Posts by Peter Ashby
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@JeremyEade
It is not just that most people are appallingly unfit but that modern life is so mollycoddling it is almost impossible to get fit unless you take the time and effort to exercise. And because our lives are so sedentary we really have to exercise a lot to bring us up anywhere near the standards of our forebears. The Greeks made a reconstruction of a bireme, or was it a trireme? and even modern day elite rowers couldn't even approach the speed and endurance ancient sources treat as routine.
We have become really, really soft and we have only the vaguest idea of how soft. If it is patronising to point out reality then I am not apologetic. The CFS disorders didn't exist a generation ago, and they had more viral conditions to get post viral from than we do (another thing we forget).
I have learnt the hard way that I HAVE to exercise. If I don't then
1. I am on heartburn medication full time
2. I am asthmatic, I took 4 weeks out from injury just recently and was wheezing at the end. The sustained deep breathing of exercise stops the fluid accumulating in my lungs.
3. My back locks up in one or both of two places. The last time it happened, when it abated I dug over the front garden (in 3 easy stages) and have not stopped using it since.
4. My skin breaks out.
5. I get sick far more often
6. I have no energy, my limbs feel heavy, I don't sleep well (not physically tired enough).
And that is despite walking to and from the bus stop, taking the stairs at work instead of the lift, going for walks with my wife at the weekend. Not enough, not nearly enough.
When I exercise all of the above either disappears or ceases to be a problem. I am so healthy and my platelet levels so high I have been a platelet donor for the last two years. I seriously live in fear of not being able to exercise. I have flat feet and need to wear orthotics to run, slight shoe wear makes my knees hurt, but still I run.
Before someone accuses me again of trying to portray myself as a superman, I am not, I have found what it is to be truly healthy and it is not just the absence of disease. I am perfectly ordinary. It is simply hard work to get here, hard to maintain it, it takes time and dedication. Our forebears managed it through simply living, we have forgot what that is and it is making us sick.
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I can recommend MapMyRun.com which you can search for cycle dedicated routes as well as runs. I use it both to suggest runs already posted for the youngest in both Auckland and Dunedin and to put in my own suggestions (knowing both places) from here in Scotland. It is free, you just have to put up with ads that can be ignored (be careful though, adblocker was preventing my access for a while).
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Pregnancy cured my wife's ME (what it was diagnosed as), I think it was because pregnancy is a gradual, unavoidable fitness program. Having been both intensively fit and with a chronic fatigue syndrome (turned out to be chronic tonsilitis and fixed surgically) I know what both sides feel like.
I also have Gilbert's syndrome where my body breaks down haemoglobin very slowly so I get jaundiced easily. If I push too hard I get bone tired, and the whites of my eyes will be yellow. I am actually on cloud 9 at the moment because for the first time in absolutely aeons I can see NO yellow in my eyes (why I have no idea).
We do know that the more you sleep, the more you want to sleep and when you are completely unfit and sedentary (been there) doing anything seems like such an effort. I am fortunate in that I know both that there is a cure and that my body is capable of it, if I can be bothered.
When training you have to learn to stress and then recover. If you stress too hard, or you leave no time to recover, you break down. Often by means of a minor viral infection or a strep throat. As someone who is prone to easily pushing it too hard I know this well.
I think the term 'yuppy 'flu' is not a million miles away from the truth for many with ME. It starts with feeling tired, physically, emotionally or both which induces rest, when what is going on is that you are tired because you are not fit enough for your life. In that state every day you are putting in a massive effort at the peak of your ability and you never get a rest day. It is understandable to react by trying to remove the tiredness but that has the effect of reducing fitness even more.
It is very hard, physically and emotionally to exercise from positions like that. After my tonsillectomy I got fit again by walking to uni, instead of taking my motorbike. First one day followed by two on the bike and then building up gradually until I could walk every day. Then I began to run again, slowly and not very far and not often.
Emma your description screams 'more exercise needed' to me. I am not doing so because I think you are lazy, but because it will be good for you. Yes, when you exercise you will then need a day or three to rest, that is good, but only if afterwards you exercise again.
I think that women are more prone to this because they devote themselves to caring roles and convince themselves that their roles are vital, so they push themselves too far. It can be hard to find the time and support to exercise from your low base, but you will never get better unless you try. Modern life is such that we have to make an effort to exercise and that often means being selfish about a time each day or every other day that is for us to exercise. We do this so that we have more energy for others.
It may seem crazy for me to talk about having energy as a result of exercise, but it is real and there are good biochemical and physiological mechanisms behind it. In my experience it takes about 2 weeks of exercising at least every third day before you begin to feel it in daily life. Those first two weeks, and you may take longer, are HARD which is why a lot of people, especially as the weather warms, or the footy season approaches make resolutions and then fail. For a long time when the kids were young I repeatedly tried to get a running program going and repeatedly failed, because I didn't have time or the kids brought a lurgy home. I kicked it for a while by running from work in my lunch hour. That died when I had to go have an operation my hand.
I am now running as much as I can with only occasional hiatuses with injury and swine 'flu. I dread being unfit again.
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Well since they killed the old School of Mines at Otago by moving it to Canty so 'it could be near an engineering school' then finding they had destroyed a carefully built reputation and numbers dropped off. So we are not even training our own mining engineers any more.
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@Paul Millar
Christchurch's school zone obsession sounds just like Edinburgh's, which is curious with ChCh being an 'English' colony.
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I think the current owners of the Thurn and Taxis infrastructure (after half a dozen corporate and/or national upheavals) are Deutsche Post A.G. Which, for some reason, are the people who Amazon use to post things from America to New Zealand. No idea why.
It has been policy for some time for large American institutions to send all 'overseas' mail via Europe on the basis that the vast majority of it is destined there anyway. 20 years ago when I was at Otago I would get mail from American Universities stamped Amsterdam, Nederlands. It would have been bulk mailed or couriered there then posted. Even West Coast universities would do that. When there were daily Air NZ flights from LA.
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@Danielle
Would you be impressed if my heart rate was lower than Miguel Indurain's as reported on the Wikipedia page on bradycardia?
(actually this morning it was identical, hard run last night, but usually it is lower)
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The trick seems to be to be really sick when you have one. My wife doesn't remember much about hers due to this effect. Your problem Emma is that you are too healthy.
Keep well and hope horrible scans are the worst you will have to suffer.
I intend to expire suddenly from a massive heart attack while out on a long run, I'll settle for a large embolism. Though all this running has left me with low rather than high blood pressure (I eat salt) and a resting heart rate that you would literally not believe. I have a PhD in Physiology and I don't quite believe it. So my chances are not great.
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@Craig
Your complaint would hold more weight if Labour wasn't openly active in local body politics while the Nats use CitRats as sockpuppets. But if we are going to have complete party openness then I am all for it, but will you tribe be?
And I agree that the church should STFU about the Belgian raids. They also conveniently ignore that the Russian Orthodox church had their churches demolished under communism. But obviously ecumenicalism is a coat you can take on and off at will.
Mind you us atheists are generally quite happy at seeing The Institution self imploding (YMMV obviously). Us Illuminati haven't even got our shit together yet. Well Dan Brown has raised a culture of expectation though it seems harder to do than he made it seem. I am taking all the necessary security precautions but I haven't seen a single albino monk. Should I hang out in art galleries more do you think? It is just hard to feel the necessary thrill of action when you don't have a visible opponent. Now if you will excuse me I have to charge the batteries on the antimatter containment flask.
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I would have thought that given the strongest signal from the big Templeton Heart patients prayer study was that those who knew they were being prayed for did worst then Jesus would be barred from the vicinity of any and all hospitals and hospices as a menace.