Sit/Stand Longevity Test

I subscribe to a couple of health oriented newsletters and my favorite by far is Dr Mercola's Peak Fitness.  He discusses diet and exercise and he also sells several products.  Due to the selling aspect I do use a little skepticism when reading his advice.  However, just because he is selling something doesn't necessarily mean the advice or products are suspect.  A recent article he posted was about something I had never heard of before and I thought it was pretty neat.  It discusses how some Brazilian researchers had made a connection between a simple sitting/standing test and longevity.  He is not vouching for it but did say it was interesting and a pretty good way to gauge fitness and overall health.  The test was for 6 years so I assume it was conducted 6 years ago and the statistics are from then until now. The test begins by simply standing in front or even on a small mat in an open area of floor.  Try to sit down and then stand back up without using your hands, knees or elbows etc for assistance.  You deduct a point for each area that you use for assistance.  For instance, a hand to the floor during the sitting phase and then a hand on the floor plus a hand on a knee during the standing phase would results in a loss of 3 points or a score of 7.  You lose an additional half point for an unsteady execution during either the sitting or standing phase.  I have no idea how many participated but here are the results they observed.

• Those who scored 0-3 were 6.5 times more likely to die during the study than those who scored 8-10
• Those who scored 3.5 to 5.5 were 3.8 times more likely to die
• Those who scored 6 to 7.5 were 1.8 times more likely to die

I took the test myself and scored a 7.5, at least that's the score I think I got. I deducted 2 points for a hand to the floor during both sitting and standing and a half point due to being a little unbalanced as I stood back up.  I have the video of my test uploaded above but you can view it in HD by clicking here.   You can decide for yourself if I gave myself a fair score.  Oh and BTW...there are no point deduction for grunting.  A niece and 2 nephews were visiting and of course they wanted to star in my video.  In order of appearance they were 9, 7 and 5 (almost 6).  I'm proud of them but also a little jealous that all 3 got a perfect score of 10.  I am also proud of my wife who also took the test but refused to be filmed.  She scored higher than I did with a 9.  She sat down with ease but did have to place one hand to the floor to get back up.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The company I work for just recently switched insurance providers and as part of the switch, they had all employes participate in a health screening. I had had my blood work done myself a year prior as part of the big 50 checkup.   I had had some blood work done in 2008 at my wife's insistence.   The good news is, my Triglycerides were better today than in 2008.   The bad new is, both were worse than in 2012 (by quite a bit).  My HDL levels were good all three times.  So what did I do prior to my blood work in 2012 that gave me the much better numbers. I ate paleo for about a month before the test. I only learned about this most recent screening  about a week ago and have actually not been exercising much due to the cold rainy weather.  Well that and the fact that I have been eating way too much junk food recently.  Here are the numbers by year.

Cholesterol 2008 =  230, 2012 = 214, 2013 = 238  BTW good is 200 or less.
HDL  2008 = 46, 2012  = 44, 2013 = 46  30 to 70 is normal but above 40 is considered better
Triglyceride 2008 = 478, 2012 = 293, 2013 = 457

I know I need to start eating better and also be a little more consistent with my exercise program.  I would like to see the BMI and Triglycerid numbers drop a lot.  I'm not as worried about the Cholesterol.  My BMI was 35 and I'd like to see that drop down to 30 or slightly less.  Loosing 35 lbs would do it but I could stand to loose about 50 lbs.

The Holler

I over did it on the Bumble Beast yesterday and my knees are letting me know, so today I have been lazy.  I wanted to take a quick walk to the holler but just did not feel up to it. So instead I will just share a few of photos of the holler during different time of the year.  Oh and BTW, it is beautiful year-round so I will take and share more holler photos in the future.  I have hundreds already and it was very hard to pick just a few, but hopefully these are good ones.  And in case you git lost, I put the description under each photo,  You can also click on a photo for a larger image.

I took this photo of the small waterfall above the swimming hole (not right at the swimming hole) about a week ago.  It was about 32 F at the time I took it and that made it look steamy.

This is the same waterfall right after a big rain.

And the same waterfall last summer, I had just gotten my Olympus Pen camera and was trying it out.

   Yep, same waterfall, only this time it was really cold. This was a couple of years ago.

 OK, one last on at this particular waterfall.  Some guy got in the way of my shot...

This is the waterfall at the swimming hole.  It may look warm and inviting but believe me, that water is like ice!

One of my favorite spots along the creek.

My daughter goes with me occasionally. I enjoy her company but that's my jacket...

And for good measure, a leaf I photographed a couple of years ago while hiking down to the holler.  BTW, this photo was taken with a used Olympus Verve camera I picked up at Unclaimed Baggage for $35 bucks, but it goes to show, a small camera can take decent photos.