A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Gym

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This morning, I woke up briefly at about 4 a.m., considered the time, realized I had 1.5 hours until my alarm went off, figured that didn’t seem like nearly enough time for sleep, and fully intended to blow off my alarm and skip the gym. Seems I forgot to get the memo to our dalmatian, Brooksey. She’s kind of a weird dog, and routinely sleeps under the covers. Last night was no different. But, at 5:25 a.m., she starts dry-heaving, almost always a prelude to a more liquidy sort of regurgitation. Startled out of her sleep by this noise, my wife frantically starts lifting the covers and trying to kick Brooksey out of bed. After being kicked out of bed, Brooksey walked over to the bathroom, gave a few more gurgles, and then wanted to go outside. Probably just a hairball.

That’s a long way of saying, despite my best intentions, I was awake beyond even my abilities to rationalize going back to sleep. So, I headed to the Y, warmed up with 1.4 miles in 7 minutes on the stationary bike, then did some upper body work including a dip/push up combo I’m trying out. No new ground was really broken, however. I can usually increase my weights or reps or whatnot when I go later in the day on weekends.

Weighing In on City Planning

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(Via Slashdot) Science News Online has an article entitled Weighing In on City Planning. The article discusses research into the question of whether urban sprawl contributes to obesity in a city’s residents.

[Lawrence Frank] and other researchers have evidence that associates health problems with urban sprawl, a loose term for humanmade landscapes characterized by a low density of buildings, dependence on automobiles, and a separation of residential and commercial areas. Frank proposes that sprawl discourages physical activity, but some researchers suggest that people who don’t care to exercise choose suburban life. Besides working to settle that disagreement, researchers are looking at facets of urban design that may shortchange health.

As scientists investigate the relationship between sprawl and obesity, a compact style of city development sometimes called smart growth might become a tool in the fight for the nation’s health. However, University of Toronto economist Matthew Turner charges that “a lot of people out there don’t like urban sprawl, and those people are trying to hijack the obesity epidemic to further the smart-growth agenda [and] change how cities look.”

There is an association between the amount of time people spend in cars and how much they weigh and a similar association between the amount of time people walk (and the “walkability” of their cities) and how much they weigh. Apparently a typical white male living in a compact, mixed-use community weighs about 10 pounds less than a smilar man living in a diffuse subdivision containing nothing by homes. There might be a chicken & egg problem here, however. It may be that people with health habits and other propensities toward weight gain might choose neighborhoods where driving is the easiest way to get around. Other researchers challenge that hypothesis for a variety of reasons.

Locally, I suppose, this might put Gov. Daniels fitness agenda at odds with his road-building agenda. Though, to be fair, to date, his toll road proposals probably have more inter-city impact than intra-city impact.

Gym

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Unlike Monday and Tuesday, I managed to drag my lazy bones off to the gym before work this morning. Getting up at 5:30 is just tough some days. And, my energy level is not exactly at peak levels when I get to the Y. That being said, I managed to run 2 miles in 20 minutes (which includes about 3 minutes of what amounts to fast walking to warm up.) After that, I did some leg weights — including about 300 lbs on the leg press. This is down from the 330 I did about 10 days ago. I had knee surgery about 3 years ago after a skiing accident, and, while the presses have not yet caused any pain in my knee, pushing that much weight sort of makes me nervous.

What I really need is to be a Man of Leisure so I can wake up gradually, have a few cups of coffee, read the news, blog a bit, have some cereal, and then head out to the gym at 9 or 10 in the morning, then make myself a nice big meal full of carbs and protein. But, you know, I have a mortgage payment, and the kids seem to have become accustomed to eating. So, that’s not going to happen.

Gym

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We’ll see how long I keep this up, but I added a “fitness” category to the blog. I’m not sure how interested folks may be in my personal exercise routine, but I suppose we need a little chaff to go along with the wheat around here. Those who might be interested in such things are probably far beyond me in proficiency and won’t get much out of it, and those more at my level probably aren’t that interested. In any case, the Governor has said we ought to be fit, and far be it from me to disagree with the Governor.

But, regardless, I hope keeping track of such things here will help keep me motivated and less likely to blow it off. I think I managed getting to the gym once on a weekday last week and twice the week before. On the other hand, I’ve been doing well on the weekends. I love exercising on the weekends. I have so much more energy than when I drag out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and go through the motions during the week. Today, I got up at about 7:t 30 (thanks to my lovely wife who got up with Harper and let me “sleep in”). Then, I had a leisurely couple of cups of coffee and some Wheaties before heading to the gym around 9:30.

I warmed up for a quarter mile on the treadmill then ran a “quick” mile — somewhere between 8 and 9 minutes (probably closer to 9.) Then it was on to the weight room. I did some fully reclined dumb bell presses and some partially reclined dumb bell presses, then a combo thing where I do dips quickly followed by tricep extensions followed by push-ups. Rinse. Repeat. Then some preacher curls, some sit-ups, and a couple other minor arm exercises.

So, if I read this right, it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry. I’ll either have to figure out how to make the subject entertaining or just stick to politics.