Uphill Struggle

A Caracas mountain top peaks out through the evening mist

When I first started visiting Latin America in the very early nineties I was struck by the fact that I never saw anyone outside running, or biking. On those very rare occasions when I did see a lone jogger, he inevitably turned out to be a visiting gringo. As a matter of fact, it was considered inappropriate for men to even wear shorts in public, aside from the one-off "football" player. The gyms were sparsely populated by men that looked to be replicating movements from the 1960s' Jack LaLane Show.

Ten or fifteen years later it's all changed; the parks of South America are full of runners, cyclists, bladers and the like. Modern box-gyms are everywhere, as are Spinning studios, and yoga gyms. The Latin population has embraced the pastime of fitness.

The Middle East, on the other hand, is not there yet. In the two years that I've been traveling here I've never once seen anyone running outside, albeit Baghdad is not a 'jogger's city', as my friend jokingly described what he called Insurgent fartliks. The incidence of smoking is through the roof, Middle Eastern men are becoming increasingly fatter, and the cultural diet would make the American Heart Association wince with pain. Unthinkable here is the vision of a women runner, complete with running shorts and singlet. I wonder where we'll be ten or fifteen years from now?

You Can't Argue With Results

In my quest for an ever-more healthy lifestyle I habitually read Mark Sisson’s site Mark’s Daily Apple. As a fellow blogger, I can see that Mark puts an immense amount of work into the site, but as the title suggests, it’s packed every day with great nutrition advice. As an example, Mark linked to another great site, Fitday.com, which is also loaded with even more great information as well as a nifty nutrition calculator.

I’ve been a competitive athlete for almost 40 years and I’ve always played under the assumption that your training results are 80 percent dictated by what you do on the field, court, or in the gym. I paid little or no attention to diet, easily consuming 3,000 calories a day, limiting fat where I could, and the rest just fell into place.

Lately the elite fitness and dietary world has taken my life-long assumption and turned it on its head. Twenty percent of your gains come from the gym and the rest… your diet!!! I loudly cried “bullshit” when I first heard this, but sadly it’s true. My “thrash yourself until you can’t stand-up”, philosophy had me doing 14-18-plus hours of work a week either swimming, biking or running, to achieve competitive form.

Now I’m heavily into CrossFit, still thrashing myself, but rarely for more than 30 minutes a day, and my diet is closely controlled along a Paleo or Zone model. The results have been stunning as I’m putting up overall fitness numbers that I haven’t seen for twenty years. I’m running faster and lifting more than I ever have, all the while with plenty of energy to excel through the day without the dreaded insulin spikes of my past workout regime. Hey, you can’t argue with results.

Cleaning Out The Garage

This is sort of an uninteresting shot that I like for some reason. A sectarian flag dances in the breeze while satellite dishes adorn the background. I wonder if the two can coexist for long?

He’s a bunch of miscellaneous stuff that I have kicking around:

1. I have discovered Mark Sisson’s, Mark’s Daily Apple blog with great delight. Mark writes about the latest developments in diet, exercise and overall health and fitness. On his site he challenges people to discuss, and critically rethink everything we’ve assumed to be true about health and wellness. There's an immense amount of very well organized content on the site that is intended to help the reader toward a healthier and more fulfilling life.

2. The Iranians are having their parliamentary elections today and the clerics of the Guardian Council have banned all “reformists”, some 1,700 0f them, from running for office. That sounds free and fair.

3. Having spent the better part of my adult life thus far in the Latin American culture I have a pretty good understanding of how that culture influences individual’s actions and decisions. I’m currently trying to wrap my head around the Arab culture, which is a complete mystery, one that is steeped in ancient history, an unfamiliar religion, and developmental economics.

To Each His Own

One of the delivery boys pushes a wooden cart along the dusty street after bringing the daily shipment of fruit and vegetables to the villas

The American soldiers claim that when you come back from Iraq after the long 15-month deployment that you’re either in the best shape of your life or the worst. In other words, you’re going to pass the time taking advantage of some of the world’s best fitness opportunities, or your going to hang out in the mess hall and play Xbox all day and night.

The same holds true for these short six-week deployments that I’m doing. A lot of the staff buckle down and get into the bureau’s gym once, sometimes twice a day. Others are content with eating really well and doing other, non-strenuous activities. Suum cuique, I guess.

Fitness While On The Road

Years of being a runner and triathlete have left my muscles extremely tight. I think that I’m probably the most un-flexible person on the planet right now. To remedy this I’ve decided to start practicing yoga as part of my daily routine. I am, however, a ‘yoga idiot’ right now, and am struggling to learn enough through classes, books, and DVDs so that I can at least begin a practice during this next trip to the Middle East. I think that it'll also be a good adjunct to my zazen as well.

I’ve always found it hard to workout while traveling, as I think most people have. Baghdad is just not one of those places where you can walk out the door and go for a ten-mile run, although dodging gunfire would make for some interesting interval training. Yoga will allow me to work on my flexibility and strength, and daily sessions on the treadmill will go far to maintain some cardiovascular fitness. Swimming and biking will have to wait until I get home again.