on running and salt/Tanita readings

[Guest guest]

A very interesting post.

Two comments:

Re running, per se.

Between the US food industry interests and other more subtle cultural

factors, the main promoted vehicle for both weight loss and for weight

maintenance is exercise, not dietary control. The inherent, inevitable

problem with this, excessive oxidation/free-radicals left aside for

the moment, is that each year, you need fewer calories to maintain a

given body mass. Also, each year, the likelihood of an injury laying

you up either temporarily or permanently (re running) increases, so

that people who run fanatically are eventually going to encounter a

problem where their lifelong unaddressed issues concerning dietary

restraint (namely avoiding it and " running calories off " instead) are

going to rise up and literally bite them in the butt. An example that

comes to mind is a 38-yr-old woman in my church who is in chronic pain

in her hip, which has been MRIed and otherwise investigated at vast

expense. She has trouble standing up, but her only concession in her

running regimen has been to take a break every third day. Yes, she's

probably an extreme example (not . . .), but she's now, well, starting

to be less lean. Which must be driving her to want to keep running, etc.

It's much harder to control what we feed ourselves, but in the end, as

Highlander tells us, There can be only one (effective means for weight

control--and it ain't running).

Second point is regarding salt and our friendly Tanitas. I eat hardly

any, compared to the normal US eater, and the occasional variation in

my salt intake might be related to the strange excursions I sometimes

see in the reported BF%; I'm going to have to keep track of this.

Thanks for bringing it up.

Maco

> [Original Message]

> From: <crjohnr@...>

> < >

> Date: 4/28/2006 4:23:08 PM

> Subject: Re: [ ] Re: BMI and IHD

>

> jwwright wrote:

>

> >

> > I can understand not giving an expensive test to everyone, but I also

> > think I can err on the side of moderation and not take up running, eg.

> >

> >

> >

> > Regards.

> >

>

> Hi JW... I'm posting here for convenience but I have some thoughts on

> the general subject of running wrt health risk/benefit.

>

> Allow me to preface my comments by acknowledging a probable bias in

> favor as a long time runner. AFAIK, there isn't a box on death

> certificates to check that states " cause of death " was running. True it

> is a stress to the system and many circulatory failures can be

> precipitated by physical stress but that doesn't even remotely mean the

> individual might not have died within days anyhow while having sex or

> while arguing with somebody that cut in line ahead of him at the market

> checkout line.

>

> I suspect running, or more broadly aerobic exercise, is another of

those

> double edged swords... too much or not enough could be bad for you. I

> doubt that exercise alone could ever be wholly protective against other

> imbalances.

>

> In line with the hormetic dose dependent benefits from toxins or other

> stressors I suspect exercise in modest amounts, for an individual that

> isn't already under excessive stress working similar pathways, could be

> beneficial. There may be similarities to the beneficial stresses of

> exercise and CR that would suggest optimal amounts of exercise for

> energy restricted individuals would be lower.

>

> Regarding the health advocate who had a heart attack immediately after

> running, the running may have impacted what time of day he had his

heart

> attack while not being causal. If his body was already heavily stressed

> by some other imbalance, perhaps the stress of exercise was additive

and

> exceeded a healthy threshold, becoming contributory.

>

> We all need to consider our personal risk/benefit but I would not

> dismiss aerobic exercise in moderation.

>

> JR

>

> PS: JW a little side note about on of your favorite topics (Salt). With

> the recent run of hot weather I had to start dosing with salt when I

> started to get cramping again (I don't need to supplement during winter

> months). I rarely pay much attention to the %BF on my tanita but I did

> notice between Wednesday and today my #BF dropped from 14%+ to 12%+

> while my weight varied less than 1/2 #. Over the last few days I

> probably consumed an extra 3+ G of salt (mixed in water). Since the

> tanita works on electrical conduction this seems like one of several

> potential error sources.