We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I think the now-old-fashioned intense feminists speak as if women lack strong sexual drives. I should say, "sexual and/or romantic" drives and desires.
Those things are strong in most women, young and old. It's biology.
Experts usually discuss "recovery" in relation to heavy lifting. There is good reason for that. An hour of heavy weights (powerlifts) with up to 80% of max gives your body a beating. That is the purpose. Even the youth should not do that daily, but dedicated lifters and body-builders know what they can do and they are not my audience.
We have to bear in mind that Powerlifts/Compound exertions stress most of the body. For example, Deadlifts are not just legs. They engage everything from your neck to the ankles. It can make sense to divide up heavy days into Legs, Upper Body, and Core - but none of those are singular.
So let's go through various things that regular people do to stay fit and functional, and recovery,
- Long walks, hill and mountain hiking (eg 10 miles, more or less). Assuming decent fitness, the only recovery such recreational activities require is cold beer, a good meal, and a good sleep. Such things can be daily, if you have the time (which is usually on trips).
- Jogging: No recovery needed. Same for swimming laps and biking. Re distance (5++ mile) road running: It's a bad idea unless it is once in a while. Not good, long-term, for joints. However, orthopedic surgeons need their vacations and cars...
- Calisthenics. We Maggie's people are big believers in calisthenics (same as the military) and have posted endlessly about their role in fitness and general athleticism. In fact, I have offered the view that 50-60 minutes daily of calisthenics is great for maintaining conditioning and general fitness without anything else other than recreational activity. Done with intensity, it covers HIIT Cardio and makes every muscle work. "Toning", but no real strength-building in 1 hr/day. Calisthenics should require no more recovery than at the above paragraphs unless in poor condition.
- Powerlifts and accessory difficult muscle exercises. These are designed for strength-building, which means some longer fatigue and some muscle damage. It is the repair of the minor muscle injury that builds strength. Without some extreme muscle stress it is just maintenance. Nothing wrong with maintenance though, especially for the over 65- 80 crowd, but most people seek improvement. For regular people, two days away from heavy makes sense. That does not mean 2 days of inactivity, just 2 days without heavy. Cardio or calis can count as good "active recovery."
At fifty, and married, I do not need Perry’s guidance on how to find love and security — or why to avoid selling naked pictures of myself to pay my rent. But as someone who grew up in liberal north London in the 1980s and drank in many of the same ideas as Perry has, I found this book riveting. Like her, I am dismayed by the uncritical embrace of a simplistic credo of anti-repression. I, too, have noticed belatedly the extent to which feminists closed themselves off from evolutionary understandings of human behavior, with even the monumental achievements of scientists like Sarah Blaffer Hrdy mostly ignored in favor of ideas from the humanities and critical theory.
While many physicians might like the idea of independence, for most specialties the need for a large back-office staff requires being part of a group practice. Then, sooner or later, somebody buys the group. The buyer could be a hospital, a giant medical business, or even a venture capital fund.
Things have changed. In many ways, sharing some income and being a part of a larger business makes it easier than being an old-fashioned independent physician. It's not the same thing, though.
I think it's a silly article. Obviously, if you are older and in bad shape, you are more likely to be sick and die. But go ahead and try it. For a better test, do it with eyes closed.
There is a contradiction between the "grief" and "anguish" and "rage" about the reversal of the Roe decision and ordinary feminist, or plain ordinary views about peoples' sex lives.
Yes, sex is a powerful driver in life for men and women. It is biological and psychological. However, at least after adolescence, we are all endowed with a brain too. In my view, women have all the power. They have the power of attraction, and have the modern power of birth control.
Excepting rape (or maybe substance-addled non-decision-making), men and women are in charge of conception. It is not rocket science. Women can not leave it all to the boys and very few do.
Please do not go around diagnosing people - or even yourself. Still, this is something to watch out for when dating. Interestingly, many men are attracted to women with borderline traits because of the drama. At first, anyway, it can be exciting. Borderline men exist too, but they are easy to avoid.
Endurance is a different category from the general fitness things we usually post about. While all exercises assist endurance, the best way is to do things that take time to train your body to endure.
Who has time to hike 10-12 miles over hill and dale, with a pack, without either a vacation or a dedicated Saturday?
From the Harvard Med. School Letter: Age and muscle loss
As the years pass, muscle mass in the body generally shrinks, and strength and power decline. The process begins earlier than you might think. Sarcopenia—defined as age-related muscle loss—can begin at around age 35 and occurs at a rate of 1-2 percent a year for the typical person. After age 60, it can accelerate to 3 percent a year. The loss may be mild, moderate, or severe—or muscles can remain in the normal range...
... researchers agree, MT is particularly worth promoting among the young, a stance that seems at least somewhat at odds with today’s self-care narrative. Says Chawla, “I would define mental toughness as grit. Tenacity. And a fairly big chunk of that is having some discipline over your own impulses—doing things even when your mind is objecting. This idea is now reviled in mainstream culture in favor of approaches such as, ‘be gentle with yourself.’ [But] if you’re always gentle with yourself you will stagnate and grow weak and fragile.” If our goal is to uphold and not erode mental toughness, it is surely unhelpful to applaud iconic role models for extolling fragility.
Mussels were not commonly considered food in the US until after the war. It's a shame they were overlooked for so long. The Indians ate them, as do crabs and diving ducks.
Mussels have a remarkable capacity for holding on to things. Photo shows mussel farming, on ropes, in deep New Hampshire waters.
Our Atlantic Blue Mussel is the edible variety - not the deeply-striated Horse Mussel. I can eat pounds of them, steamed in white wine and shallots, but Mussel Soup is good too. In my experience, kids love mussels.
Try cookin' up some mussels this weekend, with some good bread fried in olive oil to sponge up the juices.
Not really. Sex toys for ladies have been around forever. The newer ones might be more exciting though. Women, of course, have sexual needs and wants which cannot always be realized for many reasons.
Males can easily take care of themselves but it can just be a chore.
They are, simply, far too rare. They are terrible tragedies, but entirely unpredictable. It is wrong to use these as news and political fodder. It encourages copycats, and, worse, it makes every odd kid a potential suspect.
Psychiatry has nothing to offer with this other than opinions on TV. These adolescent or late-adolescent boys never get to Psychiatrists, and even if they did there would be little to do. None would tell a doctor that their dream is to shoot up a school.
While doing cardio intervals at my gym I was amused to see an ad for weight-gain products (probably quackery) on the TV. Amused, because we are so accustomed to seeing ads for weight-loss quackery.
Weight-gain is important for scrawny or physically-undeveloped people who are looking to gain muscle and physical power. The classic 150-lb weakling male who wants to develop might need to gain 10 lbs with a balanced exercise program including weights and a robust diet. Same goes for a weakling stringbean gal.
Whether part of a fitness goal is weight gain or weight loss, a nutritional diary, I believe, is the essential, basic aid. If you record everything you put in your oatmeal-hole, including portion size, while weighing yourself every month, you will get a good idea of how you're moving towards your goals.
For weight gain goals with a 5-6-day per week exercise program including weights, I'd like to see about a 1 lb gain per month for a while. Unless you want to gain fat, a pound/month is plenty. If you can't do that, you need to up your intake. That can be difficult for some people who have to force themselves to eat more than they really want.
For getting rid of excess fat, a reasonable goal is 2 lbs/month with or without exercise. I can't tell you what percentage of American medical problems are related to being overweight, but it could be half of it, from arthritis to breast cancer. Hard exercise doesn't do much for weight loss but it's a good thing for life anyway.
In either case, a detailed diary can help you navigate towards your goal. People are often surprised by how much, or how little, they consume in a day.
This is not a recommendation for an obsessive lifetime plan, just to try for a few months.
"Metcon" workouts (metabolic conditioning) are not about strength-building or weight loss. They are about building vigor and endurance. A combination of HIIT Cardio and calisthenics, usually.
They are far better, and more fun, done in a group in a gym. Not 20 minutes, more like an hour with a 5-minute warm-up and 5 minutes stretching at the end.
The problem with that book review, and maybe with the book, it that it sounds as if "mental illness" were a unitary phenomenon and as if treatment approaches were somewhat unitary too.
Believe it or not, we have many ways to be of help to people with all sorts of problems. True "cures" are relatively unusual in all areas of medicine.
While this link is an advertisement directed towards physicians, it makes clear what is going on in medical practices today:
Mussels were not commonly considered food in the US until after the war. It's a shame they were overlooked for so long. The Indians ate them, as do crabs and diving ducks.