Why the Y

Earlier today I plunked down a chunk of money to pay out a year membership to the YMCA for the wife and myself.  I've had several ask me why I'm a member of the Y, especially considering I make no effort to conceal that I am an atheist or that I don't particularly like religions in general.

Well, there are several reasons. 

First among them is cost.  The Y is cheap...considering.  In my city there are three YMCAs and they are all stocked with good weights and cardio equipment.  They have running tracks and swimming pools.  A couple have racquetball/handball courts and they all have basketball courts.  You get a lot of gym for your membership.  You can find cheaper gyms, but they don't have near the equipment.

It's close to where I live.  One of those three Y's in my city is just a few minutes drive.  It's hard enough some mornings to motivate yourself to go to the gym without having to face a long commute to get there and back home again.

It feels like a community.  This is not a necessarily critical thing...but it is nice to go to a place with all types of people, with all levels of fitness, all trying to get and stay healthy.  The ego factor is really low at the Y.

The YMCA has been around a long time.  It will probably continue to be around for a long time.  I've had experiences with some gyms that would vanish after shelling out bucks for a membership.  I've gone to gyms for a workout to see the doors padlocked with a sign saying "closed until further notice" which is code for "sucker!".  I've actually gone to a gym only to discover that it was sold to another company and that my prior membership was void....but they would make me a deal on joining again.  This is similar to the old bait and switch tactic but it is more commonly known as the bend over and smile sales technique.  

The Y is a religious organization though.  Specifically, a Christian organization.  They do close on Sunday mornings.  There is a picture of Jesus in the lobby (not doing squats or anything though that would be awesome).  Bibles are scattered among their offered reading materials.  Still, they don't really push religion on you.  There isn't any giant crucifix hanging over the dumbbell rack.  No bottles of holy water offered along with Gatorade in the vending machines.  And not once had anybody tried to baptize me in the pool.    

So we have an agreement....the Y and I.  They keep their religion under control and I curb my tendency for blasphemy.  

Mostly.

Creatine

My aim is to transform and build my body without the use of drugs.  I generally go one step further and eschew all the thousands of various supplements that line the shelves of your local GNC or fill the pages of muscle magazines.  I'm natural...but I'm not fanatic about it.   I take vitamins; even though most studies seem to indicate it really doesn't do anything, I take them anyway more out of habit than anything else.  I also take fish oil.  I live in Kansas and don't have a whole lot of access to decent seafood, so it's a good way to get omegas into me.  I regularly use Full Strength, though I consider this a meal and not a supplement.

I also have started using creatine.  Let me tell you why.

Creatine is a co-enzyme in the formation of adenosine triphospate, which supplies energy to all the cells in the body, most particularly the skeletal muscle cells.  It's been a long time since I sat in biology class and memorized the ATP cycle and I really didn't understand it all then.  So just to make a long story short....creatine helps boost the ability of your muscles to do what muscles do.  

Now, that doesn't mean it supercharges you like a can of spinach for Popeye.  What it will do is make your workouts a little more powerful, move a bit more weight, do a few more reps....which in turn will make you see gains faster.  You still have to work for the muscle.  If you are fat and flabby and take creatine without doing any resistance training; you will remain flat and flabby, probably even more so.  Creatine just helps you put forth a little more intensity.

But there are side effects... and it would be irresponsible of me not to warn you about them.

• It naturally boosts testosterone when taken in conjunction with resistance training.  Testosterone is something that starts to fade in men after age 30.  Exercise and diet are a big help in slowing down or reversing this trend.  Adding creatine in the mix helps.
• It improves neurological function; ie, memory.  Another body organ that starts to decline the older guys get.  Creatine seems to have positive effects in keeping you sharp, focused, and productive.
• Enhances recovery.  One aspect of having an aging body is that it doesn't bounce back from intense workouts like it did in your twenties.  Creatine helps cut the time needed for the muscles to heal to you can go at them again.
• May reduce age related muscle loss.
• And the biggest benefit (for me anyway) is the creatine improves glucose tolerance.

I've searched high and low for any adverse effects of creatine and I have found none.  Zip.  Nadda.  There is a lot of anecdotal "heard it from a friend of a friend evidence" that says creatine causes bloating and stomach upset.  I tend to think it is because it is not prepared properly or they are using a crap product.  There is also the warnings that it may be harmful to your kidneys, or liver, or some other organ...but there is not one study backing those warnings.  Not one.  In fact, all the studies (and there are a shitload of them going back decades) that indicate properly used creatine is risk free.

The best, easiest, and cheapest creatine to get is what they call plain old creatine monohydrate powder.  If you look at the ingredient label, that should be the only thing listed.  The monohydrate is the one that has all the mountains of research behind it.  Try to find a product that is made with Creapure.  That is supposedly the gold standard in creatine.  Since creatine is fairly cheap, a lot of companies get all creative with different formulations and gimmicks.  Shun all of them; it's usually done only to jack up the cost and it makes the product less effective.  Try to find what is called micronized creatine.  That just means it is chopped up finer so that it will dissolve more easily in water and be more readily absorbed into your body.  This also might lessen the problem of any bloating or stomach discomfort that I mentioned earlier.    

So....to recap.....here is a product.  It's cheap.  It's effective in helping to build muscle.  Has a load of great side effects to boot.  Is much, much safer than most of the processed foods offered as a daily diet for most Americans.

Sounds like a no brainer.   

Bambuser broadcast

Crea-Tea

Not A Morning Person

Not Great

.....But not bad.  

I'm very fond of Full Strength nutrition shakes and I primarily use the vanilla flavor so that I can add various fruits or nuts.  Gives me some variety.  Anyway; the creation above was an attempt with rhubarb.  I don't know what possessed me to give that a try but try I did, and it came out this weird pink bubble-gum color.  Didn't taste bad but it looked pretty gross.  

 

White Carnation

The church that my parents took me to every Sunday when I was a child had a little traditional thing every Mother's Day.  As you entered, the ushers would hand out little carnation boutonnieres.  I always loved this.  Beyond the fact that they smelled good, it always made me feel snazzy and grown up to have it pinned to my lapel.

There were two types of carnations...red ones and white ones.  You got a red carnation if your mother was still around and a white carnation if she was no longer alive.  I remember looking out at the rows of pews during the service and counting the number of men who were wearing white carnations.  For some reason, I was always profoundly sad for them...that even though they seemed very old to my perspective, I knew that they no longer had a Mom and I wondered what that would be like.  I really couldn't imagine just how it would feel.

This Mother's Day, I understand how it feels to wear a white carnation.

More Excuses

Reviewing Stuff

Serious

Cardio?

It's a Brand New Year!

Wow....time sure flies.  It really seems like it was only yesterday that the calender turned to the year 2000.  Everybody was fretting that Y2K would cause civilization to crash.  I knew it was all bullshit, but I stayed up to make sure the lights didn't go out, just in case.  Then came 2001 and all the predictions by that great movie of the same name fell waaaaay short.  No moon base.  No space station to vacation on.  No space flight stewardesses.  No homicidal computers.  Whatta gyp.  

More years and more years.  Now it's 2015.  Shit!  I had the rather distressing thought earlier today by remembering that I graduated from high school 40 years ago.  It seems that the older you get the older you get....and you get there a lot faster.  By the time the nice symmetrical year of 2020 gets here, I'll be well past 62 years old.

Once again I say...shit.

So what does this have to do with the price of rice in China, much less this blog.  Well, I look at the title "Fitness after Fifty" and think that I should change it.  I'm way past fifty, closer to sixty actually, and I have generally become pretty fit for somebody my age and neglectful background.  The trouble is...it is so damn slow.  Changes in your body, good or bad, are very gradual and go unnoticed with just day to day observations.  That's where frustration sets in.  That's when we give up.

"I'm tired of doing all this exercise and not seeing anything!"

"I'm sick of watching my diet all the time and still have this gut.  Everybody else gets to eat whatever they want."

We say things like this to ourselves.  I do.  I don't notice the changes in my body because I live in my skin and see it every day.  But...every once in a while I run across somebody that hasn't seen me in a while.  THEN it is brought out very clearly.  I went to Texas for my Mom's funeral and saw several family members that I haven't seen in several years.  Each and every one made comments about how much weight I had lost...and I don't thing they were just being polite.  They seemed genuinely stunned.

Anyway...to get back on topic....I am wanting to change the title of this blog.  I haven't really come up with anything yet but I want it to reflect my current status and goals.  I also want to start doing a bunch more video content.  It's kinda hard to document change with photos of my feet.  One more thing I will be doing as something of an experiment is to take a photo of myself every day for the year.  By December 31st I should have at least 300 photographs and we'll see if anything is really changing.

And cat blogging...oh hell yeah 

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Well...I know I said I was going to start moving on this blog, but my Mom died last week and I'm just not feeling it right now.  I was also off work all week to deal with the funeral and be with family, so I have a mountain of paperwork to catch up on.

Life goes on...and so will this blog.  Be back soon.

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Okay.....I know what you're thinking...."what's with all the fucking cat pictures?"

Yeah, you're right, that's all that has been here for the last month.  There are several reasons.  One is that they are easy.  My cat is usually hanging around when I'm at my computer and it's a simple matter to snap off a photo.  I'm also very fond of my cat and, like any parent who dotes on their children, just assume that everybody else in the world enjoys seeing how adorable she is.   Another reason is that I am incredibly busy at my job.  This time of year is especially hectic in my line of work, plus I have the added burden of completing performance evaluations on my entire staff across three shifts.  By the time I get home, writing is about the last thing I want to do.

The biggest reason, however, is that I'm wanting to take things in a new direction...thought not really sure what that direction will be.  I played around with the chalk words at my feet but I felt it was starting to become repetitive and boring.  I feel like I need something here to add some oomph.  One idea I am playing with is to gear up with my YouTube channel and make it much more professional and polished looking.  I need much better editing software because what I have now is crap.  I'm also playing with the idea of leaving Blogger and getting a dedicated website.  I've been with Blogger for years and it has served me well, especially since it's free, but there are a lot of things I want to do with a blog that I just cannot do here.

All these things will take money and time...neither of which I have an abundance of right now.  Changes are coming though so hang around.  I'll even try to lay off on so many cat photos.

....unless a really cute one comes up

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Sweet Bike Ride