The present of time

My health & fitness are of primary importance to me and the benefits of my personal discipline to both reach into the corners of every aspect of my life; helping me to stay well during stressful times & enabling me to pick myself up when people or events have pulled the rug from under me.  The last few years, spent mostly studying, have been extremely testing and I truly don’t believe I could have sustained the mental strength it required without optimum nutrition and the freedom to breathe that running gave to me.  I can’t take all the credit though, it’s been my mum that was always at the end of the phone when the going got tough; often I don’t think she fully understood everything I talked about; research papers, deadlines, grades etc., but she gave me her time and she allowed me to talk and in talking I could hear myself and in so doing I found solutions and answers that always lay within but just needed a voice.   Now that is behind me and my weekends are not spent tied to a desk, I’ve devoted the last two Sundays making plans and preparing for Christmas with her; she isn’t physically able to do what she once could and so now I use the vitality and energy that my lifestyle rewards me with to do what I can to make this a special time.  There are many things that I would like to do for my mum – buy her a bungalow, take her on a guided tour of Rome and the Sistine Chapel and maybe one day I will be able to, but for now I give her my time, which I believe is one of the greatest gifts, particularly at this time of year, that we can give to another soul.

Time has a wonderful way to show us what really matters
Margaret Peters

Cathy x

Scales of Measure

I want to share with you the following, in order to demonstrate that focusing upon weight and being a slave to the scales is definitely not the best indicator in determining the health of your body!

In January of this year I returned to MMU to complete the final two modules of my MSc, one of which was based upon body composition.  This literally means what it says, what the body is composed of, i.e. fat mass and fat free mass; fat mass is the amount of fat in the body and fat free mass is everything else, i.e. water, protein (muscle) & mineral (bone).  We were extremely fortunate to have access to a range of body composition measuring tools, one of which has the amazing title of “air displacement plethysmography”, more familiarly known as the Bod Pod; a very expensive and state-of-the-art piece of kit that measures changes in air volume and pressure to determine the fat mass and fat free mass of the lycra clad individual inside!

 

Cross-sectional view of the Bod Pod
 

I decided to base my research for this module upon how a personal commitment to a meticulous nutrition & exercise discipline would enable me to improve my physique and reduce my total fat mass; after all, if you’re going to advise others to make lifestyle changes, you must first be prepared to do so yourself! 

My first measurements undertaken in the bod pod on the 1^st of February 2012 revealed the following:-

Weight	74.5 kg
Body Mass Index (BMI)	23 (normal 20-25)
Waist Circumference	79 cm
Fat Mass	19.9%
Bod Pod Rating	Lean

Obviously I was very pleased with these results, but I wanted to see if I could improve upon them and set myself a goal of approximately 7 weeks in which to do so.  However, things did not proceed as planned and the second module being undertaken was incredibly demanding and time-consuming, so much so that I was literally working on it day and night.  Dedicating every spare moment sat at the computer, in order to meet submission deadlines meant that I couldn’t possibly adhere to my proposed plan and although I didn’t adopt unhealthy eating patterns, I didn’t dedicate the time that I would normally to preparing my meals.   My running timetable decreased to just a couple of times per week and my attendance at the gym reduced by half and as such, my energy intake decreased as I obviously didn’t require the same amount of fuel if I wasn’t training.  The 7 seven weeks passed quickly and I returned to the lab on the 21^st of March 2012 where a repeat of the same measurements revealed the following:- 

Weight	72.9 kg
Body Mass Index (BMI)	22 (normal 20-25)
Waist Circumference	83 cm
Fat Mass	22.9%
Bod Pod Rating	Moderately Lean

So, let’s take a closer look at this; due to my decreased energy intake my weight had reduced by 1.6 kg, reducing my BMI measurement accordingly; now if these were the only measurements you were using to assess your health, you would have good reason to think that this was beneficial.  However, as you can also see my waist circumference measurement, a good measure of central fat distribution and predictor of increased risk to health, had in-fact increased by 4 cm, taking it above the recommended 80 cm cut-off and my fat mass had increased by 3%, facilitating a reduction in my bod pod fitness rating. 

 

Central & abdominal adiposity - associated with the risk
of insulin resistance, the possibility of developing
type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease

This was definitely not the result I was hoping to achieve, but nevertheless the data is revealing in several ways; it demonstrates that physical exercise is essential in maintaining fat free mass, reveals how rapidly body composition can change and how ineffective focusing solely upon weight and BMI is in determining the risk of developing weight-associated diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. 

Clients often ask me how quickly they can expect to see positive results from adopting recommended changes - healthier eating patterns and carrying out some form of physical exercise and I think that they seldom believe me when I tell them just a matter of weeks; I think the results from this unintentional but nonetheless valuable reverse development, reveal this to be the truth!

 Cathy x 

Food for Thought

“A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into; the other functions and faculties may be more godlike, but in point of time they come afterwards. A man dies and is buried, and all his words and actions are forgotten, but the food he has eaten lives after him in the sound or rotten bones of his children. I think it could be plausibly argued that changes of diet are more important than changes of dynasty or even of religion.... yet it is curious how seldom the all-importance of food is recognized. You see statues everywhere to politicians, poets, bishops, but none to cooks or bacon-curers or market gardeners.”

George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier