Category Archives: health & fitness

A narrative of my journeys with diet, exercise, and various healthcare professionals

health & fitness 4 Comments

Fit versus Fat

My regular readers may have noticed that I haven’t posted a Diet & Fitness Update in a while. That’s mainly because I didn’t feel like admitting to the entire internets that I’ve been slacking.

According to Saturday’s weigh-in, I’ve gained back everything I lost in the past… *checks chart* …three months. Of course, I’m not going to take one day’s weight as gospel, although the Omron Body Fat Analyzer seemed to think I’d gained some fat, too. Granted, Aaron was on vacation a couple weeks ago, so we ate dinner out a lot, but that’s no excuse for me to stop exercising and start eating like I was never on a low-carb diet in my life.

So. Where to restart?

I’ve mentioned this before: if I want to BE a fit person, I need to first ACT like a fit person. Thing is… I’ve never actually lived with a fit person before. I don’t relate. It doesn’t compute. I don’t even know how to be a fit-person poseur.

I think fit people wake up early — like, 6am early. Yikes.
So, what time do fit people go to bed? Before 10:00?
Fit people are active during the day, and I can do that. I walk during my lunch break.
Do fit people eat seconds at dinner? Dessert? If so, what kind of dessert? How often?
Do fit people watch any TV in the evenings? I mean, beyond the news?
Do fit people play on their computers? For how long?
If they don’t do the computer thing, what do fit people do in the evenings after work?
Fit people work out after work, for one thing. How long is normal? Every weekday? EVERY day?
What kinds of activities do fit couples do on the weekends? Walking at the metropark? Or more?
Fit people drink boatloads of water. I need to drink more, but I do drink more than some people.
Fit people have energy, and seem to be generally happy. I can fake that. Eventually, I won’t have to.

What else do fit people do, as opposed to fat people? And, by “fit people,” I don’t mean the people you see on bodybuilding.com, who look waaaay more buff than I can ever imagine myself. I mean people who are of normal weight. Maybe slightly over, but not much. And I don’t mean super-skinny people, either (there are a couple of those in my office at work, and I’m convinced that’s just hereditary).

So, speak up, normals. What makes you different from me?

health & fitness

Official Weigh-and-Measure, Month #4

I didn’t do an official measurement for last month, so this represents two months of work. Well, two months of coasting, truth be told, but two months of continuing to eat healthy and stay more active. So, drumroll, please…

Weight: 209 » down half a pound in two months
(The scale said 207 on Saturday morning! I think it needs a new battery.)
Body Fat Percentage: 34.2%
Bust: 45″ » down half an inch in two months
Chest: 38¾” » about the same
Waist: 40½” » down FOUR INCHES in two months?! Huh?!
Hips: 49″ » down half an inch in two months
Neck: 14½” » about the same
Upper Arm: 13¼” » down just a fraction
Lower Arm: 10″ » down half an inch in two months
Thigh: 25½” » down nearly an inch in two months
Calf: 16″ » about the same

I took the waist measurement again just now, for good measure (so to speak), and I didn’t misread the tape. Not sure how that’s possible, but I’ll go with it. Just for clarification, I’m measuring where my pants live, about an inch or two above my navel, not way up under my ribcage where it looks like my waist is smallest.

Well, then. Despite a miniscule change on the scale and in most of my measurements, I’m happy to declare these two months a success. Who knew? Now I’m off to go download my weight-in-progress pics from my memory card and scrutinize them in Photoshop…

weight loss 4 Comments

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #17

This week was definitely an improvement, although I’m still not doing everything I need to do. Despite my continued slackitude, I’m back down to 207, which is only half a pound more than my sick-week weight. My Omron Body Fat Analyzer arrives today from Amazon, so I’ll do an official stats-gathering tomorrow: new weight, measurements, photos, and body fat analysis. *gulp*

According to some online guesstimators, I may be somewhere between 35% and 40% body fat. I’d like to get that down to 30% for a start. Granted, that’s not ideal, but it’s better than I was even in high school. (Yes, I did have my body fat measured with calipers when I was 17, and it came out to 33%, as I recall. Sarge and I did a week or two of morning jogging to get my body fat down to 30%, so I could join up with the Army Band. Thankfully, that didn’t work out, though, for other reasons. Mainly because I came to my senses.)

I did my PUSH workout on Monday, then did some gardening on Thursday. You might scoff at my using gardening as exercise, and it surely wasn’t aerobic, but I did do some shoveling and worked my arms and legs and glutes. I sure felt it for the next couple of days. As always, I also kept with my daily 30-45 minute lunchtime walks, and kicked up the intensity there.

Food was pretty consistent: Breakfast was either a whole-grain English muffin with natural crunchy peanut butter or ¾ cup oatmeal with Splenda Brown Sugar Blend. Morning snackie was either low-sugar yogurt or an apple or strawberries. Lunch was brown rice or reduced-carb pasta or lettuce salad. Afternoon snackie was selected from the same foods as the morning snackie, mainly for convenience’s sake, and dinner was usually a meat and a carb — chicken breast and frozen broccoli, or chicken salad on a wheat tortilla, or unbreaded chicken fingers with reduced-carb pasta.

I would also like to mention that I didn’t go hog-wild this weekend after my weigh-in. Saturday I had some ground sirloin with salad and vegetable beef soup and veggies for lunch, then had the Orange Chicken Bowl at Applebee’s for dinner. Not entirely good, but not nearly as bad as I could have been. Sunday, though, we did go to the Dragon Buffet, just because it was Mother’s Day and they had LOBSTER on the buffet. I didn’t stuff myself too bad, though, really. Dinner on Sunday was curry chicken (with a curry cream sauce, evil me) and frozen broccoli, with a homemade chocolate cream cheese souffle for dessert.

The discovery of the week was this: Although I feel like I crave carbs in the evening (and OMG have I been craving carbs), if I make sure to include a good portion of protein in my evening meal, I tend to stave off the hunger and cravings better. So, if I can just chill out and make myself some chicken, or even turkey burgers, instead of whipping up something fast and meatless, I’m less likely to make myself cinnamon tortilla snackies at 8pm.

My goal this week is to eat more protein, and to do my PUSH workout three times. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Yes, I need to get my podcast done, because it’s horribly overdue (as usual), but taking care of me is more important.

Update, 6:30pm: My Omron Body Fat Analyzer arrived this evening, and a preliminary pre-dinner reading shows me at just over 35% body fat. This is no surprise, and is actually better than some online guesstimators had been telling me. We’ll get a “real” reading tomorrow morning.

weight loss 2 Comments

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #16

Gotta get back into the swing of things.

I took my little break from exercise while I was sick, and never got back into it. Also, Aaron and I have been gorging ourselves on the weekends, and I know that our 2½ mile Saturday walks at Wildwood Metropark haven’t been offsetting our binges nearly as much as we wish they would. I haven’t gone back to eating completely shitty during the week, but I also haven’t been eating enough protein, especially in the evenings.

That said, I have purposely not weighed myself this week. No point.

Don’t take this to mean I’m giving up. Far from it. In fact, I’m approaching my fitness plan with renewed gusto this week, despite having a bunch of stuff I need to do. Finish up my podcast, update the Lakeshoremen site… but I’m setting priorities. First, I have to work out. That always makes me feel better and more energized. Then I can do the other things I “need” to do.

I am fucking sick and tired of being all frumpy and shit. I am doing something about it. I’ve gained back the weight I lost while I was sick, and I’m not going back up where I was, dammit. I need to change something about *me* if I’m going to make this thing happen. Cardio has to happen. Protein has to happen. Early rising has to happen. I need to act like I’m already fit, and then it will happen.

(Oh, and I apologize to anyone who recently found my blog who wasn’t expecting me to drop an f-bomb. I do that every now and then.)

Natty Jo, in response to your questions: I’ve actually only been on the PUSH program for two months — and thanks to my being sick and then slacking, I’m only on Workout #1 of DVD #2. So, I guess you could call this my fifth week on PUSH. I’m sticking with Bob Harper myself, although I am curious about the new trainer they have on the list. This particular workout is finally getting to where I need to be, fitness-wise, although I’m having my next DVD focus more on my legs. Yay for arms and abs, though! w00t!

Stay tuned to see how I’m coming along. Next weekend will be the monthly weigh-and-measure (for real this time)!

health & fitness, randomness 2 Comments

Functionally Fit

When deciding how “in shape” you need to be, be it only slightly overweight or totally buff, there’s a term called “functionally fit.” That means that you’re in shape enough to do the things you need to do, and do the recreational activities you want to do. Say, for instance, you decided you wanted to go hiking and camping. Could you do it? How about skiing or snowboarding (besides not knowing how)? Or would it leave you in total pain the next day, or would you even be able to enjoy yourself while you were doing it?

Yesterday, Aaron and Mark and I helped Kris and Jamie move Kris’s stuff from his parents’ basement (where it had been in storage) to their new house in Maumee. Moving it out was mainly a matter of logistics, since he’d moved most everything up into the garage prior to yesterday’s move. We just had to pack the truck so that everything would fit. (Everything did, for the most part; he just needs to go back for his guitars.)

Moving it in, though, involved a steep 1960’s stairwell with no carpet and no banister, in addition to the front stairs up to the house. And I discovered something about myself that I’d been ignoring before: I go to great lengths to avoid cardio. Like going up and down stairs. Moving heavy stuff, sure, I’m all about it. I’ll unload the truck and move the heavy crap to the edge where someone can grab it and take it up to the upstairs bedroom. But actually carrying the stuff up there? Rather not. Because it makes me all out of breath, and my legs get all heavy and tired.

Lazy ass.

This morning when I awoke, my biceps were sore, my delts were sore, my lower back was sore (I lifted one Rubbermaid tote incorrectly, thinking it was a light one when it wasn’t), my ass was sore… I’m sure I’m forgetting something. So what did I do about it?

I grabbed the pruning shears and went outside to give the hedges a haircut.

Now my arms are sore *and* weak, but I’m OK with that. I’d rather keep moving. Today, Aaron and I are going to take a nice, long walk at Wildwood Metropark and test out Fries’s late grandfather’s camera before I offer to buy it.

So… functionally fit? Close, but not quite. At least I learned something about myself, though.