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Heading up to Brockville July 18, 2009

Posted by deepstop in Fitness and Nutrition, Shipwrecks, Technical Diving, Training.
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Last night I went over to the dive shop to pick up my tanks. It was a little confused, with about a dozen divers filling and blending Nitrox for the wreck diving course in the St. Lawrence River. My tanks were filled and I took them away, although I left my new (bought used) Faber 45 tank which Ron said he’d bring up once it had been topped off with air. Dave also donated his extra set of OMS steel 85 doubles to the cause, which I’m going to use on the first dive, which is a little shallower than the other two.

I got a late start and caught in traffic on the way up today, and didn’t get there until 8 pm, having left at 4. Traffic was heavy gettting out of Toronto and didn’t clear up until I was past Oshawa. When I got there, I started checking the mix on my tanks, and found that my doubles were at 39.5%, and Dave’s were about the same. For the Gaskin, with a maximum depth of 70 feet this is fine, but a little rich for the Kinghorn which can go as deep as 95′.

Fortunately Rich, who’s only brough one set, had his at 36%, so I offered to let him use my doubles on the first dive, and he will refill mine with 36% tomorrow between the two dives. My two AL80s were also filled to 50%, which is a little more than I wanted, so now I have a ton of deco gas. We were supposed to bring 36% and 40% in these, so I hope some of the other guys have that or we’re going to have to be careful how we do things, especially on the deeper dive. My new 45 cubic foot tank is also at 50%, which is fine, although I would have preferred 80% to get me out of the water faster on the last dive, which is a little bit long.

We didn’t end up diving tonight – too bad, but it would have been too late for me anyway with the late start.

Off and on the wagon April 30, 2009

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No, not that wagon. I don’t drink a lot these days. I’m talking about exercise. For almost a year I was really disciplined exercising 6-7 times a week, except on diving days, but when I went to Cozumel I fell out of the habit having spent 2 weeks on the beach and under the water. When I got back there was a recovery time where I didn’t exercise and I lost the momentum completely, exercising about once a week. While I tried to get back in the groove, driving nonstop to Florida killed it once again.

This week though, thanks mostly to the encouragement of my wife, I’m back at it. I have to report how hard it is to bring myself up to the level I was at, especially with running. I think for every week I’ve taken off it will take about a month to restore things to former levels. It just goes to show how fleeting cardiovascular fitness is, and how much dedication it takes to keep it going.

Travel is always the problem. It disrupts sleep and makes it hard to motivate myself to get up a little earlier (I’m talking 4:45 here, vs. 5:30 on weekdays) to fit the workout in. Every time I take a trip I have to struggle to get back at it. On the other hand, I feel so much better when I’m fit that I am determined to take the time to get back to my February levels.

Living on Vegetables April 13, 2009

Posted by deepstop in Ecology, Fitness and Nutrition.
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Trying to stay healthy into my old age so I can keep on diving is a challenge. Keeping blood pressure and cholesterol down can be a difficult as you age, and I lot of people I know that are my age are taking Lipitor and other medicines. That’s always an option but I’m doing my best to fight it without resorting to a lifetime on prescription drugs.

One of the things that’s changed slowly over the last 20 years is that we eat a lot less meat than we used to. We’re down to once or twice a month now, and the less we eat it the less we like it. We eat fish, mostly salmon, once a week, and there’s a scallop dish (based on a fiery Thai shrimp recipe) that’s a Saturday night staple, but otherwise it’s vegetables supplemented by low fat cottage cheese to keep the protein content up. Scallops by the way are very low in cholesterol, unlike shrimp.

It’s tough to make this kind of diet appetizing, although I like hot pepper and for me a little or a lot of pepper sauce is great addition to most vegetable dishes, along with other herbs and spices. It’s all the more important as I don’t add salt to anything.

But one thing we learned in cooking school I’ll share, and I think it’s important both environmentally and gastronomically, is the creation of vegetable stock. As we eat of lot of stews and soups, using stock instead of water adds a lot of flavour. Stock cubes, like Knorr or Oxo, are full of salt and who-knows-what-else, and I try to avoid them. We used to make chicken stock, but as we don’t each chicken more than twice a year or so we can’t make it any more.

So what I learned was that all the things that normally get thrown in the garbage like the ends of carrots, potato peelings, stalks of herbs, onion and garlic skins, or just about anything else can be set aside for making stock. So we just stick it in a container, along with any water used for steaming, and freeze it after a week. Once we have a bunch of containers it all gets boiled into vegetable stock, which is then used and/or frozen for later use. It adds a ton of flavour to anything we cook and is free.

Once the stock is made, all the vegetables are tossed into the composter along with coffee grounds, tea bags, paper towels, wine corks, apple cores, banana skins, avocado pits and so on to support my wife’s gardening habit, and along with the paper, cardboard, glass and plastic recycling we hardly have any non-recyclable garbage to speak of. In fact, most of that garbage consists of plastic bags, which we (a) reuse at least once, and (b) are trying to cut down on. We’ve even started to bring home compostable stuff from lunch at work which may be bordering on fanaticism.

It’s a contribution. I still don’t feel it’s enough.

Scuba Diving 2009 New Year’s Resolutions January 2, 2009

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I’m good at resolutions, and each year try to refine them into new ways to improve my life. 2008 was probably my best year for staying in shape. I estimate that I did some kind of workout at least 320 of the 366 days of the year, which is definitely a record for me. In August, as a result of my elevated cholesterol readings, I really clamped down on my diet, which is now primarily vegetarian, with a bit of fish, and chicken or occasionally lamb (I was born in Australia so will have a hard time giving it up completely) every 2nd or 3rd week. I’ve given up cheese, which I love, except for a sprinkling of Parmesan on our home made pizza, and 1% cottage cheese which I use as a supplemental source of protein. I also celebrated 27 years without smoking a few days ago, and have really cut back on alcohol as I’m liking it less and less.

On my doctor’s advice I upped the amount of fibre in my diet. He recommended 20 grams a day, but I read some authorative information (CSIRO in  Australia) that indicated 35 grams would be helpful, and listed a number of foods that help lower cholesterol, including oat bran, apples, tree nuts, blueberries, and many other things, most of which I’ve managed to incorporate into my diet. I’ll find out if this strategy works on my next blood test in early February.

I’ve also been working on getting my weekly running distance up to 20 miles, and some weeks I can do it. My two longest runs are on Saturday and Sunday, so if I’m diving I usually shorten them or forego them completely. Sometimes I have to walk a small portion of these runs because my heart rate is excessive, but that doesn’t change the distance a lot.  I think over time the walking will become unnecessary – unless of course I increase the speed.

So this year I’ve decided to (a) keep up the good work, (b) add two sessions of lap swimming per week to my exercise routine. I usually work at home on Tuesdays and Fridays and think I can squeeze in an hour for swimming on both these days without compromising work. My local recreation complex has a 25 metre pool which I can use for only $2.50 (2.09 USD) and a large, clean change and locker room with excellent showers.  (c) If possible, try to incorporate additional stretching and even some meditation to my schedule. I’ve mapped out the schedule and there’s  not much time left available. So it may come down to stretching while watching TV (I’m a PVR addict but at least I watch good, commercial-free television) and meditating on the train to or from work. (d) Do some kind of workout even on dive days. This may be as little as a warm-up and some stretching, but if I have to get up 1/2 an hour earlier so be it. (e) Drink more water. This is good for diving and good for general health. Sometimes I remember to do this, most of the time I don’t. I hereby resolve to remember to drink more water.

My non-fitness resolutions are as follows:

  • Do some interesting technical dives – I’m banding together with some of my chums and we’re looking at diving the Oriskany in late winter/early spring, the wrecks of Long Point in late spring/early summer, and I’m hoping to convince them to make the trek to Whitefish Bay in eastern Lake Superior sometime in the late summer. It’s only about 7 hours by road. In addition I’ll be diving the St. Lawrence in Brockville a couple of times (hopefully we’ll find the Jodrey this time), the usual wrecks in Tobermory (Forest City, Arabia, and Niagara II), and perhaps Kingston again.
  • Complete my PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor course. This should happen in the Spring, although I have to do a prerequisite, the EFR Instructor Course, which is scheduled for January 24/25.
  • Do some teaching.  It would  be great to get the 25 certifications under my belt that would upgrade my instructor level to Master Scuba Diver Trainer, but with all the other stuff happening it might be a stretch.
  • Plan my dives more. I’d like to set objectives for dives, especially wreck diving – and do research up front to map out the things I’d like to see and do on the wrecks. I’d like to take slates down with me to take good notes, and do some underwater measurements in Big Bay Point and other places.
  • Log my dives in much greater detail. I’ve started to do this, and the detailed logs are appearing in this blog, of course.
  • Help my wife more around the house. This is a prerequisite for domestic harmony with all the diving I’m planning, and also a good thing to do. I’ll manage this by scheduling things better, including exercise before breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays, so the day isn’t half over by the time I’m done. Scheduling better means planning my time, and I’ve developed a schedule to guide me. As we don’t have children, there’s not all that much work to do, but I could still do more than I’ve been doing.
  • Stay focused on the things I want to do. A big fault of mine is getting involved in too many things. If I can keep focused on just the things I’m planning to get accomplished, then I’ll have plenty of time for them all, if I start thinking about all the things I’d like to accomplish, then I’ll get none of them done.

Phew. That’s a big list. There’s nothing in it that can’t be done, and I believe the effort will really be worthwhile. Good luck with your own resolutions out there, and have a safe, happy and prosperous 2009. I’ll let you know how I did this time next year.

Deepstop’s Homemade Health Bread Recipe November 5, 2008

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OK this is a bit of a stretch for a diving blog but I’m covering some diving fitness topics for people who are getting on a bit and this is my answer to my doctor’s orders to get more fibre. I’m also flat out with work and don’t have time right now to take the pictures for my next real post.

The basic recipe goes like this: Take 6 cups of whole wheat flour in a large bowl and put it in the oven on its lowest temperature (150 deg F on mine). While everything is warming up, put 1 cup of lukewarm (barely warm to the touch) water in a small bowl and add two tablespoons of active dry baking yeast, then 1 teaspoon of molasses (you can use sugar instead of molasses if you like). Cover, and keep warm while the yeast activates and gets frothy. It needs about 10 minutes to do this, although you can leave it a bit longer if you like. I put the bowl into a larger bowl of warm water to help maintain the temperature.

Take the flour out of the oven and dump in the yeast mixture. While using one hand to mix, add lukewarm water until the mixture has the consistency of cake batter. If you don’t make cakes it is kind of squishy and will ooze through your fingers when you squeeze it. I use one hand so I have a clean other to do other things like adding water.

Divide into two and put each lump into a high-sided greased (I use about ½ tsp of butter per pan) and floured pan. Put these back into the warm oven and wait 20-30 minutes while the mixture rises to just over the top of the pan (it might not make it that far, and that’s OK). Then crank the oven up to 400 deg F and back bake for about 45-50 minutes.

Remove the pans from the oven and after 5 minutes slide a knife around all 4 sides and the bread should then drop easily onto a cooling rack. Simple! No kneading at all.

I’ve modified the recipe lately so that instead of 6 cups of flour I use: 2 cups whole wheat flour; 2 cups rye flour; 1 cup wheat bran; 1 cup oat bran, ½ cup ground flax seeds. This bread won’t rise as well and will be more dense, but carries a ton of fibre!

I did a nutritional analysis on this bread and assuming 12 slices per loaf a slice has 107 calories and the following nutritional values, in grams, with zero cholesterol, of course.

Protein

Carbs

Sat Fat

Mono Fat

Poly Fat

Sodium

Potassium

Magnesium

Calcium

Fiber

4.94

20.57

0.27

0.46

1.37

2.58

226.08

80.32

24.16

6.43

Just 3 slices will reach my doctor’s recommendation for fiber intake. 5 slices will reach some of the more aggressive recommendations I’ve read on various reputable health web sites.

It tastes great when fresh, but after a day or two I always toast it. It will last at least a week in the refrigerator, but it is too moist to sit at room temperature for more than about 3 days without going mouldy.

Is Scuba Diving Dangerous? October 8, 2008

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Well yes and no. It’s true there are accidents, probably too many of them and the industry should be working toward reducing the numbers, lest governments step in a do it for us. But for many people, diving should extend their lifetimes. A big motivation for my personal fitness program is to keep diving, and to be able to say “no” honestly to the health and fitness questions on the release forms for resorts and dive training. This also means staying off the long term use of prescription drugs.

So diving for me means that I’ve lowered my risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and a whole bunch of other things, and when someone asks me, I respond by asking if they think that working at a desk and eating fast food is any safer.

A few years ago my doctor told me that my blood pressure was too high, although three consecutive high readings were required to actually diagnose hypertension. By concentrating on diet and fitness, by the third visit I was back in the normal range. These days I usually have readings around 120 over 80, which is perfectly normal, but I have to work at maintaining it. Doctors seem skeptical of their patients ability to make lifestyle changes, undoubtedly due to real-world experience, but I know it can be done.

Advancing through my fifties now, my doctor is concerned about my cholesterol. Specifically LDL (“bad”) cholesterol is too high, although it was lower than the previous visit, and my HDL (“good”) cholesterol was better than average. It looks like I have a genetic predisposition to elevated cholesterol. I asked him what I could do other than taking Statins that could bring me back into the normal range, and he told me to add more fibre to my diet.

So we agreed that I would take 6 months to try and lower it on my own before resorting to a lifetime of drug therapy. Of all the prescription drugs, I’ve read that Statins are among the most benign, as long as you’re not one of the few people who react badly to them, but I will still avoid them if I can. My older sister has been on them for decades.

So I took up a new diet immediately, adding tons of fibre and other foods that are supposedly good for cholesterol, and I’m slowly bringing my running up from 14 miles to 20 miles per week. I’m hopeful that this will work, but even if it doesn’t it will allow me to get by with a lower dose if I do finally have to start the drug regimen. The diet is pretty hard-core and I doubt that some people could stand it, but I’m one of those people who actually likes vegetables. Downsides are the it requires more work to prepare, and I have to be really picky in restaurants. But I feel fit and strong, and that’s what counts.

There are statistics that say diving is quite a safe sport, relative to hiking (and some say even to bowling, although I’m sceptic about that). There certainly are too many accidents in Scuba diving, though. While it’s easy to say the diver was stupid, inattentive, foolish, or whatever, it’s incumbent on everyone, especially dive professionals, to imbue and embody safe attitudes toward diving. One article, published in the Pembroke Daily Observer, posits that more time should be spent on discussing the risks of Scuba in beginner courses. Perhaps there should be. Maybe the death at 155 feet of a newly certified diver in La Jolla, California would have been avoided if that were done.

Smoking and Scuba Diving October 2, 2008

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I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I learned to dive not long after I’d quit smoking. At the age of 26 I was starting to take a new healthier path in life, improving continually to this day. My last cigarette was on December 27th, 1981, the day Hoagy Carmichael died, getting a jump on New Year’s. My girlfriend, who is now my wife, quit on January 2nd, 1982. She claims I gave her a dirty look every time she lit up. I’m sure that’s true. We both quit cold turkey, no patches, gum or cutting down slowly.

I used to smoke 15 cigarettes a day. She smoked about 40. Now, almost 27 years later, I figure I’ve saved $30-40,000, not including interest. Together it’s more like $100,000. So if you think $100K might come in handy later in life, quit now!

Quitting isn’t easy, of course. The first three days are the hardest, when you go through withdrawals. I don’t think the discomfort is any worse than a bad cold, and you have less of these if you don’t smoke, so you’re better off, right? The next three weeks you tend to think about cigarettes a lot. For me, most of the physical discomfort was gone but the sense of loss is palpable. Then the following three months are better but there are still plenty of moments when you think about it. For the first three years you get the occasional longing, and certainly temptation, but it gets progressively easier to resist. After that, I never felt the urge, Even in stressful situations. But like a recovering alcoholic can’t touch a drop of alcohol, I had a firm rule of never, ever, ever having a single drag from a cigarette.

During the first few months I had the usual problem of weakening resolve while out for a few drinks, which I still did a lot. My solution was to have another drink instead of a smoke. You can’t smoke when you’re passed out, which I did regularly for a while. I don’t recommend this technique necessarily. Alcohol is a serious problem for society and doesn’t mix well with diving. If Alcohol was invented today, I’m sure there’d be a huge outcry from ordinary citizens to make it illegal. Not that I’m a teetotaler myself or anything.

I count this as one of the great accomplishments of my life. A greater accomplishment would be to not start in the first place, but better late than never. 27 years later I can thank it for some wealth, health and possibly my life. I doubt I’d still be able to scuba dive if I’d kept it up all these years.  Funny thing is about half the people I dive with smoke, but I work in an office of about 65 people and only one of them smokes.

When I was about 20 I went for a physical and the doctor asked me if I smoked. I told him that I hadn’t managed to quit. He said “the important thing is to keep trying”. I never forgot that advice and eventually made it stick.

Exercise after Scuba Diving September 29, 2008

Posted by deepstop in Fitness and Nutrition, Training.
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After Saturday’s long day of shallow diving, I rightfully felt pretty tired. Getting home later than usual, I wasn’t all that keen on doing my usual Saturday run, and as my wife believes that it is my duty after going diving to do some chores around the house (more about wives and diving in a later post), I reluctantly chose to forego the exercise for the day.

My Sunday run is the longest of the week, but within a minute of starting I knew it was going to be tough. Even though the run is also the slowest of the week, my heart rate climbed rapidly right out of the gate. So I had planned to run for 85 minutes but only managed 70. For the last 6 or 7 minutes my heart rate was 95% plus of maximum. Mind you, my maximum heart rate is only 171 (167 by the 220-age formula), down considerably due to age. For the last 15 minutes I kept my heart rate at about 80% by adjusting the elevation on the treadmill and walking, so I’d at least exercise for the planned amount of time.

This extra fatigue could have been due to the nature of Saturday’s diving, tiredness from the exertion (i.e. not due to compressed air), fairly recent changes in diet, or maybe even the fact that I missed Saturdays’s run. I have completed the long run without difficult on other occasions even after diving the same day, so it may take some time to figure out what’s going on.

Guidelines for exercise and Scuba are usually in regard to the risk of Decompression Sickness (DCS), and usually go something like this:

  1. Exercise before diving is OK, but heavy exertion immediately before diving is probably inadvisable.
  2. Excess exertion at depth is to be avoided, as increased circulation will increase the perfusion of compressed inert gases, like Nitrogen or for deep diving, Helium, into the tissues of the body. It can also increase Carbon Dioxide levels in the bloodstream, which cause or aggravate Narcosis and CNS Oxygen Toxicity.
  3. Light exertion on decompression stops is probably a good thing, as increased circulation will help flush those same compressed inert gases out of the body.
  4. Heavy exertion on decompression stops or immediately after diving is potentially a bad thing as inert gas bubbles can pass from the venous to the arterial side of the lungs’ alveoli leading to Neurological DCS.

One 2006 study suggests that heavy post-dive exercise might be beneficial, although it was done on fit military divers and cautions that more study is required for average sport divers. Other articles more or less support what I’ve outlined above.

General fitness, which is why I’m running in the first place, is universally agreed to be a good thing. Aside from specific benefits in the prevention of DCS that are often mentioned, being fit means I’m less likely to be out of breath either underwater or on the surface, and able to respond to the demands that may be placed on me to handle difficult situations or emergencies.

Diving Fitness: A Kindred Spirit September 24, 2008

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Last Sunday the Allentown Morning Call named 49-year old Joanne Rooney from the small town of Bath as their “Workout Winner”. Joanna’s favourite exercises are scuba, running and lifting weights. She sometimes swims or uses an elliptical training instead of running to build her endurance.

Like me, she works out early in the morning to make sure she has time. She names Stan Waterman, now 86 and still diving, as her role model.