dietitian at Nutrition Results.

Researchers have studied diet and migraine for decades, but such studies are very difficult to do. There are many possible food triggers, and sometimes it’s not one food but the cumulative effects of several foods eaten within a certain time frame that triggers the migraine.

Hogan presented a detailed lecture on diet and migraine, including a survey of the scientific literature (email me if you’d like to see the references). Food is only one cause of migraines — other causes include weather changes and stress. In one study, eliminating trigger foods helped 2/3 of migraine sufferers.

Image from Nutritionresults.com

Migraines are caused by inflammation, which is the body’s  immune response to injury or invading pathogens. While scientists are still unsure how this happens in a migraine, some people’s immune systems appear to be irritated by certain foods, and the immune response causes inflammation of the blood vessels around the brain.

Hogan recommends mediator release testing (MRT) — a blood test that measures how a person’s white blood cells and platelets respond to 120 staple foods and chemicals. The patient then removes trigger foods from his or her diet, and gradually re-introduces foods one at a time to make the diet as inclusive as possible.

WebMD offers an extensive list of foods that are known to trigger migraines. Armed with this information, some people can try to remove foods from their diet without seeking medical help. But with so many foods on the list (and allowing for the possibility of interactions between them), it would be very hard for a person to guess the right combination of foods to remove from their diet. “Guessing right would be like winning the lottery,” Hogan said.

One snag: this therapy is not completely covered by the university medical plan. The office visit is covered, but the MRT test itself is only discounted. Hogan said the situation is similar to the university vision plan, where visits to the eye doctor are covered but glasses are not completely covered.

Maybe that situation will change, as researchers learn more about the link between diet and migraine. The costs to society are already substantial. Hogan cited a 2006 study that found that migraines cost U.S. employers $24 billion annually — $12 billion in direct costs such as medicines and emergency room visits, and another $12 billion in lost worker productivity.

Yoga that caters to plus-size folks is on the rise, according to a New York Times article.

I’ve never been to a plus-size class, but I see the appeal. Classes full of skinny people are intimidating. The solution for me has been to find small classes, where there’s an ongoing conversation between the instructor and the students on how to modify poses for different body types.

In a large class, having a conversation with the instructor means interrupting, which is just embarrassing. I don’t care what the yoga teacher says about interruptions being welcome. The one fat person in the class is not going to ask how to modify a pose, and he/she is not going to appreciate being singled out by the teacher for advice on modifying poses, either.

That’s why small classes are more comfortable for me: everybody gets advice. Nobody stands out.

Most of the public comments on the NYT story were very thoughtful. Only a couple of ignorant ones got my dander up. One was from a guy who said it’s good for plus-sized people to be segregated in their own yoga class, because that way they can’t slow down class for the skinny people. As if yoga were a race! Feh!

Because large yoga classes are so common in the United States, we have a skewed view of what yoga is supposed to be. We think everyone is supposed to be doing exactly the same thing, at exactly the same pace, while the instructor stays far away in the front of the room, posing. It’s just not natural.

The way I look at it, the instructions from the teacher are a suggestion — a guideline. Something to think about and discard, if you don’t feel like doing it. Try the pose. If you can’t do it or it hurts, try to modify it. If you’re still uncomfortable, just do something else. Challenge yourself in a different way. Just keep breathing!

See, I told you it got my dander up.

I was happy to see that one of the plus-size classes mentioned in the NYT story is Mega Yoga. I’m currently reading the book by teacher Megan Garcia.

Hello to everyone who found My Plan For Health through the May 2009 Connect newsletter. Welcome, and thanks for clicking in!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the site.

Justin Dials of PAES puts me in the BOD POD.

As it turns out, my earlier body composition testing was a little wonky. In March, Rebecca Nguyen, manager of the Faculty and Staff Fitness Program, measured the amount of fat on my body with calipers, warning me all the while that calipers are, in fact, one of the least accurate tools for doing so.

That test determined my body fat percentage to be 39.9 percent and my lean weight — the weight of the non fat portion of my body (my bones, muscles, and organs) — to be 144 pounds.

Now, I may be 5′8″ tall, but 144 pounds is a heck of a lean weight. Either I was truly dense as I had been joking all along, or something was a little off.

This week, I had a chance to go back to the Exercise Science Laboratory in the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services and sit in the BOD POD — one of the most accurate devices available for measuring body composition. It was a high-tech and fun experience, and I had my results instantly.

The BOD POD works by measuring a person’s weight and volume, explained graduate student Justin Dials. Then a computer uses that information to calculate body composition.

"Yes, I see... Mmm-hm."

I stood on an electronic scale for the weighing part, and then sat in a cool space-egg pod contraption for the volume part. Special electronics inside the egg measured how much air my body displaced to obtain my volume. This involved some air pressure changes inside the pod, and my ears popped a little. It kind of felt like being on an airplane. Kind of loud like being on an airplane, too.

Seconds later, I had my results: 50.3 percent fat, 122.6 pounds lean weight. That, sadly, makes much more sense.

I will also say that the supposedly highly accurate electronic scale weighed me many pounds heavier than my scale at home. Therefore I will completely disregard my weight as measured by the BOD POD and pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Rebecca agreed with me that what’s important is to always weigh yourself on the same scale, and look at the change in weight, not the specific number. So I’m going to stick with my scale at home, which currently shows that I’ve lost five pounds.

Let’s try that again:

I LOST FIVE POUNDS!

Yeah, that looks better.

And if you check out my new data page, you’ll see that I received some other good news, as Rebecca re-measured me: I’ve lost nearly two inches around my hips. Woo-hoo!

[Thanks to commenter Shaheen for the title to this post.]

I was very interested in Chris Mooney’s latest post in the Discover Magazine blog, The Intersection. He points to a review of the recent AAAS panel on science and the media, in which he commented on the current state of science blogging.

Chris Mooney's blog at Discover Magazine

While there are lots of science blogs out there, Mooney feels that the content is skewed toward polemics, with too many writers focusing on debate rather than offering verifiable science. There’s no “Cosmos” in science blogging, he says.

When I started this blog, I promised to apply the same criteria to my postings as I do to the rest of my science writing. Whenever possible, I interview experts from the OSU faculty and staff to explain the science behind fitness.

Judging by the reactions I’m receiving from colleagues around campus, I think I’m succeeding. The word I keep hearing is “analytical,” as in, “Wow, your blog is really analytical.” Even my FSFP water aerobics instructor Ya Ting commented during class, as she bobbed up and down in the water: “Pam is writing a fitness blog… It’s very analytical.”

My EKG, during a fitness test

Since fitness is just applied science, and my intended audience is the university community, I’m not sure why people find it notable that this blog is so factual. If anything, this kind of writing feels less factual to me, because I add my opinion and personal experience, and make occasional attempts at humor.

As long as people keep reading, and keep learning something about science, I’m going to keep writing this blog. With the wide variety of research done on this campus every day, I’ll never run out of topics to cover.

Mooney’s assertion — which I’m inclined to believe, given his expertise in this area — makes me feel pretty lucky. My job as a university science writer gives me the chance to blog about science as much as I want. I have a host of researchers to inform me and keep me honest. And, on a personal note, I see no better place to pursue fitness than a leading research university. All the answers I need are here.

I believe in the academy, and science will set me free!

Things I learned from reading the Lantern today:

1. I am a researcher! (I’m not. I’m a science writer. I write *about* research.)

2. Making time to exercise despite a busy work schedule is something that I have mastered! (Alright! I like the sound of that.)

3. I am perhaps not losing weight because I am not following one consistent fitness program. (Hmm. Gonna have to talk to Rebecca about that one.)

4. When trying to think of a word for “fat” that starts with a “b,” the best the headline writer could come up with is “brawn.”

Brains and… Brawn? Brains and a Broad, maybe. Or how about Brains and Booty? Brains and…?

A belly dancer, via Wikipedia

Leave it to me to find a form of exercise where I get to wear jewelry (once I get good at it, anyway).

Tonight I take my first official belly dancing class at Habeeba’s. I heard about Habeeba’s when I took a free introductory class at EquiFair, a wellness fair offered by EquiVita in Grandview. (Thanks to Shannon Chaney of the Upper Arlington Lifelong Learning program for alerting me to EquiFair.)

Belly dancing is an ancient form of dance that provides aerobic exercise and works the core muscles — which, if you remember my recent post on 30-second abs, includes the abdominals and other muscles that help us maintain good posture. I am looking for a low-impact exercise routine to supplement the higher impact work that I’m doing in the gym, and belly dancing seems like a good choice.

The Dance of the Almeh (The Belly-Dancer) by Jean-Léon Gérôme

I should say that I’m committed to using all the resources available to me at Ohio State, but I know of no belly dancing class that is offered here, nor any fitness dancing class for that matter. Should one be offered, I will definitely try it. But for now, I will look to other Columbus community resources, such as Habeeba’s.

The free class at the EquiFair was loads of fun, and hard work. The three teachers were so confident and healthy — and curvy. I felt like I belonged.

We learned how to make snake arms and do the shoulder shimmy (see a description of some belly dancing moves here), and performed just the most basic of hip moves. Then the teachers offered us scarves, which we flipped over our head while we danced. That was one step too far for me, I think, because I kept getting the scarf tangled around my head. I need to practice this maneuver a little more, so that I don’t strangle myself.

Afterward, I was tired and exhilarated — and completely smitten. I signed up for the new eight-week class at Habeeba’s, and have been watching the belly dancing show Shimmy on FitTV to prepare. Expect a review of the class, and of the TV show.

I love water aerobics, but I’m bothered by how quickly my bathing suits wear out. The colors fade, the fabric thins. The suit I’ve used three times a week since January has gone from hot pink/black to bubblegum/gray. And there’s a spot in the back where the fabric looks like it’s started to disintegrate.

My current suit -- super-cute, but, sadly, about to be replaced.

So what’s going on? I think we all know that chlorine fades clothes — that’s how bleach works, right? But what exactly is happening chemically, and how can I make my suits last longer?

For these questions, I turned to Malcolm Chisholm, Distinguished Professor of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and chair of the Department of Chemistry. He explains it this way:

Chlorinated water produces hydrochloric acid, and hypochlorous acid. The latter is an oxidizing agent found in common bleach. If you spill beach on your clothes, you will soon have permanent damage and most likely holes where the bleach landed. In the washing machine, the bleach is added to dilution which is somewhat like the swimming pool. Now, as to your swim suit, if you wash it out thoroughly with cold water it should last a long, long time. I certainly have a swim suit that is at least ten years old.

A commercially available chlorine neutralizer

Wow! I wish I could get a suit to last ten years! At first, I tried to preserve my current suit with a chlorine neutralizer. This was a long and tedious procedure. I brought a large plastic container to RPAC, and soaked my suit in it with the neutralizer while I showered after class. Then I agitated it in the container like ye olde tyme wash basin, and rinsed it multiple times with cold water. This actually seemed to work — my suit looked like new — but it was inconvenient. So one day I gave up, and just rinsed my suit in cold water. That’s when the fading started. Maybe I just didn’t rinse it thoroughly enough.

So why does the fabric disintegrate, I wondered? Bathing suits are typically made of synthetic polymers such as nylon and lycra, which are known for their strength and elasticity. Chisholm had this to say:

If you want a more chemical answer, then the bleach breaks down the polymers so that the fabric falls apart slowly as dust particles.

Ah-ha! So that explains it. I have a tip about a company that guarantees its suits for a year with proper care. I’m going to check it out.