As I’m sure you’ve gleaned by now, I’m not really a workout kind of guy.

However, even a fitness neophyte like me understands the need for some kind of quasi-strenuous physical activity as a means to attaining my goal weight.  Having spent this year’s gym membership money on a cruise to Mexico (oh yes, I will be writing about it), I was forced to seek out an “at home” way to tone up and shed a few more pounds.

My inability to find an appropriate workout video being a matter of public record, I cast an eye towards resistance training. Nothing major mind you, just a couple of dumbbells and I’d be set.  Well, the dumbbells proved a problem from the very beginning.  First of all, they’re well… kind of heavy, so I wanted to buy them near the house or the office, but the only ones I could find near the office were pink.  I have always considered myself a guy secure in his sexuality, but working out with pink dumbbells was too scary even for me.  The only weights I could find close to the house weighed all of two pounds and while it is true that I have the upper body strength of a twelve-years-old girl, I didn’t think two pound weights were going to be much of a help in my quest for brawn.

The solution to my “problem” came not in iron or steel, but in rubber.  Yep, industrial rubber tubing of varying thicknesses with a handle on either end.  And they were already in the house.  My partner Jeffrey had picked up a set of these stretchy little fitness tools as an impulse buy a few months ago, and I commandeered the red one (the thickest and therefore most macho) to use for my lunchtime office workout.

I’m sure that serious (and not so serious) weightlifters out there are doing their very best to stifle laughter (at least, I hope you are) as you picture me standing behind my desk doing bicep curls with what is really nothing more than a giant rubber band, all while sweating like A-Rod waiting for the results of his most recent urinalysis.  If it’s any conciliation, I believe you, Alex.  You’re not the first jock I’ve known who has no idea what’s being put into his ass… in a locker room… at Yankee Stadium… immediately prior to the third game of the World Series.  But I digress.

As I’m typing this with sore arm and shoulder muscles, I can only guess that my rubber pumping workout is having some effect, and hopefully one day soon I’ll be able to incorporate other giant office supplies into my fitness oeuvre.  I’m sure that there must be someway to do wrist curls with a three-hole punch.

Bob Speck lives and writes in Los Angeles.  He has no idea why.

Each week as I am standing at the edge of the pool, I still have to ask myself:

Are you up to the challenge?

As I mentioned in my last post, swimming has always been one of my biggest fears.  Since I was a little girl, I loved being by the water but was trapped— trapped by this fear that I would drown.  I remember my mother always holding my hand as we stood along the edge of the water at the beach telling me to be careful not to go in or I would drown.  I became so paralyzed by this fear that I rarely ventured past my waist even as I grew older.

This spilled over into the rest of my life.  I learned to always give in to my fears.  If I were afraid of something, I would just not do it.  Swimming was one fear. The other was making a life of my own.

From childhood, I always felt that cleaning the house was my only talent.  That is what I was good at, so there wasn’t any reason for me to go after my dreams, let alone have any.  I believed that the same way I believed I would drown if I ventured into the water.   Every decision I made for the next 30 years was based on those beliefs and the fears I had.  I always chose what I thought was safe and predictable.

But then, three years ago, I became a divorced mother of two teenage girls.  I had been married to my high school sweetheart for 20 years and spent many years clinging to the beliefs and fears that stemmed from my childhood.  And yet, this had not kept me from drowning in marriage.  So I finally decided to face my fear and move forward.

As I stand on the edge of the pool, I ask myself, “Are you up to the challenge?”  I close my eyes as I picture myself jumping off the edge into the crystal blue water:

YES I AM!

Maribel Torres lives, writes, and swims in New York.

My geriatric dog tumbled down the stairs last weekend.  She’s been unsteady on her feet for the past few months, courtesy of a balance issue that strikes old pups, but she seemed to have gotten over it— at least until we heard the thumps, the bumps, and my daughter’s cry.

We found her at the bottom of the stairs, trying to get up.  Her back legs couldn’t find purchase, though.  My wife and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thought:

Will the dog survive this one?

The vets weren’t encouraging.  Words were spoken about surgeries, about necessary drugs, about hips that would slip out of place repeatedly.  Still, we took our dog home, her rear hip pushed back into place, her leg cradled in an awkward sling.

We borrowed a dog crate from a friend, gave our canine some more medicine, and prepared for the worst.  Barring a surgery that costs more than we could afford, we were told that amputation was an option, along with…sigh…euthanasia.

Someone forgot to tell our dog.  For the first two days, she resigned herself to the dog crate.  By the third day, though, after we carried her outside to complete her business, she decided that she was better.  So, hobbling on three legs, she staggered down the lawn to greet our neighbor.  We smiled, sighed, and carried her into the house, back to her crate.

She broke out after an hour.

We smiled, put her back into the crate, and blockaded it.

Two hours later, she broke out again, wandered into the dining room, and attempted to sneak past, thumping along with three legs as we were eating dinner.

We put her back into the cage and— yes— she escaped.  She also decided that the bandage was nice, but she really wanted to use her hind leg, so off came the sling.

Last night, after we went to bed, we heard some thumping.  We rushed downstairs, only to find her out of her cage, free of sling, relaxing on the couch.

Today, the vet took another set of x-rays. He said:

Let’s not bind her leg.  The hip’s good.  She’s part greyhound, so it’ll stay in place.  Oh, and sorry about that scrape on her nose.  We tried to put her in a cage while she was with us, but she wouldn’t stay in.

No problem, we said.  You can’t crate determination.

Robin Follet lives, writes, and cartoons in North Carolina.

How do we get hungry?

We all wonder what drives people to eat when they have so much extra energy (the nice way of saying it) and really do not need to eat to survive.  But if you strip away the social and emotional aspects of food, it is just a package of protein, fat, and sugar, and we respond differently to each nutrient as far as hormones, enzymes, and transporters in the body that deal with each one.

When we have not eaten for a while a hormone (Ghrelin) is released from our stomach and travels to the brain.  In the brain, ghrelin stimulates the release of two other hormones (AGRP and NPY), which stimulate another part of the brain to tell us to eat.  (In addition, we have receptors in our brain for glucose, those will be important in a minute).  You can already see this is a complicated system, which is likely why people are so confused about food, and it only gets worse.

So, once you follow your brain’s signals and eat, a whole new hormone released by the small intestine (CCK) travels through the blood to your brain, wherein you get a feeling of satiety.  It is important to note that this hormone is normally secreted in response to fats specifically.  The other satiety-stimulating hormone comes from the brain’s glucose receptors referenced earlier (glucostats).  When activated (by glucose) they release serotonin, which creates satiety and also makes us happy, hence why food can makes us feel so good.  These are the only satiety signals that come directly from the act of eating.  The others come from leptin, but since leptin is still a mystery to scientists, I will not even approach that subject here.  It is a hot topic, and as I learn more I will certainly share.

Now, how can we increase satiety?  After all, this is what will help us feel satiated throughout the day and prevent “slip ups”?

First, eat whole grains.

Those glucose receptors release that wonderful serotonin, which gives us satiety and a happy feeling after eating glucose rich foods.   But the amount of glucose released in your system after a meal rich in processed carbohydrates is immense (stimulating glucostats) compared with the slow release of whole unprocessed carbs.  This is not unheard news, but now you know more about why that is such a bad thing. Flooding the system with glucose at the beginning of digestion and then returning to fasting levels quickly gives your glucose receptors nothing to work with a short time after eating, thereby decreasing your satiety signals in the brain.  This is exactly the reason behind campaigns to increase your “whole grains.”  These grains are processed longer, thereby initiating the release of glucose to the blood gradually, in turn maintaining a more constant glucostat stimulation and serotonin release.

Second, eat fat.

We as a nation have decided that fats are the enemy— think of all the “fat free” products on our grocery shelves (though it is now being replaced by “whole grain” and “low sugar” claims).  But fats are very important for your body; your cells need fat to function properly and your brain is approximately 60% fat.  If you significantly reduce, or worse eliminate, fats from your diet you are doing a disservice to yourself and your body.

Rather, add the healthy fat.  Remember what I said earlier about the hormone that produces satiety (CCK): it is stimulated by fats in your small intestine. This is why eating a handful of almonds, adding oils to your salad, and cooking with fats makes us feel fuller.  So use oil in all your cooking; it will make your meals taste better and satiate you longer.  The reason to avoid trans-fats and saturated fats (found in processed foods and red meat) is that your body easily incorporates those into your system without much work (i.e energy expenditure) thereby making them more potent than poly- and mono- unsaturated fats like that found in oils (processed oil, nuts, avocado, fish etc.).  Of your total daily caloric intake, 25-35% of that should be from fat and 20-30% of your daily fat intake should come from mono- and poly- unsaturated oils for the most health benefits.

Lastly, I cannot stress enough the studies behind fish oil (namely DHA and EPA Omega-3 fatty acids) and its broad benefits to the body from weight to heart and brain health.  Try to find a good source that provides at least one gram of fish oil per serving and take it daily.  (Note: flaxseed oil is not a good substitute for fish oil because it is mostly the precursor oil (ALA) to the oils in fish oil (DHA and EPA) and the body does not process it efficiently enough so you would have to consume an immense amount each day for the same benefit).

Much more information is to come regarding health, nutrition, daily caloric needs calculations, and how to use food to make you healthier and happier rather than a chore or something that you are constantly running away from for fear of the wobbly midsection.

Stannon Stevenson studies medicine and osteopathy at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences.

Jamie Dreyer is off today.

The famous quotation from Juvenal’s tenth satire, usually translated as “a sound mind in a sound body,” came to my somewhat sound mind this past weekend when I was watching the Oscars.

Though there are countless films made about real-life athletes and their amazing physical feats (Chariots of Fire, Prefontaine, Ali, Without Limits, etc.) I’ve always found the movies that focus equally on the mental and emotional fitness of their subjects to be the most compelling.  Here’s a brief rundown of a few of my recent favorites:

Endurance (1999, dir. Leslie Woodhead).  I’m always a sucker for a movie about a marathoner, but this quiet film about Ethiopian running phenom Haile Gebrselassie is a testament to the power of the human mind.  We are able to see that it was determination alone that propelled Gebrselassie from scrawny, rural farm boy to Olympic champion.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998, dir. Aviva Kempner).  This story of the handsome, gentlemanly Greenberg, the first major Jewish star in baseball’s major leagues is alternately funny, sad, and inspiring— the latter particularly so in light of the behavior of some of the sport’s recent “stars.”

Touching the Void (2003, dir. Kevin MacDonald).  This documentary about the two mountaineers who had a harrowing, near-disastrous experience while climbing in the Andes is especially interesting because of the incredible mental toughness exhibited by both men and the physical suffering one of them had to endure and overcome after being left for dead by his companion.

Encounters at the End of the World (2007, dir. Werner Herzog).  Encounters deserves its Oscar nomination for best documentary not only for the otherworldly views (both under and above water) of Antarctica captured by Werner Herzog and his team, but also for the fascinating stories of the motley set of men and women who live and work in the South Pole at the McMurdo Research Station, dedicating their lives to science and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge, often at great risk to themselves (like the divers who explore the sea floor under the ice without a tether line, trusting that they will be able to somehow find their way back to the hole they made to enter the water, or the scientists who study Antarctica’s active volcanoes— and by study, I mean climb down inside them).

Man on Wire (2008, dir. James Marsh).  I have actually not yet seen this film about tightrope-walker Philippe Petit’s famous illegal high-wire walk between the twin towers in 1974, but it won the Oscar, and interviews with Petit suggest he sees his accomplishments as being due to mental fortitude as much as physical stamina. As he says,

To me, it’s really so simple, that life should be lived on the edge.  You have to exercise rebellion.  To refuse to tape yourself to the rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge.  Then you will live your life on the tightrope.

Have any favorite “healthy mind in healthy body” examples of your own?  Please send ‘em along!

Jeanine Casler lives, runs, and writes in Evanston, Illinois.