Checkmate

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In chess, checkmate occurs when a player’s king is under attack and has no safe place to go. The king is threatened and every possible escape route is blocked. Such an existential condition, an allegorical “no exit,” is known as checkmate.

In life, a person may be similarly threatened by a serious illness. For example, a person may receive a diagnosis for which there is no effective long-term treatment. Short-term, temporary solutions may be available, but these usually require enormous expenditures of resources, both financial and personal. Most often, when the temporary fix has run its course, the illness persists and the long-term outlook remains the same. Optimally, we would prefer to avoid such medical “checks” and avoid being faced with an untimely “checkmate.” As in chess, obtaining success with respect to our health and well being depends in large part on having a sound strategy in place.

Successful chess players think several moves ahead. High-level chess players such as grand masters have the ability to envision combinations involving ten or more future moves. Fortunately, being successful at the game of promoting personal health and well being is much less complicated. There are only a few elements involved in developing a strategy that works.

These elements are well known and include (1) regular, vigorous exercise; (2) a healthy diet¹; (3) sufficient rest; and (4) a positive mental attitude. But despite being well known, only the minority of people actually implements these critical “moves.” The evidence for such lack of action may be seen in the United States, for example, where one-third of Americans are overweight and additional one-third are obese. Merely knowing something is not sufficient to obtain a result.

What is required is actual action.² In terms of exercise, evidence-based guidelines agree that 30 minutes of vigorous exercise, done five days a week, will provide a sound foundation for health. Optimally, such exercise consists of both cardiovascular and strength training sessions, but the most important point is to do five 30-minute sessions per week. With respect to diet, all the evidence affirms that men, women, and children should follow specific calorie-intake guidelines.³ For example, a moderately active man, aged 31-50, should consume, on average, 2500 calories per day. A moderately active woman, aged 31-50, should consume, on average, 2000 calories per day. A man intending to lose weight, and then maintain an ideal weight, should take in about 1800 calories per day. A woman intending to lose weight, and then maintain an ideal weight, should consume about 1600 calories per day. Regarding daily food intake, the most important rule to follow is to consume at least five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables per day. It is also important, on a daily basis, to eat foods from all the major food groups. In terms of rest, most people require seven to eight hours of sleep a night. This may not be possible every night, of course, but over time people need to obtain the right amount of rest for them. The criterion is simple: if you do not feel rested after a night’s sleep, then you did not obtain sufficient sleep. Obtaining sufficient rest is an often-neglected component of a well-rounded health and wellness strategy.

Our strategy for helping ensure our long-term health and wellness contains only a few components, and involves many less moves than does a winning chess strategy. It should be easy to put such a strategy into place. What is required is a commitment and dedication to ourselves, our families, and our loved ones.

¹Voeghtly LM, et al: Cardiometabolic risk reduction in an intensive cardiovascular health program. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis 23(7):662-669, 2013
²Carson V, et al: A cross-sectional study of the environment, physical activity, and screen time among young children and their parents. BMC Public Health 2014 Jan 21;14:61. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-61
³Wang YC, et al: Reaching the healthy people goals for reducing childhood obesity: closing the energy gap. Am J Prev Med 42(5):437-444, 2012

Entropy, the Gym, and You

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Let’s say you've been taking some time off from the gym. Maybe you reached the end of your 12-week training cycle and you’re taking a week off. It’s possible that one week turns into two or even three or four weeks. Life happens, you need to attend to some pressing matters, and going to the gym starts to take a back seat. Before you know it, two or three months have passed by. Suddenly, you’re no longer a person who goes to the gym, but a person who needs to figure out a way to get back to the gym on a regular basis. “What happened to me?” you wonder. “Where did the time go?” Now you have to actually exert effort to fit “workout time” into your schedule. You scratch your head and ponder. “I thought I had this all covered,” you think, not for the first time.

What happened to you and your well-made plans was entropy, that insidious force in the universe that turns order into disorder. The basic rule is that any organized system, left unattended, will immediately begin to break down. As a mundane example, those piles of papers on your desk keep reaccumulating as a result of entropy. The weeds in your garden? Entropy. The dust bunnies in your attic and basement? Entropy. The collapse of your plan for doing regular workouts? Entropy.

What’s worse, entropy takes a serious toll on your physical fitness.^1,2 If you miss enough time from the gym, all your fitness gains begin to melt away. First, your muscles begin to lose their stores of energy. Glycogen, the complex sugar that supplies energy for muscle work, is broken down for use elsewhere. Arterioles and capillaries, small blood vessels that were needed to supply nutrients to your growing muscles, are no longer required and rapidly disappear. Muscle fibers that were continually added to support your exercise activities are cannibalized, so that their constituent parts may be used for other physiological processes. Entropy launches a process of randomization that breaks down your carefully built-up muscular structure. Your body, being very smart, metaphorically swoops in and moves all those metabolic components to other structures and systems for more efficient use.

The superficial result is loss of muscle definition. The deeper result is loss of muscle tone.³ Your cardiorespiratory system (heart and lungs), digestive system, and metabolism are all affected, as these physiologic systems are no longer required to be functioning at peak to support a regular vigorous exercise program. Entropy sets in to all these systems, as well. The overall result is a profound impact on your health and well-being.

The good news is we can help keep entropy at bay. But doing so requires attention and determination. We want to attend to our bodies as carefully and regularly as we attend to the environment of our home, office, and garden. Just as our cars, motorcycles, and bicycles require periodic maintenance, our bodies require much more frequent care, care on a daily and weekly basis. It’s fine to occasionally skip a week or two, or even a month if needed, of exercise. But we must make sure we get right back on schedule to ensure benefits to our short-term and long-term health.

¹Barwais FA, et al: Physical activity, sedentary behavior and total wellness changes among sedentary adults: a 4-week randomized controlled trial. Health Qual Life Outcomes 2013 Oct 29;11:183. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-11-183

²Loprinzi PD, Lee H: Rationale for promoting physical activity among cancer survivors: literature review and epidemiologic examination. Oncol Nurs Forum 2014 Mar 1;41(2):117-25. doi: 10.1188/14.ONF.117-125.

³Ricci-VItor AL, et al: Influence of the resistance training on heart rate variability, functional capacity and muscle strength in the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med 49(6):793-801, 2013

Chiropractic Care, Your Nerve System, and Pain

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The experience of pain causes all sorts of unpleasant physical reactions. Tight muscles are one such response, and muscular tightness may progress to localized knots, known as trigger points, and even muscle spasm. These responses are never a good thing, and usually result in more widespread and more intense pain.

The solution to most types of musculoskeletal pain involves getting at the underlying cause of the problem. Often, the underlying cause is biomechanical. Neck pain or low back pain, for example, frequently results from a lack of full mobility of spinal vertebra's and the resulting irritation and inflammation of spinal muscles and spinal ligaments. Bigger problems may ensue when this irritation and inflammation begins to affect spinal nerves. Nerve inflammation may then involve other tissues and organs, with subsequent development of various symptoms and disorders.

By addressing the underlying cause of biomechanical pain, regular chiropractic care helps restore maximum function to both your spinal column and your spinal nerves. The long-term result is enhanced health and well being for you and your family.