Weight and Fertility Problems

As if it isn't enough that a woman's weight is intensely scrutinized for reasons ranging from medical to vanity to rank curiousity while she's pregnant, now she has to worry about her weight if she so much as merely wants to have a baby. Last week super skinny E! correspondent Guilana Rancic (you may remember her as the red carpet crazy who grilled all the actresses about their diet and exercise regimes until Christina Hendricks put her in her place) made headlines by telling the View cabal that she refused to gain 5 pounds even though her doctor told her it might help with her struggle with infertility. Bloggers, pundits and playground mommies everywhere jumped in on both sides of the controversy, with the general cry echoing (childless (correction: I was informed by Karen in the comments that Whoopi actually does have a kid. And possibly a grandkid. Whoops!)) Whoopi Goldberg's words for Rancic: "If she wants to have a baby, she needs to eat because the baby needs to eat! To hell with that girl!"

Rancic's reply to the angry View host and irate fans was a rambling explanation saying that she was a victim of The View's agenda, that she had gained "some" weight and also that it is her job to fit in sample sizes. She topped it off with a slightly irrational, "Well Nicole Richie, Jessica Alba - they both had babies!" Although she failed to account for the fact that the skinny-yet-fecund Richie and Alba are a good decade younger than her and age is perhaps the primary factor in fertility. All of this verbiage was spouted in - naturally - a restaurant in front of a ginormous plate of pasta that Guliana said she could eat all of and yet only took one bite, convincing me not that Guliana doesn't have an eating disorder but rather this is just one more piece of the media machinations that run the reality star's life.

However, I'm not going to take sides on Guliana's weight gain. It's not that I don't have an opinion but rather it's just not that simple. Rarely is someone's fertility solely a function of their weight. It's possible that gaining a bit of weight would kickstart Rancic's ovaries. It's also possible that it wouldn't. Her doctor, I expect, wasn't proposing weight gain as a cure but rather one more thing to try on a long list of supposed fertility boosters like acupuncture and laying on your back with your legs in the air after sex. How do I know this? Because it took my husband and I over 2 years to finally have our son. While our fertility issues weren't with getting pregnant - something I seem to do if I so much as wash our underwear together - but rather with maintaining healthy pregnancies, I have a lot of sympathy for women who desperately want to have a baby and yet can't seem to do the one thing which should come naturally. There is a lot of woman-blaming in the conception process and it is heartbreaking on so many levels.

This isn't to say that weight doesn't affect fertility. Estrogen is inextricably tied to body fat. More estrogen leads to more body fat and more body fat increases estrogen levels. From this vantage a little bit of gained fat would make sense to aid fertility - but only to a point. Being very overweight and therefore overly estrogenic can be just as hard on a woman's cycle as being underweight. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), a syndrome marked by obesity, is one of the leading causes of infertility in younger women and losing weight often remedies the infertility. I tell you, the more you learn about how fragile this whole conception and birthing process is, the more amazing it seems that the human species has managed to propagate as long as it has.

All of which brings me back to Guliana and her conflicting desires to have a Jelly Bean of her own and also maintain her career which happens to be dependent on her body size. Having had 5 kiddos of my own, I would tell her that it is totally worth it to do whatever you have to do to bring them here. Even on the days they drive me absolutely nuts (case in point: today my 3-year-old had to take a state mandated developmental assessment test and what did he do to start off his budding academic career? Took his shirt off, ran in circles, stole the pile of pennies and hid the rope down his pants. All of which would have been bad enough had his older brother not topped him two years ago by crawling under the table and screaming "Stop talking to me or I'll throw up on you!" until they gave me pamphlets for the special preschool and showed us the door. We're probably on some sort of Toddler Terrorist Watch List now. Good times!) when I tuck them into bed I still know they were worth the huge amount of personal sacrifice it took to get them here. And maybe that's what I would most want Guliana to know: your body is just the beginning of what you will have to give up for your children. Whether that means sacrificing your hard-earned body (her) or your tenure-track professorship (me, sigh), in the end you will only wish it could have been more.

What's your take? Should Guliana quit her whining and gain some more weight on the chance it will fix her infertility? Or is she just verbalizing the fears that so many of us think but never say? Any of you struggled with infertility and if so, was it related to your weight? And when did everyone's ovaries get to be our business??

March's Great Fitness Experiment: Eat Like an Okinawan Centenarian

Not all Japanese trends are worth following... um, ew.

Kickin' it old (as in grade) school style, today is opposite day here at GFE. And what is the exact opposite of me, a high-strung neurotic cynical young (I can still say that right?) American mom? How about a mellow, cheerful Okinawan centenarian!

This month, my Great Fitness Experiment is my first dietary Experiment since my therapist banned me from food Experiments after my spectacular meltdown on The Primal Blueprint*, round 2. But my therapist went to prison - to work, not to be incarcerated - and I have poundage to lose so I'm bringing it back. Actually the real reason I picked this Experiment was because this diet/lifestyle best approximates how I prefer to eat on my own. So rather than try to completely overhaul my entire dietary personality like I did when I went Paleo, I'm trying to work with my natural inclinations. And if I get to live to be a wise-cracking yoga-practicing centenarian then even better!

A couple of months ago I read The Okinawa Program by Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., D. Craig Willcox, Ph.D., and Makoto Suzuki, M.D. It was life changing for me. Well it was mind changing and I'm hoping it will be life changing. Drs. Willcox and Suzuki went to the Japanese island of Okinawa and conducted the longest study of the world's longest lived people to try and discover the secrets to their health and happiness - emphasis on the latter because these elders are no addled wheelchair-bound retirement home-sitting oldsters. Unlike most aging populations, these guys and gals stay spry - and hilarious - well past 100 years old.

This is Not a Diet
Every diet these days starts out by telling you it is not a diet. "Lifestyle" is the new word for "diet" because it isn't cool to diet these days, which is a bummer since thin is still definitely in. But the Okinawa Program really isn't a diet. For a book that purports to be about food, about 3/4 of it talks about other lifestyle factors like managing stress, the importance of gardening, building loving relationships, meditation, optimism and exercise among other things. Even their "diet plan" comes with weekly prescriptions to improve your whole person and not just your waistline. For the sake of condensing a very dense 500-ish page book into a 500 word blog post, I am just going to talk about the food. Although I do highly recommend reading the whole book (and no FTC, I was not given this book for free to review. I have no relationship with the authors or any company or anything about anything.).

Nuchi Gusui
One of the benefits of living past the century mark is how much time you have to make up pithy sayings, of which there are many in this book. The first - nuchi gusui - embodies the Okinawan philosophy about food and means to eat your food as if it is a source of healing power. I love this. I spend so much time in my life worrying about food, hating food, feeling guilty about food, loving food too much and just generally thinking about food that if the only thing I accomplish this month is this paradigm shift to thinking of food in terms of its healing powers, then I will consider this month's Experiment a success.

The basic principles of elder eating (that would be eating like the elders, not eating your elders all you Donner Party smart alecks) focus on vegetables, whole grains and fish. (Give it up for the vegaquarians!) With at least 50% of your recommended calories coming from whole grains, low carb this is not. They also recommend only eating 10-20% of your calories from protein, pointing out that every gram of protein you eat forces your body to excrete 1-2 mg of calcium. Fats are capped at about 30% of your daily calories with an emphasis on healthy Omega-3 fats. There is lots of super cool research to back up these ratios that I'm dying to tell you about but, again, brevity is a virtue.

The book lists 9 principles of how to eat like an Okinawan**. They are, briefly:
1. Eat ten vegetables and fruits a day
2. Eat ten whole grains a day
3. Eat three calcium foods a day (note: Okinawans don't really eat dairy which works out well for me as I can't have dairy thanks to the Jelly Bean - who is doing MUCH better on her dairy free milk (oh the irony!) diet, thank the stars. Rather calcium-rich foods like leafy greens, soy, seaweed and calcium fortified juices and non-dairy milks are recommended.)
4. Eat three flavonoid foods daily. (note: The book provides a very long list of flavonoid rich foods but the top winners are all kinds of soy foods, vegetables, fruits, tea, beans and lentils.)
5. Eat two Omega-3 foods daily (pretty much just fish, here.)
6. Drink fresh water and tea daily. (note: Per my LDS religion, I will not be drinking tea but will be sticking to just herbals teas and water.)
7. Hara Hachi Bu. Another little Japanese saying that gets thrown around a lot in this book, hara hachi bu means to "eat until you are 80% full." So watch your portion sizes and numbers. The doctors recommend minimizing your animal food consumption, limiting meat (although it should be noted that the Okinawans are not true vegetarians as they will eat meat, although just 1 serving a week) and eggs (7 or less/week). Sweets are recommended to 1-3 servings/week.
8. Drink alcohol in moderation or not at all. Thanks to my religion, I've got this one nailed! True story: I've never had so much as a taste of alcohol my entire life. And I don't feel one bit bad about that.
9. Consider taking vitamins and minerals as a supplement.

The book includes a 4-week "get started" plan that includes menus, recipes and weekly homework assignments designed to get you to leave your Western hurryhurryrushrush mentality behind and bring a little zen into your life. This is what I will be working from this month. I plan to do the mental components as well as the physical!

As I explained yesterday, for the exercise portion of this Experiment we will be doing the second phase of the P90X program.

My Worries
Despite my initial enthusiasm for this plan - you should see the research on this baby! - I do have a few concerns. First, that's a lot of fish to be eating. Do Okinawans not worry about mercury contamination? Second, I don't do well with processed soy (i.e. you don't want to Turbo next to me if I had a soy burger for lunch) and since my thyroid has been hinky in the past I am a little worried about all that soy. Third, only 1-3 sweets a WEEK? Riiiight.

Any of you tried this program? Anyone in on this Experiment with me? (For the record, I don't think I've managed to convince any of the Gym Buddies to try this one with me so I might be reviewing this one solo!)

*Again, I would like to make it clear that I am in no way knocking the Primal Blueprint or the Paleo diet. These work well for many people and I have lots of good friends who are Neanderthals;)

**There has been some confusion about "how can they eat that much food?!" - the answer is in the serving sizes. They eat leeetle servings. Check out the comments below for more elaboration on this.

Become Your Own Personal Trainer

"Pure Physique" is a new fitness book which is released on March 1, and which is for anyone who ever felt they should be getting more from their efforts in and out of the gym. This book wants to teach you how to put together an exercise and nutrition program that is truly tailor-fitted to meet your individual needs and goals. Unlike other books that provide fad diets and ‘canned’ workout routines, "Pure Physique" was designed with the individual in mind. The reader shall finally know how to obtain the leaner, more muscular body he has always wanted.

Learn more about the book in author Michael Lipowski's guest article on WorkoutInspiration.net:

HOW YOU CAN LOOK LIKE A BODYBUILDER OR FITNESS MODEL IN JUST 90 MINUTES A WEEK

Think it takes five hours of weight training, and six hours of aerobics each week to look lean and muscular? Think starvation diets are the only way you’re going to burn body-fat? If that’s the case then you’re about to get a healthy dose of reality…and you’re gonna love it. That is unless you’re completely turned off by the idea of discovering exactly what your individual requirements are for building muscle and burning body-fat and prefer to aimlessly follow what others do (who also are not training or eating according to individual needs) and continue to waste precious time in the gym.

If you’re one of those who simply loves to exercise regardless of whether you are making progress or not then much of what I’ll say is likely to fall on deaf ears. However, if you’re primary focus is on looking and feeling your best and you’re willing to take a different approach, maybe even workout less, if it means better results, then keep reading because this advice is intended just for you.

First let me give you a little background on myself so you can understand where I’m coming from and why I believe so strongly in the the advice I’m about to pass along. My fascination with looking like a bodybuilder started at a very young age. I was enamored by the muscles of Lou Ferrigno when he played the Incredible Hulk, as well as the WWF Professional Wrestlers and comic book characters like G.I. Joe, Superman, Batman, etc. Why? I have no idea even to this day. But what I do know is that it became a pursuit that pushed me into the fitness profession.

As I grew up I learned more and more about how most of the bodybuilders I followed in the muscle magazines were utilizing steroids, growth hormone, testosterone and a laundry list of other drugs to look the way they did. …Not for me. Besides, I wasn’t crazy about looking so huge that I’d get categorized as a “freak” and look strange when wearing a suit or getting dressed up. No, I was after that natural bodybuilder/athletic look. The one where you look good no matter what you wear and when the shirt comes off people are stunned at how muscular and defined you are and taken aback by your six-pack abs.

From age thirteen to twenty-two I trained (with never more than a 2-3 week break during the busiest part of the lacrosse season) 5-7 days a week for an hour-and-a-half or more. I was an iron addict and I had a goal. No one could ever say that I didn’t put forth enough effort. Yet I was never able to even come close to achieving the natural bodybuilder look I wanted.

What I was doing wrong is exactly what so many others who aspire for the bodybuilder or fitness model look, do wrong…they take the more is better approach to training. Now, that does not necessarily mean that less is more, though for most “naturals” this is certainly the better of the two approaches. What it does mean, as my friend Brian D. Johnston Director of Education for the International Association of Resistance Trainers, so eloquently put it, “precise is best”. And what we mean by precise is best is, performing the exact amount of exercise necessary to reach your desired goal based on your individual needs, abilities, and limitations. More specifically it refers to how many sets you perform, the length of each set, your frequency of training, your responsiveness to exercise, tolerance to exercise stress, and recovery ability. There is no one-size-fits-all training program or diet; you need to discover what works best for you and run with it.

This is precisely what I did to go from wannabe bodybuilder to bodybuilder. After carefully studying the principle components of exercise—Intensity, Volume, Frequency, Specificity, Overload, Diminishing Returns, and Individualism—I reduced my training to just three half-hour workouts a week and watched my results skyrocket after years of stagnation. Further study of nutrition and I began burning body-fat at a significant pace, to finally reveal all the muscle I had amassed with my new time-efficient training program.

The starting point to developing your own time-efficient training program is, understanding how individual characteristics (i.e., body-type, muscle fiber type and rate-of-fatigue) affect the amount of training you require for optimal muscle stimulation and recovery. (For more information about how to determine your muscle fiber type and rate-of-fatigue request the free report: Determining Your Muscle Fiber Type by emailing info@purephysique.com) Only when you’ve grasped this information can you predictably achieve your best results ever. Until then everything you do is simply a roll of the dice.

While Individualism is the principle component responsible for maximizing your results Intensity is the key to an effective and time-efficient workout, and something you can put into effect immediately. Everything begins and ends with this component. If you are not training with the proper amount of intensity you can rest assured that you will never get the optimal effect from your workouts. The reason being is that only when you are working at or near one-hundred percent of your physical effort do you recruit those muscle fibers responsible for growth and strength as well as trigger the hormonal responses that lead to these gains. This most typically means you must perform your exercises to point of momentary muscular failure, to the point at which despite your greatest physical and mental effort you cannot move the weight at all.

What this essentially does is provide your muscle with a need to increase size and strength. Only work of the most demanding nature can achieve this. Think of it this way, if you’re muscles are capable of performing a certain number of reps of a given exercise before you stop (by your own decision and not because you are physically incapable of doing more) then what reason would they have to develop any further? If your muscles can do all the work that’s being asked of them then there is never a reason to increase in size since doing so would be metabolically more demanding.
After establishing a high-intensity style of performing your exercises you can then begin to accurately determine the number of sets you need per muscle group for optimal muscle stimulation as well as the frequency of these bouts based on your individual characteristics (muscle fiber type, rate-of-fatigue, body-type, responsiveness, tolerance, recovery, etc.). By putting emphasis on the principle components, Intensity and Individualism, you will be well on your way to developing your bodybuilder/fitness model physique in less time than you thought possible.

About the author:
Michael Lipowski is a certified fitness clinician and the President of the International Association of Resistance Trainers. He is a competitive natural Bodybuilder in the INBF, a consultant to other drug-free body builders, and was the personal trainer for the winner of the 2009 Men’s Fitness Fit-to-Fat competition. Michael is a writer for Natural Bodybuilding & Fitness and has written for a number of other health and fitness publications worldwide. You can purchase Michael’s new book Pure Physique March 1st at bookstores nationwide and SportsWorkout.com.

Click the links below to get a sneak peak inside the book.
Table of Contents
Sample Chapter