Terveys

Weight loss chart 18 Feb - 12 Aug 2008

2008-08-12T12:44:00.006-08:00

Here it is all in one pretty little chart: my weight loss since February 18 this year (41 pounds scale weight to date). The color swatches mark off the diet regimes I was following during each period. Lotsa jaggies during the TKD & PSMF periods: that's due to water weight fluctuations from carbs consumed during free meals. But an obvious & very pleasing downward trend.

TKD stands for Targeted Ketogenic Diet — a low-carb diet in which carbs are consumed around workouts. PSMF stands for Protein Sparing Modified Fast — a very low-carb, low-calorie diet designed for maximum loss of bodyfat while preserving (sparing) the body's protein stores (i.e., muscle). The PSMF regime I follow is from Lyle McDonald's The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook.

The span of time marked "TKD (Start Walking)" marks when I was following a TKD during the last couple of weeks of meeting the major goals of my workplace Start Walking program — because no way could I have sustained the levels of exercise I was doing on a PSMF!

Oh yeah... & the period of "smooth loss" at the beginning was because I wasn't weight myself daily then — I started doing that on Apr. 7 after I got a decent scale. (Also didn't weigh daily during the vacation because I was traveling.) Otherwise, weights were taken daily, so that fluctuations are much more apparent.

Workplace wellness

2008-07-31T12:15:00.003-08:00

My employer, University of Alaska, has been working pretty hard over the past couple of years to encourage its employees' health through various workplace programs, like the Start Walking program I've now participated in twice. (Actually, we're still in the midst of the second one — I'm still recording steps or their equivalent, even though I've already completed the major goal of making a virtual ascent & descent of Mt. Everest.) The other main program they're doing right now is called Get the Point involves earning incentive prizes based on however many points you accumulate through tracking various health activities.

Though frankly I think I've been getting plenty of benefit from it even if I wasn't now in line to win either a $100 gift card or a GPS unit. I'm earning one or the other (which one should I opt for?!!) as a result of having achieved the "Elite Tier" for the amount of points I've earned over six months for such things as exercising regularly, getting health checkups, losing weight, improving cholesterol levels, etc. But of course it was actually doing those things that counts most.

I was motivated to do those things anyway, so I wouldn't say that this program is responsible for me having made the improvements I've made. You've gotta be motivated from the get-go. But most definitely having a program like this in place, which encourages tracking one's progress & suggests different avenues for improving one's health & fitness, really helps one along the way. I haven't found the program to be perfect, by any means, but it's been pretty damn helpful, & I'm grateful to the university for putting it together, & for the outfit (Wellness Initiatives Network for Alaska) that's been actually running it.

Meanwhile, today I entered all the stuff I've done this month. Aside from my pretty GPS-earning point total (currently at 3,539 points — when I get motivated, I get motivated!), since starting this program I have:

Lost 36 lbs. since Feb. 18 (down from 210 to 174).
Improved my BMI from 38.5 to 31.9.
Reduced my waistline by 4.5 inches (from 46 to 41.5).
Improved on some other health indicators such as total & HDL cholesterol, blood pressure, etc.

Still some improvements to make, but hey. Not bad for five & a half months' work.

My four-chambered echo chamber

2008-07-24T14:48:00.004-08:00

Just had my echocardiogram over at Heart Center at Providence Hospital. This is one of the three imaging tests the ER doctor from my pepperoni pizza night ordered up to figure out whether I had a TIA or not — in this case an ultrasound of my heart. The technician, his name was Michael, was really good, & so was the guy (damn did I forget his name?) who set me up with the saline IV for the last part of the test.

And it was also pretty cool, & scary in a weird kinda way, to see those images of my heart pumping away on that black & white screen. Whoa, you've really been doing this job for 49 years plus? And so well, too. Don't stop, please!

Michael is the tech (I guess they call them cardiac sonographers), not the cardiologist, but he said that everything looked pretty good & normal. Nothing in what he saw to indicate that a TIA, if there indeed was one, came about because of any heart stuff.

Good job, heart.

Still a carotid doppler ultrasound & MRI to go, tomorrow.

Um... pepperoni...?

2008-07-23T12:59:00.005-08:00

Last month, on a day that happened to coincide (& undoubtedly not just coincidentally) with a bit of constipation plus an abnormally-for-me high level of sodium intake from eating too many meals in a row that featured ham — well, on that day I had a couple of incidents of a weird visual effect like seeing heat waves all around the peripheral vision of my right eye, couple with a really hard time focusing the two eyes together for reading. Second time it happened, it was followed on by a nagging headache just behind my left eye. It was only a couple of weeks ago that my friend Chris suggested that I'd experienced a migraine headache. Well, duh, Mel — but I've never gotten migraines before, so.... In my case I think it was caused by high blood pressure from water retention do to constipation plus too much ham. ;)

Didn't eat any ham yesterday, but lo! just after work while sitting on the bus reading a book, I started having some visual symptoms that at first had me thinking I was experiencing the same thing. Mostly inability to get my eyes to work together to focus on the page for reading. After I got across town to the restaurant I’d decided to eat at (the Bear Tooth, my fave), I started realizing it was different. First of all — well, the place wasn't crowded, so I knew they had they're "Please Be Seated" sign out. Except when I looked at it, I couldn't make sense of it. It reminded me of when Jesse was learning to read & had big problems with blends — like being unable to connect the B and the L together in BLUE or BLACK (or BLEND). In my case I could read the three individual words PLEASE, SEAT, & YOURSELF, but I couldn't make them make sense together. I only understood what it meant from having been there before & logicking it out.

So went & sat myself, knowing exactly what I wanted to order.— I didn’t even need. to look at the menu — except that I couldn't remember the words for what I wanted. So I got the menu & started researching — again, being able to read individual words, but being able to connect them with each other, except just for the fact that I eat there a lot so logically know what's what. The server came & asked me if I'd like something to drink. By that time I'd managed to puzzle out the beer I wanted (Bear Tooth had great microbrews), so I said IPA. She asked if I was also ready to order food, & I said I was, except that... I wasn't. I couldn't find the words. I said so: I lost the words. She laughed, not unkindly, until she became aware that I was distressed. I think she used the word "aphasia." I said, yes, & ended up asking her to come back in a couple of minutes. I needed to do research in the menu.

It was incredibly weird. I wanted one piece of pepperoni pizza, plus an entree size Caesar salad w/ grilled chicken. But I couldn't remember the words at all. I knew where they were on the menu, though, so I turned to the pizza page, found the word "Pizza" on the top, knew with some intellectual effort that was the right word, but had absolutely emotional sense of it: it was just a data point. Scan down the page... pepperoni?... yes... pepperoni. Memorized it, so that by the time the waitress got back I could order it. I knew how to add in "one piece" without the menu’s coaching, though. Then... salad. This one, the Caesar. With... chicken. And this size — yes the word is... entree. While noting to her again that something pretty darn weird was happening to me.

I was freaking, really... wondering if something had happened such that I wouldn’t be able to hold my job anymore, wouldn't even be able to read a book. Got out my book & studied it — could read words, could even read sentences, none of 'em made sense. The food came, I put the book aside, sat there chomping my pizza all the time trying to remember again what this food was called that I was eating. Pizza...? yes, that seemed right. But what were these round red slices of meat on it called? I spent half the meal trying to remember, before I finally gave up & looked it up again at the back of the menu. Put the words together, repeated them & repeated them, memorizing it. Then worked on the name of the salad. Looked around the place which (as it's part of an establishment including a movie theatre) has several old movie posters, including one from a foreign country of the old Peter Fonda movie "Easy Rider." I had seen that poster enough to have no problem with his name. But what was that last one? Jack. Nicholson. Jack. Nicholson. Is that somebody... is that that guy from [images of “Chinatown” in my mind] — was that the guy? Jack... Nicholson....?

But, I was able to pay my bill without a hitch & even get the tip right. And by the time I'd left the building, put the hood up on my raincoat, stuck my Bluetooth in my ear, & started off home in the rain while talking w/ my friend Marcia, things began getting normal again. I could say, without a hitch, pepperoni pizza & entree-size chicken Caesar salad & Jack Nicholson & Please Seat Yourself without a hitch.

Marcia told me she was coming to pick me up to take me to the emergency room.

Um... you are?—But yes, after some discussion & argument, also with another friend of mine, that's what happened. Spent nearly 4 hours at Providence Hospital ER last night — just across the street from my work, in fact just across the parking lot from the very bus stop where the whole biz began to unfold after work yesterday.

The current theories are either (1) hypgoglycemia, some hours after eating an oatmeal raisin cookie (although I'm low-carbing at the moment, I've been having some depression issues for a couple of days, & carbs help — which was also the point with the... uh... what was that food with the little red slices of meat again?); or (2) a transient ischemic event, TIA -- AKA a "mini-stroke." Which frankly I'd never heard of before last night.

My EKG was fine. Other tests up & coming — an echocardiogram tomorrow, an MRI & carotid doppler ultrasound Friday, a followup "what does this MEAN?!!" with my naturopath the following Friday.

Meantime, nothing like a little cognitive confusion & adrenaline to wipe out the last vestiges of the latest brief venture into depression.

Pepperoni pizza!

Stamina

2008-07-10T12:03:00.002-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

Back on April 21 this year, I was proud to complete my first half-marathon (21,097 meters = 13.01 miles) on my erg as a part of Concept 2 Rowing's Global Marathon Challenge. But man was I wiped out afterwards, as I wrote about in detail in the blog post about my stupendous feat & in another post a couple weeks later about how stupendously damn long it took me to recover from it.

My how things have changed. Today, just two days after completing the 1,700,000 steps (or equivalent) of the 2008 Start Walking program, culminating in my second-ever half-marathon, I feel like I'm raring to go. My day of recovery was yesterday, & even so I still got in 14,031 steps, albeit at a slower pace than has lately been my wont. By comparison, the day after my first half-marathon, I couldn't bring myself to do much more than rise briefly up off the couch to use the bathroom or grab something from the fridge. It took me another 10 days to feel real energy for workouts. (I did workouts in between, but they were miserable.) Right now, I feel like I could hop on the erg & accomplish another half-marathon here & now. Except my rower is at home, & I'm not... so it'll have to wait.

How did this come to be? Particularly when you take in the full context of my latest half-marathon:

I'd done over 700,000 steps (or equivalent) in three weeks' time.
In the last 12 days of this period, I did at least 30,000 steps or equivalent every day, with four of those days going over 40,000 & three of the last four days at over 50,000.
Each of the last six days I rowed like crazy — 11K on one day, all the others 17K or more. Remember when even 10K was a major achievement for me? Now I can do it several days on end.
My final day (July 8) was at 55,274 steps in walking, dancing, & the half-marathon row.
I was mainly eating a reduced calorie, low-carb diet, except for preworkout carbs. (I also ate additional higher-carb meals on the last two weekends, when I was doing 40,000 to 50,000 steps/day).

I did feel pretty tired those last few days, especially in the mornings, & think with trepidation of how much I felt I needed to do — if only because of a stubborn & foolish sense of competitiveness. By afternoons, somehow the will would seep into me to overcome the trepidation just enough to get me on the rower, which, while taking less time than walking to run up the steps, is also much harder work. Funnily enough, though, once I'd put in maybe 3–4K on the erg, it was surprisingly easy to continue to greater distances — the worst problem being my sore bum which even bubble wrap can only inadequately ameliorate.

But the plain fact is, I was working through exhaustion. Overtraining, I'd say. Not the way I normally want to do things. I don't want to have that muscle fatigue dragging at me through the day, especially when I full well know that it harms rather than helps my fat loss goals.

But even as it was foolish to overtrain, out of a competitive spirit or whatever, it was valuable to discover the stamina I seem to have acquired. And with it, quicker recovery.

Better recovery undoubtedly has something to do with the better attention I've been paying to peri-workout nutrition, mainly through having preworkout carbs & higher-carb/higher calorie meals on days that are going to overall be workout days — you just can't power that much work without more calories & carbs. Stamina is, I guess, just as a result of all the training I've done over the past few months.

I'm not an athlete, I've never been one. I'm just an overweight, middle-aged couch potato. I started slowly, just like anyone. But look what I can do now.

Adverse weather conditions

2008-07-09T16:18:00.003-08:00

Per the UPS tracking site, my Xvest underwent adverse weather conditions in Anchorage at 8:09 PM last night. But today, it's officially been arrival-scanned into Anchorage. Hope they deliver it tomorrow early enough for the kid to sign for it before he heads to work.

Down from Everest

2008-07-09T07:30:00.005-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

I dunnit. As of last night — with, as my grand finalé, a half-marathon row (actually three meters more than that 21,097 meters that make up a half-marathon) — I came to a total step equivalent of 1,710,673, thereby completing my virtual ascent & descent of Mt. Everest.

I'm knackered.

But also just a teensy bit proud of myself. Back in May, as a result of going on the protein-sparing modified fast (PSMF), I slowed down quite a bit as I became acclimated to a very low-carb diet — a style of diet that doesn't support high intensity exercise. Then I went on a 12-day vacation to Seattle & Eugene, which for various reasons didn't accommodate itself to a lot of exercise. (Sitting in a plane, train, car, or visiting relatives... etc.). Then, when I returned to Anchorage, I was pretty slow to get myself up & going again. When I finally updated my steps, on June 17, whoa — I found I'd fallen way behind. There's my little competitive urges coming to the fore: why, I was nearly 233,000 steps behind my coworker Amy! So I started catching up. Since June 18, just three weeks ago, I've clocked in over 700,000 steps. (Or their equivalent.) (Don't worry: I increased my calorie/carb intake too.)

And I'm glad to say Amy finished too, coming third in under the wire for UAA (eighth overall), with me dashing in just after her.

What next? Well, Start Walking 2008 still has 84 days to go, through September 30. So I'll keep on walking (& rowing, dancing, lifting weights). But not quite at the pace I've been keeping the past three weeks (over 50,000 steps/day three of the past four days alone!). I need some recovery. And because fat loss & health are still top priorities for me, I'm ratcheting back to the PSMF-level eating as of today (low calorie, low carb).

I'll also be populating this blog with more posts, including some written post-date, to kinda fill in the gaps since my last posts in May (based on stuff I've written in discussion lists, etc.). That's probably more for my own sense of chronology than anything, since I don't know if anyone even reads this blog, really, besides me. I haven't been writing blogs mainly for two reasons: (1) I've been exercising so much I haven't had a lot of time or energy to spare for the blog; & (2) I've been so busy shoveling new info into myself, in a process a teacher I had used to call "front-end loading," about diet/nutrition, but writing about it in an intelligent way takes a more organized process, again requireing more time/energy than I've had to spare. So I figure that postdated posts will fill in gaps with things I've actually already written on the fly in discussion groups, & hopefully with new posts I can begin to integrate the info I've been learning, which has changed my thinking a lot about the stuff this blog is intended to be about.

I'll also be cheering other Start Walking participants on. You can do it!

Meanwhile, congratulations to Amy! And congratulations to me!

More on d-chiro inositol

2008-05-22T14:59:00.001-08:00

DCI has been shown to work orally at least in PCOS, Type 2 diabetes, & general insulin resistance, both in human studies & anecdotally. Anecdotally, d-pinitol (Inzitol) is getting some attention in athletic/bodybuilder circles.

d-chiro-inositol

One of the central studies seems to be one in the New England Journal of Medicine (Nester, et al. Ovulatory and metabolic effects of d-chiro-inositol in the polycystic ovary syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine 340 (1999): 1314-1320). They used 1200 mg. oral doses of D-chiro-inositol in the form of a product-in-development called INS-1 from Insmed Pharmaceuticals. 22 women with PCOS were matched against a placebo group of 22 women also with PCOS. Conclusions: "D-Chiro-inositol increases the action of insulin in patients with the polycystic ovary syndrome, thereby improving ovulatory function and decreasing serum androgen concentrations, blood pressure, and plasma triglyceride concentrations."

More research: Insmed was developing INS-2 for use in PCOS, diabetes, & dyslipidemia (high blood lipids) & ran Phase II clinical trials in 2001-2002. But they discontinued development of INS-2 in Sept. 2002, saying that "INS-1 was safe and well tolerated but did not achieve statistical significance on its primary efficacy measures" -- in spite of earlier press releases about the same trials that said there were statistically significant improvements (in Type 2 diabetes; in obese women w/ PCOS & nondiabetics with dyslipidemia). Anecdotally, women on the Soulcysters PCOS board reported participating in the clinical trials & experiencing big improvements on INS-1 — for example, regular periods (which sometimes go by the slang term "AF" meaning "Aunt Flo") & ovulation, lower hirsutism, better skin, no more hypoglycemia — improvements that disappeared after the trials ended & they were no longer getting the INS-1. People have also reported better weight loss. All of which makes me think that Insmed's decision to discontinue was premature. It sure was from the POV of PCOS-sufferers. (I'm not trying to get preggers myself, but a lot of women with PCOS are, & inability to have periods or to ovulate creates a problem.)

Anecdotally, women at Soulcysters say that eating food sources of d-chiro-inositol such as "PCOS-blaster" muffins containing buckwheat bran brings improvements, & so do the oral DCI supplements from the company Chiral Balance. Chiral Balance is a small company run, I gather, by a couple of biochemists who seem to be approaching DCI supplementation from a nutritional supplement rather than drug/pharmaceutical angle. Unfortunately, it's still expensive, & nutritional supplements aren't usually covered by health insurance.

Other studies in humans with related to DCI — Iuorno et al. 2002 (DCI supplementation in PCOS); Baillargeon et al. 2004 (metformin for PCOS seems to increase DCI-containing inositolphosphoglycan). There still seems to be a lot of study of DCI's mechanisms in insulin metabolism in mice & other animals too.

D-pinitol

An alternative oral supplement is d-pinitol (3-O-methyl-chiroinositol) — which it seems d-chiro-inositol can easily be made from, possibly even in insulin resistant people. (I'm still trying to understand the science — I'm smart enough I guess, but not a biochemist.) Pinitol is found in high concentrations in some legumes (such as soy), plants, fruits, and parts of pine trees like the sugar pine. Two manufactured supplements containing it: Inzitol & ViTAL Nutrients d-Pinitol 600. (About $120 per 60-cap bottle on Amazon — just about as expensive as Chiral Balance's DCI. But $79.95/bottle at this point from this source.)

Inzitol is found in a product called Meta-Cel, which also contained creatine & is aimed at bodybuilders. Also apparently in another bodybuilder supplement called Nitro-Tech that makes all kinds of (who knows if they're valid) claims. Also apparently in some products from PVL Nutrients, but it's not readily apparent which ones. A Google search on Inzitol brings up a lot of hits about the use of Inzitol in athletics, including bodybuilding, where it's alleged to help with creatine utilization. E.g., this interview with someone at the New Zealand company that makes Inzitol.

In one human study on pinitol I found in PubMed, pinitol was found to increase levels of d-chiro-inositol in the body (14-fold increase in DCI levels with 20 mg pinitol per kg of body weight per day for four weeks in diabetic patients), but not to improve insulin sensitivity (Davis et al. 2000). Another found it didn't help insulin sensitivity in nondiabetic older people (Campbell et al. 2004). On the other hand, Kim et al. 2007, in a study of poorly controlled Type 2 diabetics, found "fasting glucose, post-prandial glucose levels, and hemoglobin A1c were significantly decreased." Similarly, Kang et al. 2006. (Both these latter two studies uses pinitol from soy sources, not sure what the other studies used. I believe Inzitol is manufactured from pine tree sources.)

Mechanism

From the best I understand, the proven low levels of d-chiro-inositol in Type 2 diabetics & women w/ PCOS (& other insulin resistant people) appears to be a deficiency caused by an inability to transform myo-inositol into d-chiro-inositol within the body. Whether that's from some sort of genetic problem or due to environment (hyperglycemia &/or hyperinsulinemia, perhaps) isn't clear. But I'm thinking it's quite similar to how we as human beings are supposed to be able to change the omega-3 DHA found in flax seed into the essential omega-3s EPA & DHA. But, we're pretty inefficient at it, & many people can't seem to do it at all, so therefore we eat fish oil in order to get enough EPA/DHA. Most people can make DCI in their own bodies, but insulin resistant people's bodies are lousy at it; so we need supplementation.

So... this might not have that much utility as I thought it might for insulin sensitive dieters, who probably don't have this deficiency... but for those of us who are insulin resistant, & eating moderate to high-carb diets, it might be very helpful indeed. Meantime, the bodybuilder supplement industry seems to be embracing Inzitol, though whether it's anything more than something else to make money with — in an industry that sells all kinds of expensive supplements that may or may not be beneficial for the purposes advertised — is a question.

At any rate, for anyone who wants to experiment, seems that both DCI & pinitol are different from Metformin (glucophage) as insulin-sensitizers in that they are naturally found in the human body, & all reports seem to be that oral supplementation is well-tolerated & doesn't give the nasty side effects Metformin sometimes does.

According to Joseph Larner, who's been studying d-chiro-inositol for a couple of decades, DCI was "originally discovered as a component of a putative mediator of intracellular insulin action, where as a putative mediator, it accelerates the dephosphorylation of glycogen synthase and pyruvate dehydrogenase, rate limiting enzymes of non-oxidative and oxidative glucose disposal." Further explained, most of it understandable even to non-biochemist-me, in the journal article of his I posted yesterday, D-chiro-inositol – its functional role in insulin action and its deficit in insulin resistance. International Journal of Experimental Diabetes Research 3(1) (2002): 47-60.

D-chiro inositol

2008-05-21T17:01:00.006-08:00

Yesterday on an email list I'm on, someone mentioned d-chiro-inositol (DCI) (part of the B-vitamin group), which I'd never heard of before, but which plays a part in carbohydrate metabolism as some sort of helper to insulin. It turns out insulin resistant/Type 2 diabetic people in general, & women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) in particular (which affects about 10% of all women, including me), have been found to have deficient levels of DCI in their bodies.

It's theorized that this is due to an impairment in whatever it takes for the closely related myo-inositol to be changed into d-chiro-inositol in the body. Furthermore, studies have shown that women with PCOS & Type 2 diabetics who are given supplements of DCI have improvements in insulin sensitivity, blood sugar levels, blood insulin levels, etc. -- as well as improvement of the additional symptoms (high androgen levels, irregular to nonexistent menstrual periods, infertility) that tend to accompany PCOS. On an anecdotal level, there are a number of women at the forums at Soulcysters.com (a major PCOS support site) who report having successfully regulated their menstrual cycles & achieving pregnancy (as well as other improvements) through supplementation with DCI. The word "miracle" tends to show up. (Well, I guess miracles do happen when deficiencies are addressed. That's how sailors must've felt when they learned all they had to keep from getting scurvy was to eat citrus fruits.)

Here's some relevant studies. All of these have full-text available online:

Ostlund, et al.D-chiro-inositol metabolism in diabetes mellitus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 90 (1993), 9988-9992.
Nester, et al. Ovulatory and metabolic effects of d-chiro-inositol in the polycystic ovary syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine 340 (1999): 1314-1320.

This is a really central study related to PCOS. Obese PCOS-affected women on doses of 1200mg/day showed marked improvements on a bunch of different things when compared with controls on placebo.
Larner, Joseph. D-chiro-inositol – its functional role in insulin action and its deficit in insulin resistance. International Journal of Experimental Diabetes Research 3(1) (2002): 47-60.

Larner has apparently been involved in the investigation of d-chiro-inositol in carbohydrate metabolism in mice for a couple of decades, per his 2005 press release from UVa.
Shashkin, et al. Fasting decreases the content of d-chiroinositol in human skeletal muscle. International Journal of Experimental Diabetes Research 3(3) (2002): 163-169.

I'm wondering from this if DCI is one of the substances mentioned in Lyle McDonald's The Ketogenic Diet that gets downregulated during fasting & ketogenic diets. [Later: I asked Lyle, who answered that "arguably the primary effector for the fasting issue is PDH downregulation" — PDH is pyruvate dehydrogenase.]

Unfortunately there are few sources of DCI supplements, & they tend to be expensive (e.g., Chiral Balance). Apparently the mega-pharmaceutical companies haven't found it worth their while to bring their own versions to market. Less expensive supplements called simply inositol or myo-inositol seem to be helpful for some people, but since the problem insulin resistant people seem to have is in changing myo-inositol to DCI, it's really DCI that needs to be supplemented. Another supplement that might work, though, is d-pinitol (aka D-chiro (+)-o-methyl inositol), which is available under the trade name Inizitol (New Zealand company, but there are distributors in the U.S. & Canada); this is also recommended as a possible supplement for PCOS by Richard Bernstein in Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. Apparently d-pinitol is also used a lot by athletes and affects whole-body creatine retention. More info on d-pinitol & DCI from a PCOS-suppement supplier here.

The food source with the highest level of DCI is buckwheat (which is actually a rhubarb relative, not a grain), especially in buckwheat bran (farinetta) (available in quantity from Minndak.com). Apparently some other legumes (e.g., garbanzo beans) also contain small quantities of DCI. People at Soulcysters, who have become quite expert at creating recipes containing these foods, have also mentioned carob syrup & soy lecithin -- I think those are supposed to be sources of pinitol. Carob syrup is something of a problem since it's got a lot of sugar.

... Since I'm insulin resistant & have PCOS, I probably have this deficiency in d-chiro-inositol, so I am likely going to get some of this stuff no matter how expensive & experiment with it when I get back from my trip.

Rapid weight loss & the gall bladder

2008-05-12T19:17:00.012-08:00

I decided a few days ago to follow Lyle McDonald's version of a Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF) (as detailed in The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook). This diet is designed to "spare protein" — that is, loss of lean body mass–by giving an adequate amount of calories from protein, plus 10 grams daily of omega 3 fats through fish oils, plus nonstarchy veggies. Versions of PSMF programs seem to be used a lot for safe rapid fat loss among obese people (which I qualify as). There are a number of references at PubMed to therapeutic use of PSMF diets.

When I decided to embark on it, I'd forgotten all about the relationship between rapid weight loss & gall bladder issues — in spite of having had some rather nasty gall bladder attacks 10 years ago after fairly rapid weight loss (due to loss of appetite from grief & stress about a personal situation). One of those attacks even resulted in my being taken to the emergency room, mostly because one of my coworkers thought it might be a heart attack. An ultrasound the following day found I had no gallstones (possibly I passed one) but my gall bladder was larger than usual.

In any case, I did a bit of research at the time, & opted against a gall bladder removal, for which I'm glad. But my doctor told me to eat "low fat" which seems to be the standard medical advice. Now I think that rather the opposite is true — that low-fat diets (at least the extreme ones) are at least part of what sets one up for gall bladder attacks. Turns out that one of the fundamental issues with gall bladder health is eating enough dietary fat so that your gall bladder empties.

The short version of what I've just researched in the last couple days: if you're going on a rapid weight loss diet or will be undergoing gastric bypass surgery or some other bariatric surgery which will have the same effect, make sure that you are eating at least 10 grams of healthy dietary fats a day to reduce your risk of gall stones.

Now here's the long version:

Turns out that there is a really really high percentage of gastric bypass patients who get gallstones or sludge in the gall bladder (which can also lead to gall bladder attacks). See, for example:

Shiffman, et al. Gallstone formation after rapid weight loss: a prospective study in patients undergoing gastric bypass surgery for treatment of morbid obesity. Am J Gastroenterol. 1991 Aug;86(8):1000-5.

Al-Jiffry, et al. Changes in gallbladder motility and gallstone formation following laparoscopic gastric banding for morbid obesity. Can J Gastroenterol. 2003 Mar;17(3):169-74.

From a little research, it seems one of the biggest contributor to gall bladder issues is low fat diets which prevent gall bladder emptying. In a blog post called "Oh the gall of it", Mary Eades (wife of & coauthor with Michael Eades of the low-carb diet Protein Power), criticizing the laughable notice that low-fat diets prevent gall bladder disease, explains:

What makes the gall bladder empty? As any basic human physiology text will you, it’s fat entering the first portion of the small intestine. When saturated, monounsaturated, or even polyunsaturated fat reaches this area, its entry triggers the release of cholecystokinin (CCK) which is the hormone that causes the gall bladder to squeeze and squirt bile into the intestine to emulsify the fat.

This is what the gall bladder is supposed to do, for crying out loud; it’s its raison d’etre.

Basically, if you eat hardly any dietary fats, your gall bladder sits around doing nothing, & gets sludgy from bile that never gets do to its job & just sits there getting blechy. Inactive gall bladders are also more likely to form gallstones. Then, if you do eat a meal high in dietary fat, boom! gall bladder attack. All the g.b. attacks I had in 1998 were immediately after eating a high fat meal (Wendy's burgers in one case, a crapload of M&Ms in another), after having lost a lot of weight during my aforementioned Official Grief & Dumbfoundedness Weight Loss Diet. The medical advice I got at the time was to eat a very low fat diet. Thank gods I learned differently later down the road.

Since the PSMF diet I'm following includes 10 grams daily of omega 3 fatty acids distributed among the meals throughout the day, as well as whatever amounts of fat come packaged with the protein foods I'm eating, I should be okay. Some of the studies at PubMed indicate the low calorie diets that include fat are successful at preventing gall bladder problems; but low fat (say, less than 10 g/day) dieters are much more likely to develop gallstones.

Another strike against ultra low-fat dieting.

Some of the studies showing this:

Festi D, et al. Gallbladder motility and gallstone formation in obese patients following very low calorie diets. Use it (fat) to lose it (well). Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 1998 Jun;22(6):592-600.

In the obese during rapid weight loss from a very low calorie diet, a relatively high fat intake could prevent gallstone formation, probably by maintaining an adequate gallbladder emptying, which could counterbalance lithogenic mechanisms acting during weight loss.

In this case, "relatively high fat intake" involved daily 12 grams of dietary fat (108 calories) on a 577 calorie diet during the first three months of the diet. By comparison, the people on the low-fat diet were eating 3 grams of fat (27 calories) on a 535.2 calorie diet for the first three months. Both groups had higher calorie diets for the second three months. 54.5% of the low fat dieters developed (nonsymptomatic) gallstones; none of the higher fat dieters did.

Festi, et al. Review: low caloric intake and gall-bladder motor function. Ailment Pharmacol Ther 2000: 14 (Suppl. 2): 51—53.

A threshold quantity of fat (10 g) has been documented to obtain efficient gall-bladder emptying.... Adequate fat content of the VLCD [very low calorie diet] may prevent gallstone formation, maintaining adequate motility and may be more economic and physiologically acceptable than administration of an pharmacalogical agent.

This appears to be based on the same study as the prior document.

Gebhard, et al. The role of gallbladder emptying in gallstone formation during diet-induced rapid weight loss. Hepatology. 1996 Sep;24(3):544-8.

The findings suggest that gallstone risk during rapid weight loss may be reduced by maintenance of gallbladder emptying with a small amount of dietary fat. Ultimately, weight loss reduced bile cholesterol saturation and improved highdensity lipoprotein (HDL) levels.

But it's not foolproof. This study showed lower levels of gallstone formation for people on 30 g/day of fat than for 16 g/day of fat on liquid 900 cal/day diets, but a few people on each diet developed gallstones over 13 weeks on the diet.

Vezina, et al. "Similarity in gallstone formation from 900 kcal/day diets containing 16 g vs 30 g of daily fat: evidence that fat restriction is not the main culprit of cholelithiasis during rapid weight reduction." Dig Dis Sci. 1998 Mar;43(3):554-61.

Substantial fat for rapid weight-reducing diets resulted in gallstone formation. Since experiments have shown that our higher fat diet, containing 10 g fat per meal, results in maximal gallbladder emptying, cholelithiasis from rapid weight loss may not be solely attributable to gallbladder stasis.

So something else was also going on. Might it have to do also with pre-diet nutrition? I.e., maybe those who formed gallstones had low-fat diets prior to this diet... just speculating here. Mary Eades ties gall bladder disease squarely to insulin resistance, so maybe it has something to do with that.

Adequate protein — & a protein-sparing crash diet

2008-05-08T23:58:00.008-08:00

Two additional things I've learned from Lyle McDonald & his Body Recomposition website so far, that are having a pretty immediate effect on my nutritional planning:

First, he's convinced me that "dieting by percentages" — that is, figuring out my nutrition based on macronutrient percentages — doesn't really make a whole lotta sense (see "Dieting by Percentages, part 2"). Mainly because if I'm going only by the percentages of carbs, fats, & protein I'm eating, I can really screw up on how much protein I should really be eating. Too little protein is bad, too much protein is bad too. Basically, what I need (or anybody else needs) is adequate protein. I don't think I was probably getting quite enough before I started doing any meal tracking; but I've also got to be careful that I'm not getting too much. So my protein intake should be defined more by my overall activity level than by its percentage of my diet — it should for the most part be a constant. Which is why the real changes are between low-carb/high-carb & hence also between high-fat/low-fat (or moderate levels of each). Since I'm going low-carb, that by definition means that I'm going to be eating, percentagewise, a "high-fat diet" (healthy fats, of course). Okay, now, doesn't that go against the long-lived "fat is evil" propaganda that's been going around the past three or so decades? And a fat lot of good its done for us too. (Literally. The dominance of the "low fat" mantra has correlated quite closely to the rise of the obesity epidemic that we hear so much about these days.)

Second, & more radically, McDonald has convinced me that it is possible to do crash dieting in a safe, healthy way. The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook: A Scientific Approach to Crash Dieting. I've already have this book in hand (or rather, computer), since it was available for purchase via electronic download at McDonald's website. With all the reading about nutrition I've done over the past couple of years — this stuff makes sense. Basically, this diet is his version of a protein-sparing modified fast (PSMF) — a low calorie "crash" diet which avoids muscle wasting by providing those calories that are eaten mostly in the form of dietary protein, with the addition of essential fatty acids (omega 3s) & nonstarchy carbs. How exactly to do it depends on one's body fat percentage — obese people with high body fat percentages (which I qualify as) can afford to use this diet for a longer period of time than people of middling body fat percentages or people who are fairly lean (e.g., bodybuilders on a pre-contest diet). (This accords with stuff that Tom Venuto has said: that people with high body fat percentages can afford much higher calorie deficits than people who are leaner, though Venuto overall would not recommend a PSMF diet.) McDonald's got built in free meals, refeeds, & two to three-week diet breaks in order to prevent metabolic slowdown & boredom.

I think what I'm coming to is an understanding that:

(1) Yes, my overall changes in how I eat — which started with my dietary overhaul two years ago after my mother's death — must by necessity be a permanent, lifestyles changes in how I eat. No way will I will ever go back to the vending machine diet I was on before). But —

(2) There is also a certain science to "dieting" that I can make use of — techniques, like this protein-sparing modified fasting "crash" diet, that of course are not sustainable over the long haul, that by their nature must be limited in duration & scope, but which can nonetheless be extremely helpful for the shorter term.

So, yeah. I'm gonna give a try to this over the next two or three weeks. Actually, someone with my body fat % can, according to McDonald, go for as long as 10 or 12 weeks on this diet before a two-week break from it (including two "free" meals per week during the diet itself), but I think it's better to try it out for a shorter time first, especially since I'll be traveling down to Seattle & Eugene for ten days at the end of the month & will need more flexibility about what I'm eating then.

One of the effects this will have on workouts is that because the PSMF diet is by its nature ketogenic, it cannot sustain too much cardio & definitely not high intensity intervals — because there won't be enough glucose in my system to turbocharge my muscles for those kinds of workouts. So, Turbulence Training is on hold for the moment. What I can do is moderate straight cardio, & I can do traditional strength workouts.

So that's basically the plan through about May 21 or 22. I fly down to Seattle on the evening of May 23, so on the 22nd or 23rd I'll start increasing my caloric intake to more "maintenance" levels, chiefly by adding more healthy fats into my diet but also probably some low glycemic carbs.

I'm not actually fully on the PSMF diet yet, but approaching it — eating very few carbs, & lower amounts of fats. I do want to make use of the apples I've got at home so they don't go bad. But after they're eaten... well, we'll see how it goes.

I've considered this pretty carefully, & will be watching myself carefully too to see how it goes. Please believe me that I will up my intake if anything seems to be going wrong. I expect by the nature of ketogenic diets that my energy levels will go down a bit as I transition from burning glucose to burning ketones, & also that I'll initially have some hunger; but hunger pangs are reported to disappear in the absence of carbs, & my energy should improve after a few days too (except not to the point of sustaining high intensity workouts, which require the turbocharging provided by glucose).

Learning about ketosis

2008-05-05T23:32:00.003-08:00

Rather to my surprise over the past few months, I've become convinced that eating a ketogenic diet (in which body energy is mostly supplied by free fatty acids & ketones derived from body fat, rather than glucose from carbs), at least for a time, might be exactly the route I need to go. But I needed to know more, because most of the info I've seen on ketosis is warped by the epic battle between low-carb cheerleaders who consider ketosis the be-all & high-carb cheerleaders who consider ketosis the great evil that will lead without inevitably to kidney disease (which, best I can tell, is absolutely not the case, unless one's kidneys are already compromised).

So, I plugged the word "ketosis" into the Search field at Amazon.com, & low & behold came upon the book that I think can absolutely answer my questions, not only about ketosis itself but also about how to still have kick-ass powerhouse workouts (whether cardio or strength training) through targeted nutrition around a workout(i.e., having carbs pre, during, & post-workout, because otherwise your workout will really really suck).

The book is by Lyle McDonald, The Ketogenic Diet: A Complete Guide for the Dieter and Practitioner. Amazon is out of stock at the moment, so I ordered it directly from McDonald's website. Since coming across this book, I've seen references to it elsewhere, which agree with McDonald's own assessment that it's a thoroughly researched from the scientific literature, at least to the point of its publication in 1998, along with being the best "bible" out there about how to do a ketogenic diet, including support for workout-related nutrition. So.

I might add that an ultra-low carb (ketogenic) diet is pretty much what is prescribed by Dr. Richard Bernstein for his Type 1 & Type 2 diabetic patients (Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution) which I think is arguably the best single source on diabetes treatment through nutrition & medicine. It's more restrictive on carbs than what I may need for my metabolic state — I'm insulin resistant but not, at this point, diabetic — but it's a damn good starting point. Bernstein is all about making diabetics as healthy as they possibly can be, which is a damn site healthier than the American Diabetes Association has ever remotely imagined: Bernstein's methods lead to (1) normal blood sugars; (2) the remission/reversal of virtually all diabetic complications except for those that have already led to irreparable damage; & (3) diabetics who are overall more healthy than most nondiabetics. Bernstein doesn't talk about ketosis in his book, but it's obvious from the low levels of carbs that his way of eating includes that it is ketogenic. Bernstein himself has been eating that way since around the mid-1970s.

From moderate-carb to low-carb

2008-05-05T19:48:00.005-08:00

Being who I am, I have continually been mucking over the past few months with my nutrition. In this context, "being who I am" means that I can go geek with just about anything that interests me. So, when I was pursuing my master's degree (Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, earned Dec. 1997), focusing on poetry, I became a prosody geek. (Prosody is the technical stuff in poetry having to do with rhythm, rhyme, etc.) When I became interested in family history, I became a genealogy geek. Now, as I try to improve my health, I am a nutrition geek.

I demonstrated that recently in some conversations I participated in with Tom Venuto at his Burn the Fat Inner Circle membership site about Gary Taubes' book Good Calories, Bad Calories... & since my participation in that conversation ended (or went into abeyance, or whatever) I've been continuing to read & learn. I find that I agree with Tom about some stuff, but not about other stuff. For example, I agree with him that fat loss requires a caloric deficit. But I seem to disagree with him about how exactly the energy balance business works — i.e., is a calorie just a calorie, regardless of what kind of nutrient it is? Well, yes; but also no. That is, it’s a lot more complex than simply “calories in = calories out,” due to the complexities of how metabolism works inside the body. Being a geek, I am trying to learn more about how it all actually works.

Okay, well Tom has tended to focus in those conversations on the weight, specifically fat loss, aspects of energy balance (calories in/calories out). But for me, an insulin resistant prediabetic, I'm concerned about the health aspects of what I’m eating even more, so whether the calories are carb calories, protein calories, or fat calories is absolutely critical to me. And because of the emphasis of Burn the Fat Inner Circle is much more on fat loss than on metabolic health, it has appeared personally to me that there is a reluctance there to attend in much more than a (relatively) cursory fashion to the problems of insulin resistance. At least, relative to what I feel I need. Really, I think the deal is that while BFIC absolutely recognizes that insulin resistant (or, as they call it there, carb sensitive) people need a different diet than the moderately high carb diet recommended there for people who are insulin sensitive... there’s a wariness there of providing a any possible platform there for low-carb cheerleaders who make bigger claims for low-carb eating than what's actually warranted. That’s a reasonable fear, given that "one size fits all" approaches only ever really work for just some people. Evidence seems to show that while low-carb works very well for some people, it doesn’t work so well for many others.

Problem is that the overall skew in our culture about nutrition comes from the high-carb cheerleaders, led by organizations such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture with its food pyramid & the American Diabetes Association with its "let's make diabetics even sicker than they already are" high-carb diets. These diets, again, only work for some people. They definitely do not work for diabetics or prediabetics. Unless, of course, you're a pharmaceutical company for whom the sickness of diabetes is a perennial cash cow.

Given that many people who are trying to burn off the fat are insulin resistant, & the overwhelming evidence that high-carb diets are absolutely disastrous for us — well, I’ll just say that while BFIC continues to be a crucial part of my “fat loss” support system, that I’m also on the lookout for other resources as well, which are more natural supports for the kind of nutrition that I as an insulin resistant person need.

Am I a low-carb cheerleader? Well, no. In fact, two years ago, when I first began to overhaul my way of eating, I was quite wary, one might say suspicious, of low-carb approaches. After I read The Schwarzbein Principle, which provided what seemed the perfect model for me of how I should be eating, I was always at pains to refer to what I did as “moderate carb.”

But I’ve been undergoing a slow change of consciousness, especially over the past three months after diving back into nutrition geek mode. Especially after reading some of Richard K. Bernstein’s important work Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution. It comes down to this: if it makes my blood sugar go above normal levels, then I shouldn’t eat it.

And by normal levels, I mean normal levels. Not “what’s normal for a diabetic” or “what’s normal for a prediabetic.” I mean normal. And at this point in the game, that means eating fewer carbohydrates than what I was eating “moderate carb” level. And so, much to my surprise, I’m turning into a low-carber. Not because I think “low carb is for everyone.” But because it will work better for me. And yes, probably for most diabetics & prediabetics.

A new resource I found last week sums it up quite nicely for me:
My general experience has been that individuals who respond very well to high-carbohydrate/lower fat diets tend to do very poorly on low-carb/higher-fat diets. They feel terrible (low energy and a mental fog that never goes away), don't seem to lean out very effectively and it just doesn't work.

This cuts both ways: folks who don't respond well to higher carbs do better by lowering carbs and increasing dietary fat. Sometimes that means a moderate carb/moderate fat diet, sometimes it means a full blown ketogenic diet. I should also note that some people seem to do just as well on one diet as another.

— from "Insulin Sensitivity and Fat Loss" by Lyle McDonald
I think Tom Venuto would actually agree with most of that, though perhaps not the part about ketogenic diets, which he seems quite wary of. But me...well, in fact, I ran into Lyle McDonald because rather to my surprise over the past few months, I've become convinced that eating a ketogenic diet (in which body energy is mostly supplied by free fatty acids & ketones from body fat, rather than glucose from carbs), at least for a time, might be exactly the route I need to go.

But more on that in another post.

Recovery

2008-05-05T18:32:00.007-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

Oh boy do I need to update my blog.

I learned a few lessons from my half-marathon row on April 18. Live & learn, indeed. Considering that the prior week I'd done 15,266 meters in one sitting, with no ill effects, it's pretty incredible that the addition of just another 5k was enough to mess me up as badly as it did. Or atleast, I'm guessing that something about that row is behind the effects I experienced, mainly having to do with energy levels.

Well, it was to be expected I'd be a bit wiped out the day following a 13-mile row. So on that following day (a Sunday) I did nothing exercise-wise, just hung about my apartment & enjoyed a well-earned vege-out (complete with the consumption of plenty of veggies). After that — let's see, I'm looking at my little spreadsheet on my Palm — I got the equivalent of 9K to 15K steps over the next five days, but rowed on only three of those days, & that at fairly low levels — a max of 3k meters. And I felt kinda yucky every time. Which is, of course, why I didn't row more. Nor did I have the oomph to do any of my Turbulence Training workouts. All of this was accompanied by an abrupt increase in daytime sleepiness, that whole falling into a drowse mid-typing at my computer, which was remedied only through influxes of caffeine. This in spite of actually succeeding, for once, in getting at least 7 hours of sleep every night that week.

The following weekend (i.e., Apr. 26-27) I couldn't bring myself to do a damn thing. Slept in, vegged. I was able to pick up the last week, including an increase in rowing workouts, but I didn't really feel good doing a row until Thursday, May 1. That was a 10K row, a fitting beginning to the new rowing season. (On the Concept 2 website, seasons run from May to April, so even though we still have most of 2008 yet to go, in rowing terms we're now in the "2009 season.") I even put myself at the very front of the pack in the rankings for a 10K row in my class (women aged 40- to 49 heavyweight)! Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that I was the only person in my class to record a 10K row for the 2009 season to that point. (As of this morning, I'm now 5th out of 8.)

So, my energy levels seem to have returned, & the daytime sleepies seem to be improving slightly. I also finally got the weight bench & dumbbell stand for the Bowflex SelectTech dumbbells I purchased a few weeks ago put together over the past weekend, so I'm set to get back on the weight training workouts.

Here's what I think led to all this: I screwed up in how I set up the half-marathon row. First, I did it way too late at night. When it got that late, I should have just gone to bed, & saved the row for the following day or even put it off to the following weekend. (To meet the challenge, I had until April 30). Second, I had inadequate nutrition around the workout itself -- preworkout, during workout, postworkout. I did have a protein/carb drink (more protein than carbs) that I sipped at during brief rest periods (such as when I had to stop to give my poor sore bum a break), but that wasn't enough. You can sure bet that I've been doing some research on pre, during, & post-workout nutrition since then. In any case, between the poor timing of the workout & the poor workout-related nutrition, I sabotaged my recovery. That's what I think, anyway.

Good to have the energy back, though. Starting on May 1, I've done four long straight cardio (i.e., not HIIT) rows, & have felt good both during & afterwards, with no ill effects.

Weight-wise — well, it's been fluctuating a bit up & down by about two or three lbs., but no further weight lost. I'm not too worried about that, though; I think it goes with the absence of HIIT & weight training these past two weeks, & at least there hasn't been a precipitate weight increase. Now that my energy's back up, things should improve again.

I have, in virtual "ascent of Everest" terms, reached Everest Base Camp. So that's pretty cool.

5-HTP & depression

2008-05-01T12:04:00.007-08:00

I learned recently that 5-HTP is an intermediate between the amino acid tryptophan (oh ye of post-Thanksgiving turkey dinner sleepiness fame) & the neurotransmitter serotonin, whose activity is targeted by a lot of antidepressants. Thus, 5-HTP is alternative to antidepressants–& from my standpoint, a superior one. This is important to me given my history of problems with depression. Since I'm also insulin resistant (prediabetic), the metabolism of carbs & their intimate relationship with tryptophan & hence serotonin levels is crucial.

When I overhauled my diet to a low glycemic/moderate carb diet a couple of years ago, I discovered that I was just as prone to fall into depression if I went too low in carbs as I did when I was my carb intake was too high. I don't seem to be having that problem so much now, as I go to a lower carb diet. Maybe I've adapted. But I'm now also supplementing now with 5-HTP.

Here's how I understand the mechanism relating carbs & insulin to tryptophan > 5-HTP > serotonin to mood disorders like depression (& probably other things like road rage, anxiety, etc.).

Low serotonin levels frequently (especially in insulin resistant people whose blood sugars are all over the map) lead to carb cravings because intake of carbs brings (as most of use here will know) increase in insulin secretion. The insulin works not only to control blood glucose (as best it can), but also to cause various amino acids to be absorbed into body tissues -- except apparently tryptophan isn't absorbed as much. This then leads to tryptophan to have less competition from other amino acids for riding the carrier molecule they use to get through the blood-brain barrier, where the tryptophan is synthesized into 5-HTP & from 5-HTP into serotonin. The effect of eating carbs for the depressed person is, thus, to increase serotonin levels into the brain -- but at a cost (higher blood sugars, higher blood insulin, increase in insulin resistance & obesity, etc.).

The reason it might be better to supplement with 5-HTP than tryptophan is because: (1) tryptophan is also used in the body to synthesize other products, which might not hold as much advantage for mood issues, whereas (I think) 5-HTP is used mainly to synthesize serotonin; & (2) 5-HTP has a much easier time getting through the blood/brain barrier than tryptophan -- apparently doesn't require the carrier molecule that tryptophan does (in which tryptophan competes with other amino acids).

My source for this info is the book Hunger Free Forever: The New Science of Appetite Control by Michael T. Murray, N.D. and Michael R. Lyon, M.D. Murray has also written a book specifically about 5-HTP. I'll see if I can find actual scientific cites. In any case, so far it's working well for me.

Update 12 May 2008: I finally got around to finding a reference. Here is is, with its abstract.

Birdsall TC.. 5-Hydroxytryptophan: a clinically-effective serotonin precursor. Altern Med Rev. 1998 Aug;3(4):271-80.

(Full article with references is available at http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/3/4/271.pdf.)

5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) is the intermediate metabolite of the essential amino acid L-tryptophan (LT) in the biosynthesis of serotonin. Intestinal absorption of 5-HTP does not require the presence of a transport molecule, and is not affected by the presence of other amino acids; therefore it may be taken with meals without reducing its effectiveness. Unlike LT, 5-HTP cannot be shunted into niacin or protein production. Therapeutic use of 5-HTP bypasses the conversion of LT into 5-HTP by the enzyme tryptophan hydroxylase, which is the rate-limiting step in the synthesis of serotonin. 5-HTP is well absorbed from an oral dose, with about 70 percent ending up in the bloodstream. It easily crosses the blood-brain barrier and effectively increases central nervous system (CNS) synthesis of serotonin. In the CNS, serotonin levels have been implicated in the regulation of sleep, depression, anxiety, aggression, appetite, temperature, sexual behaviour, and pain sensation. Therapeutic administration of 5-HTP has been shown to be effective in treating a wide variety of conditions, including depression, fibromyalgia, binge eating associated with obesity, chronic headaches, and insomnia.

Half-marathoner

2008-04-21T12:10:00.011-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

I did it.

In answer to Concept 2's Global Marathon Challenge, I rowed a half-marathon (21,097 meters = 13.01 miles) on Saturday night.

Boy did it make my tush sore. This in spite of having followed Concept 2's advice, on its Training for a Marathon page, to lay in a supply of bubble wrap. I started with one sheet, & it really helped, too — for about the first hour. But then me bum got progressively more & more sore, & I had to pop on another sheet. But me bum was still sore, poor me. I think I could have put in a better time if it weren't for the stops I was making just to stand up & give me poor sore bum a break. I finished with a time of 2:21:28.6, which put me at the bottom (how appropriate!) of the rankings for women in my weight/age range.

But I did it!

The top-ranked women's heavyweight age 40 to 49 class has a time of 1:27:35.2. Wow, it would've been nice to have sat nearly an hour less than what I did! There was some recompense. I was accompanied in my effort by three & one-quarter episodes of the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spinoff series "Angel". Thank you, Joss Whedon, for creating something to keep my mind occupied whilst I rowed me poor sore bum off.

Thanks to having also rowed a set of high intensity intervals on Saturday morning, plus a deensy amount of walking in between, I accumulated a total of 40,867 steps (or their equivalent) for the day. In our virtual ascent of Mt. Everest, this brought me into the village of Dughla.

Where I gave myself a Good. Long. Rest. Couldn't do much else: I was completely wiped out. My Sunday went like this: I got something to eat, went & sat on the couch & read a bit, dozed off, woke up, read a bit, got something to eat, came back to the couch with it, ate & read, dozed... that was the whole day. My cat came & sat on my lap or on the back of the couch behind my head — that was nice. I intended to do at least a brief walk around the neighborhood, but when I checked on my energy levels all I found was nada. Zip. Zilch. Null.

Well, that's to be expected, I supposed. I'm doing better today, already got some dancing in & I think I'll be able to get 10,000 steps in actual walking in. I still feel a bit of residual wipe-out from Saturday night.

But I bet I'll do a whole lot better next time.

Into Dingboche

2008-04-17T22:39:00.003-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

Well, good, today in the Everest Challenge I made it "virtually" into Dingboche. That requires an accumulation of 320,300 steps or equivalent; as of tonight, I'm at 330,275 — just barely in there.

I've gotta say I'm really impressed with how some of the other "climbers" are doing, especially a certain fellow at University of Alaska Southeast whose recorded steps are at over 947,000 steps. That puts him "virtually" on the mountain (Everest, that is; not our own beloved Denali) at Camp 2. And since he doesn't seem to always record his steps every day, I'm betting that he's a good clip further along even than that. I don't have much doubt he's going to summit (1,291,300 steps or equivalent) before I've even made it to Camp 1 (798,300), which I'm not even halfway to yet. Good on ya, mate.

But I'm impressed beyond that. This is a great program, & it's good to see so many people participating. It's daily a topic of conversation between me & my two coworkers who are also participating; every day we're encouraging each other & reminding each other to do the extra stuff (drink water, do pushups & situps, be appreciative of the people we see in our daily lives) that will get us the daily 500 bonus points. And it's good to see people walking & doing other things to increase their daily fitness. May every participant make it all the way up the mountain, & down again, safely.

This week has continued to be a little screwy for me in terms of what's become my normal schedule of workouts. Tuesday, of course, was one such day — as discussed in previous post, Tax Day gunk prevented me from getting in the second half (high intensity interval training) of my Turbulence Training workout. But at least I got the strength portion in, which is equally important. But you just pick up & keep going. Wednesday morning I started the day with a 30-minute row & also got over 8,000 steps walking done during the workday, most of them during my lunchtime. This morning's row was shorter, just 16 minutes, but I did quite well with the walking, over 11,000 steps, most of them at work. This included a walk over to Admin to participate in one of the WIN events — a reading of my body comp (body fat percentage) & blood pressure — & back again, & a lunchtime walk through the spine across to Rasmusson Hall (former BEB) & back. I put my normal Thursday TT workout off until tomorrow because I had a writing even tonight which didn't leave me time for an evening workout.

All told, Wednesday got me 17,496 steps or their equivalent, & today got me 16,579.

Between Tengboche & Dingboche

2008-04-16T12:51:00.005-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

Steady progress. Pretty steady anyway: yesterday was tax day, which had an impact on my workout because, typically, I waited until the last day to do anything about it. Filed my own online at lunchtime, & in the evening gave the boy (now 20) a crash course in preparing a federal tax return online. The upshot was that I only had time for half my three-days-a-week Turbulence Training workout.

But it hasn't all been that way. I had a really huge day last Friday. That's the day I generally take a break from rowing. Instead, I did a lot of dancing (60 minutes' worth over all) & a lot of walking — during lunchtime at work, shopping for groceries after work, & then, after putting the groceries away at home, another walk. This one took me up C Street — or rather, down, since I was descending into Chester Creek valley — from Fireweed to 15th Avenue (up a hill), then over to E Street & down a hill, turning to walk along Valley of the Moon Park, & up Arctic to Fireweed again, & then home. I picked this walk partly to avoid the snowy bike trails along Chester Creek that I'd walked the week before, & partly in order to get hills both coming & going, including that hill up Arctic that I used to walk almost every workday during the Start Walking program two years ago, when we lived down in that valley. At any rate, by the time the day ended, I'd put in 16,655 steps of actual walking, & with the dancing an equivalent of a total of 25,015 steps, which is thus far the highest I've done in any one day.

That's the day I came into Tengboche.

Saturday was a different kind of achievement. I got involved in a book I'm reading (Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes) & the day kinda passsed, & I didn't get the row I usually do in the morning, & followup in the evening with a TT workout. So, I thought, why not do the 10K row I've been doing on Sundays tonight instead? & I'll do the normal Saturday routine on Sunday? So I popped a movie into my laptop DVD player & hopped on the rower & rowed. Well, a 10K row takes me just under an hour, & the movie was an hour & a half, so when I got done with the 10K I thought, well, why not just keep rowing until the movie's over? So I did. That bought me another 5,266 meters — and new confidence that I am up to the challenge that I've been using these 10K rows to train for: a half-marathon (21,097 meters), which is just 5K more than I did that day. I will probably do it this coming weekend. Just have to have a long enough movie. (And maybe alternate padding for my tush, which did get a tad sore. On it's "Training for a Marathon" page, Concept 2 recommends bubble wrap, so I've laid in a supply.) My Saturday row, plus the paltry number of walking steps I did, brought me the equivalent of 24,546 steps.

The other days have been a bit more routine — morning row & evening TT workout on Sunday (17,252 steps or equivalent), morning 15-minute row & evening 30-minute row on Monday (18,479 steps or equivalent)— until Tuesday which I've already mentioned got messed up by also being Tax Day, & so got just 13,145 steps or equivalent. Still, I feel pretty darn good at what I'm accomplishing with my exercise as well as nutrition, especially after my "official weekly weigh-in" on Sunday found I'd lost another 3 pounds in the past week.

Erging away

2008-04-10T23:45:00.005-08:00

The March Madness rowing challenge I did last month got me on a rowing schedule that feels pretty good to me, & don't want to give up. So, on most days, I'm getting from 5000 to 6000 meters in, usually split between a morning workout & an evening workout (including the high intensity intervals portion of my TT workouts). Fridays I'm reserving as "break from rowing" days, & on those days instead I'm doing more dancing & walking. Sundays are big rowing days: on those days, at least this month, I'm doing 10K meters in preparation for the half-marathon I'm going to try for in the latter half of the month (another Concept 2 challenge).

My rowing has gotten noticeably stronger. I seem finally to have gotten the trick of getting really fast speeds, if only for brief bursts: to really kick off with my feet on the drive, then follow through with a full, strong pull on the handle (the erg version of oars). I've gotten as fast as 2:02.0/500m for three or four strokes, & can actually sustain speeds of 2:08.0 or 2:09.0/500m for up to a full minute when doing intervals. It's not sustainable for longer rows — my legs get tired really fast — but its perfect for high intensity intervals.

In her beginner-level training program for women, personal trainer Krista Scott-Dixon has described the alternating high intensity/low intensity of intervals like this: "High intensity should be a maximal or near-maximal effort like a crazy guy with an axe is chasing you. Low intensity is about the equivalent of walking as if a 105 year old guy with an axe is shuffling after you using a walker while dragging an oxygen tank." That's pretty much how it is for me — I go so hard for the one or two minutes of high intensity that by the time I arrive at the two-minute low intensity "rest" portion that my current workouts call for, I have no choice but to row as feebly as that guy with the walker & oxygen tank, because I've wiped myself out. Until I catch my breath, my heart slows down, & then after a minute & a half or so I can row at a nice moderate rate again — for about 30 seconds, until the next manic near-maximal interval is upon me. Wow, it's hard. But afterwards, when I'm all done with my intervals & my cooldown row — & especially after my shower! — I feel great.

My longer rows are progressing, too. Yesterday morning's 30-minute row of 5934 meters (ave. speed 2:31.7/500m) got me exactly 300 meters more than my next best 30-minute row, just a month ago (2:39.7/500m). Compare either of those with my very first 30-minute row (actually, 30:37.3) on October 13 last year: just 4,695 meters (average speed 3:15.7/500m). Last Sunday's 10K was three minutes faster than the previous Sunday's.

My recovery is a lot better too. As in, even when wiped out after a hard effort, a few minutes later I feel pretty darn good, like I could do it all over again. (But I don't!) This might have somewhat to do with my dietary changes — I figured out last week that I wasn't eating quite enough calories, but now that I fixed that, I have more energy for the workouts I'm doing, & am not quite so exhausted afterwards. Maybe also my sleep: I've been making efforts to get enough sleep every night (which habitually I don't). But I think it's also that I'm simply getting stronger. It feels pretty good. It'll be interesting to see where I'll be a month from now, or two. Especially now that I've got that trick of kicking off at the start of the drive: my legs will get stronger, & when they do, look out.

Somewhere past Namche Bazaar

2008-04-10T23:22:00.003-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

I haven't kept up my posts the last couple days, but that's fine; I'll just omnibus 'em in here. I arrived "virtually" in Namche Bazaar on Tuesday, thanks to a pretty hefty day especially of rowing & my Tuesday Turbulence Training workout, along with a bit of dancing & walking. Wednesday was a very intense 30-minute row in the morning, my best distance for that time at 5934 meters, & I my heart was beating hard enough at the end of that session that I thought it wise to do another five minutes at a more moderate pace as a cooldown — another 905 meters. Besides the normal "laps" around the second floor of the library (where our office is now located) after trips to the bathroom, I also did a lunchtime walk across campus, inside using skywalks in deference to the big dump of snow we'd had during the morning. Today, Thursday, I did a morning row (3390 meters), enough "laps" of the library plus other walking to get me just over 5000 steps, & an evening Turbulence Training workout.

Progress in the last three days: Tuesday, 19,231 steps or equivalent. Wednesday, 18,784 or equivalent. Thursday, 21,356 or equivalent.

"Fluffy Folks Factually Feel Fit"

2008-04-07T13:59:00.005-08:00

At work I've usually KSKA, my local public radio station, playing all day. Just now I heard a segment on a show called The Health Show in which they were talking with their diet & lifestyle consultant Dr. Stephanie Beling about exercise among the overweight & obese. Really encouraging stuff! The upshot is that exercise is really beneficial for overweight/obese people even if they don't lose much weight from it. "As a matter of fact," Beling says, "Fitness may trump fatness." Beling discussed a study of 2600 people over 60 years old, examining how their weight & fitness affected their death rate. They found that fitness — measured in the study by their ability to walk on a treadmill — provides protection against mortality regardless of their weight. Even just three ten-minute walks a day can have this beneficial effect. Beling also had a couple of anecdotes about obese men she met who greatly reduced their weight & need for medications, & greatly improved their health, simply from walking.

You can hear the entire story (8:51) from this page at the Health Show (scroll to bottom). It's in Real Audio format.

I did a little checking on ScienceDaily, & found a story about the study Dr. Beling was referring to: "Fitness Level, Not Body Fat, May Be Stronger Predictor Of Longevity For Older Adults" (Dec. 7, 2007).

Another 10K row

2008-04-06T12:40:00.002-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

Besides doing measurements, my big thing for the day was a 10K row in one sitting. This is the fourth time I've done a row of this distance or better, & today was my best time for 10K: 54:31.5, a good three minutes better than I'd done it before. Mainly, I think, due to fewer interruptions, but I think I'm also getting better at pacing myself. All to the good: I'm planning on participating in the Concept 2 Global Marathon Challenge between April 16 & April 30. I'm not going to be prepared for a full marathon, which is for the same distance as a running marathon (42,195 meters), but I'm quite sure I can complete a half marathon (21,097 meters), which at my current pace should take me in the area of two hours.

Progress today: The 10K row, a minor bit of walking, & a cool glass of water got me 17,112 steps or their equivalent. My cumulative steps (or equivalent) for this first week of the 2008 Start Walking program total to 121,072.

Errands & TT

2008-04-05T22:09:00.004-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

After 10 minutes of dancing & a morning row (5x500m/1:00r) & breakfast, today was all about errands, mainly food shopping with eye towards protein sources, having figured out midweek that I needed more calories per day & more protein than what I'd been eating. So, Natural Pantry, then Costco, where I also got some test strips for my glucometer so I can start checking my blood sugars again. I got a few extra steps (& some panic) by dropping my ATM card by the pharmacy counter & having to go back & find it later. (All came out well.)

And then in the evening, I completed the second week of the Beginner's level of Turbulence Training. As usual, that meant about 30 minutes of strength training (bodyweight & dumbbell exercises) followed up by HIIT intervals on the erg (3x2:00/2:00r).

I see from reading Richard's blog for today that Fairbanks got a new dump of snow that layered over recent signs of spring. So did we! — it was spitting snow most of the day, & the temps have gone down a bit as well.

Progress today: Dancing, rowing, walking, strength training, & the bonus 500 points from drinking a glass of water got me 20,236 steps or their equivalent, my best day so far.

A walking day

2008-04-04T22:38:00.002-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

Today was a break from rowing, but that didn't stop me from dancing a half hour in the morning & walking, including a half hour or so at lunchtime back & forth across the UAA campus & then, in the evening, a longer walk with Jesse & his dog Sweetheart along the bike trails by Chester Creek.

We live just off Fireweed & C Street, which is advantageous for walking because any walk we take down into the Chester Creek valley means we've got to walk up a hill to get home. Not to mention the Chester Creek greenbelt is right down there. The bike trails of course are pretty full of snow, still, just as the one around Goose Lake is, but the walking wasn't too bad so long as you had the right footwear for it. I was trying out the new light hikers that I bought last weekend, & they were perfect for conditions. Worst bit was going through the culvert tunnels under roads — pretty wet & icy down in those tunnels, but my footwear was up to it, didn't even get my feet wet. Nor, more importantly, did I fall flat on my hiney or face.

We went as far as Minnesota & followed the bike trail up the hill overlooking Westchester Lagoon, up to West High, during which a bald eagle flew over us. And then along Spenard & Fireweed towards home, where we arrived in time for me to fix myself something to eat before plopping down for the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica.

Great way to start a weekend.

Progress today: Dancing & walking & a cool drink of water worth 18,544 steps or their equivalent.

On the way to Namche Bazaar

2008-04-04T10:30:00.003-08:00

Note: My Start Walking posts can easily be found by clicking on the label Start Walking 2008.

Kate, the designer of the Start Walking program, has thoughtfully provided information about the locations & sights along the way during our virtual climb up Mt. Everest. This video, from YouTube member TheHappyHobo, illustrates crossing a suspension bridge just outside Phakding on the trail to Namche Bazaar, where I'm "virtually" headed next.