No Straw MenEnlightened discourse proscribes arguments that are weak or imaginary, like straw, set up only to be confuted summarily.

Why Abs Are More Than Just Abs

With a title like The Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean, you’d think this book would be an infomercial, dreamed up by a biz-dev-happy marketer. Since I haven’t actually read the book, I can’t confirm or deny this. Yet the below excerpt makes a surprisingly reflective statement about the importance of your midsection.

“Take the person with a six-pack. He’s the icon of strength and good health. He’s lean; he’s strong; he looks good in clothes; he looks good without clothes. Defined abs, in many ways, have defined fitness. But they define something else: They’re the hallmark of a person who’s in control of his body and, as such, in control of his health. . . . When you have abs, you’re telling the world that you’re a disciplined, motivated, confident, and healthy person.”

By the same token, if you let your body sag, the message you’re broadcasting is one of apathy and laziness. If you can make time to read this post, make time to do a few crunches.

Addendum (6/13/2011): A fitting poscript: The day before I published this post, the New York Times nailed the legacy of Jack LaLanna:

“What he left behind when he died last week, at the toned old age of 96, was not only a sweaty culture of relentless crunching and spinning but also the notion that fitness equals character, and that self-actualization begins with the self-discipline to get and stay in shape. In the post-LaLanne landscape, it’s not the eyes but the abdominals that are windows to the soul …

“Perspiration is a gateway to, and reflection of, higher virtues … A ‘new you’ usually means a trimmer, tauter version, not someone who has learned to speak Mandarin or picked up woodworking skills …

“Steadiness of exercise signals sturdiness of temperament, and physical leanness connotes mental toughness …

“Listen to the way doughy contestants are introduced (and how they talk about themselves) on TV weight-loss shows, which promise redemption through rigorous calisthenics. Saddlebag thighs and love handles are woven together with career frustrations and domestic strife—all of them the wages of sloppy living. Moving past these humiliations and rejoining polite society are contingent on serious gym time.

Addendum (6/19/2011): On the other hand,  Julian Michael points out that fat “implies zero about your value as a person in this world.”

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Of Migraines and Moderation

In college, I began experiencing severe headaches. The symptoms were classic migraine: Lightness is blinding, one side of my head (the right) is throbbing, and relief arrives only after at least an hour lying in bed in a dark room.

A physician at the health center clarified the causes. I had been pulling a series of all-nighters, during which I didn’t eat and stole but an hour or two of sleep, after which I rushed to class without breakfast. To wit, sleep deprivation + lack of food = migraine. (To paraphrase George Orwell, Sometimes it takes a MD “to see what is in front of one’s nose.”)

Several months later, a consultation with a neurologist made me aware of Excedrin Migraine. If taken preemptively rather than reactively, this over-the-counter medicine proved to be a panacea for what turned out to be an occassional flare-up.

Of course, pills don’t address root causes, and for the past week and a half, I’ve found myself back in migraine misery. A chart I kept of the time of the episodes, what I ate in the preceding 12 hours, and how many hours I slept the night before, revealed my good old friend: Sleep deprivation + lack of food = migraine.

Now, common sense says the solution is to sleep better and eat better.  Yet there’s a broader point about living better.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve pooh-poohed my health. While I’ve never smoked or drank coffee, or even much alcohol outside of social settings, I’ve lived off fast food and Coke. I stopped going to the gym after graduating, I nap regularly because of an erratic sleep schedule, and I seek out stressful situations. While these bad habits don’t cause headaches, they bring about an environment that facilitates them.

Accordingly, if there’s an upside to my recent bout of migraines, it’s that I’m convinced any road to recovery must be holistic. I can’t just start swimming again (as I’ve done); I need to establish a daily exercise routine. I can’t just stop napping after work; I need to become an early riser, on both weekdays and weekends. I can’t just stop eating at Wendy’s; I need to change my diet.

The road to a migraine-free life goes through a moderate lifestyle.