In
previous entries, some of them not terribly long ago, I pondered the
life choices made by my elders. When do they stop running? When do
they step up curbs rather than leap up to them? When do they stop
taking stairs two and three at a time?
I have discovered the reason and its specter regularly revisits me. The spill I took hiking was the first indicator. I broke my pinkie and it took a full year to regain its mobility. This struck me as a glacial pace and I'm under the impression that it is not just hypochondria to believe that there once was a time I would have shrugged off such an injury. The roll of fat that surrounds my belly once in a while is very easy to summon. All I need to do is neglect my diet for about a month and it would be back in full force. My body conserves energy like a Toyota Prius. Every calorie is surrendered grudgingly. Once upon a time, this made a great deal of sense.
In a more savage time, before homo sapiens gained a grasp of agricultural practices, he was at the mercy of nature, gaining sustenance in fits and starts. A killed animal offered a feast. When fruit was in season, it was the time to gorge on the sugary, sweet treasures. The constant, dependable source of food we command today has been ours for less than a few hundred years. In 1840, the Irish potato famine slaughtered multitudes. Even today, Africa and North Korea can experience famine. Our bodies developed in response to periodic hardship.
When these times of scarcity came about, someone was going to do without. Someone was going to die and savage humanity, driven by insanity, fed by fear and hunger was led to blows. Elders who had been bent and broken by accidents, injuries and disease were at a disadvantage during hard times and were less likely to get an equal share of food when times were lean. Younger men with fewer handicaps would dominate the supplies leaving the older predecessors to starve. As a strategy, the human body developed capabilities to store energy through these lean times by reducing metabolism. The amount of energy our bodies can spare for activities such as fending off rivals for mates is compromised. We tire more easily, our bodies refusing to provide the speed and strength we once found so easily. A failure to reach these levels consistently would lead to changes in approaches. We would rely on cunning and experience, seizing opportunities for easier gain when they occur; making the most of the remainder of a kill, eating less tasty, less nutritious foods to survive; learning which were safe; perhaps romancing only those mates which would happen upon us by luck.
The constant repair of the human body is an energy expenditure which may be quite costly. Aging may trigger genetic changes that place a lower priority on injury recovery as starvation was a threat to ones life where injury could be tolerated while we bided our time looking for more of those opportunities.
The gene pool placing elders on restricted diets and relegating them to a skulking deference to the young makes sense. Children needed to survive. Progeny would have a more diverse genetic mix than we, ourselves did. They stood a higher chance of surviving the next plague. Should any of our children starve because we pushed them aside, this would put our genes at a disadvantage. Our genes, quite deliberately, sabotage our efforts towards survival. We tie our own noose preparing to step aside out of the gene pool if our children required it of us, even if they did not know it. It's at the heart of our devotion to our children. We would die for them. They are better creatures than we and they, generally speaking, shall adapt better to their conditions.
In this way, our genes strengthen and spread, adapt, and innovate. For this reason, we weaken, decay, and die.
While we feel death coming over us, little recognizing what it is, we can fail to see that our young are unaffected by this trend. Quite the opposite, as they reach towards adulthood, their genes gear up for a triumphant ravenous dominance of resources. Throwing aside opposition, their appetites consume huge quantities of calories and nutrients in a sprint to achieve full genetic capabilities. Unlike in the past, there is enough to allow every gene set to succeed.
The nutrients flood young people's bodies and produce strong muscles that provide lightning speed, breathtaking agility, remarkable flexibility. Mistakes are quickly rectified by a power plant inside that can generate and repair body parts to correct the occasional miscalculation.
As we scream at our children to slow down, get down from there, use both hands, and for the love of all that's holy be careful because they are giving their mother a heart attack, we telegraph our fear of death for we project our vulnerabilities upon them. We lament their feelings of invulnerability because we have forgotten them. They think they are invulnerable because, by comparison, they ARE. They are sturdy, powerful, mighty people that need fear only the most reckless activities and even these they brave more than we'd like.
Their survival rates that seem to defy all odds speak volumes towards the truth in their confidence and advertise the foolishness of our fear. While they do not know what they are doing, we should know for them. We were there once and they must struggle and thrive in the way young people do. They are supposed to do precisely that, while the mistakes can be so easily fixed. We fear for them because we think they are us. They are not. We fear the irrational.
We have issues.
*DM
Activity Daily Output
Cycles 30
Bench Presses 5
Curls 0
Lifts 2
Flights of Stairs 0
Minutes Walking 2
Seconds on Heavy bag 0
Minutes Dancing Per Day 0
Push Ups 4
Sit-Ups 3
Week of 10/25/09
Activity Daily Output
Cycles 40
Bench Presses 8
Curls 2
Lifts 3
Flights of Stairs 9
Minutes Walking 3
Seconds on Heavy bag 0
Minutes Dancing Per Day 0
Push Ups 10
Sit-Ups 5
PROGNOSIS: Gradual decay of knee function.
POTENTIAL TREATMENTS: Fish Oil supplements. Axillary vacuum curettage, laser eye surgery.
BLOG STATS
25 Subscribers
Rank among popular bloggers: Page 11
Top Blog Entry: 1081 views
15 Blog entries with 400 or more views
I have discovered the reason and its specter regularly revisits me. The spill I took hiking was the first indicator. I broke my pinkie and it took a full year to regain its mobility. This struck me as a glacial pace and I'm under the impression that it is not just hypochondria to believe that there once was a time I would have shrugged off such an injury. The roll of fat that surrounds my belly once in a while is very easy to summon. All I need to do is neglect my diet for about a month and it would be back in full force. My body conserves energy like a Toyota Prius. Every calorie is surrendered grudgingly. Once upon a time, this made a great deal of sense.
In a more savage time, before homo sapiens gained a grasp of agricultural practices, he was at the mercy of nature, gaining sustenance in fits and starts. A killed animal offered a feast. When fruit was in season, it was the time to gorge on the sugary, sweet treasures. The constant, dependable source of food we command today has been ours for less than a few hundred years. In 1840, the Irish potato famine slaughtered multitudes. Even today, Africa and North Korea can experience famine. Our bodies developed in response to periodic hardship.
When these times of scarcity came about, someone was going to do without. Someone was going to die and savage humanity, driven by insanity, fed by fear and hunger was led to blows. Elders who had been bent and broken by accidents, injuries and disease were at a disadvantage during hard times and were less likely to get an equal share of food when times were lean. Younger men with fewer handicaps would dominate the supplies leaving the older predecessors to starve. As a strategy, the human body developed capabilities to store energy through these lean times by reducing metabolism. The amount of energy our bodies can spare for activities such as fending off rivals for mates is compromised. We tire more easily, our bodies refusing to provide the speed and strength we once found so easily. A failure to reach these levels consistently would lead to changes in approaches. We would rely on cunning and experience, seizing opportunities for easier gain when they occur; making the most of the remainder of a kill, eating less tasty, less nutritious foods to survive; learning which were safe; perhaps romancing only those mates which would happen upon us by luck.
The constant repair of the human body is an energy expenditure which may be quite costly. Aging may trigger genetic changes that place a lower priority on injury recovery as starvation was a threat to ones life where injury could be tolerated while we bided our time looking for more of those opportunities.
The gene pool placing elders on restricted diets and relegating them to a skulking deference to the young makes sense. Children needed to survive. Progeny would have a more diverse genetic mix than we, ourselves did. They stood a higher chance of surviving the next plague. Should any of our children starve because we pushed them aside, this would put our genes at a disadvantage. Our genes, quite deliberately, sabotage our efforts towards survival. We tie our own noose preparing to step aside out of the gene pool if our children required it of us, even if they did not know it. It's at the heart of our devotion to our children. We would die for them. They are better creatures than we and they, generally speaking, shall adapt better to their conditions.
In this way, our genes strengthen and spread, adapt, and innovate. For this reason, we weaken, decay, and die.
While we feel death coming over us, little recognizing what it is, we can fail to see that our young are unaffected by this trend. Quite the opposite, as they reach towards adulthood, their genes gear up for a triumphant ravenous dominance of resources. Throwing aside opposition, their appetites consume huge quantities of calories and nutrients in a sprint to achieve full genetic capabilities. Unlike in the past, there is enough to allow every gene set to succeed.
The nutrients flood young people's bodies and produce strong muscles that provide lightning speed, breathtaking agility, remarkable flexibility. Mistakes are quickly rectified by a power plant inside that can generate and repair body parts to correct the occasional miscalculation.
As we scream at our children to slow down, get down from there, use both hands, and for the love of all that's holy be careful because they are giving their mother a heart attack, we telegraph our fear of death for we project our vulnerabilities upon them. We lament their feelings of invulnerability because we have forgotten them. They think they are invulnerable because, by comparison, they ARE. They are sturdy, powerful, mighty people that need fear only the most reckless activities and even these they brave more than we'd like.
Their survival rates that seem to defy all odds speak volumes towards the truth in their confidence and advertise the foolishness of our fear. While they do not know what they are doing, we should know for them. We were there once and they must struggle and thrive in the way young people do. They are supposed to do precisely that, while the mistakes can be so easily fixed. We fear for them because we think they are us. They are not. We fear the irrational.
We have issues.
*DM
Next: Germ Judo
THE CHART:
Activity Daily Output
Cycles 30
Bench Presses 5
Curls 0
Lifts 2
Flights of Stairs 0
Minutes Walking 2
Seconds on Heavy bag 0
Minutes Dancing Per Day 0
Push Ups 4
Sit-Ups 3
Week of 10/25/09
Activity Daily Output
Cycles 40
Bench Presses 8
Curls 2
Lifts 3
Flights of Stairs 9
Minutes Walking 3
Seconds on Heavy bag 0
Minutes Dancing Per Day 0
Push Ups 10
Sit-Ups 5
Workout Partners' Progress: Unserious. Grade: F
Blood Pressure: 115/74 (10/20/09) BMI = 25
RECENT SYMPTOMS : Hypertension? Weak left shoulder. Weak left knee.
ONGOING
SYMPTOMS: Gum pocket? Weak, clicking knees, Pain in right knee when
kneeling and shifting knee to the right. Hyperhidrosis.
DIAGNOSES:
Video game accident? Healing from Oral Surgery, Foot trauma from minor accident, suspected neuroma or hairline fracture
to foot. Unknown injury to right knee, possible impact from small
stumble (c. 2006) onto landing of concrete stairs. Injured knee joints
from sprinting (c. 2007)
ONGOING TREATMENTS: Alternating dental & periodontal visits
every four months, exercise program including high tension stationary
cycling for leg muscle development and joint stabilization
PROGNOSIS: Gradual decay of knee function.
POTENTIAL TREATMENTS: Fish Oil supplements. Axillary vacuum curettage, laser eye surgery.
BLOG STATS
25 Subscribers
Rank among popular bloggers: Page 11
Top Blog Entry: 1081 views
15 Blog entries with 400 or more views
