Category Archives: health & fitness

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

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Interval Training?

I’m feeling pretty good right about now.

Eariler today, I told Sheryl over e-mail: “Now, yesterday I did my Push workout again, for the first time in a couple of weeks. And y’know what I’m going to do tonight when I get home? I’m going to change clothes, feed the cat, and drive to Wildwood armed with some water and my iPod. Then I’m going to walk-jog the shortest trail. Cardio is my biggest obstacle, and I’m going to just DO IT already. Maybe I’ll find jogging fun. (Never did before, but there’s a first time for everything.)”

And that’s exactly what I did. Saw Aaron off to work, changed clothes, fed the cat, set some brown rice to cooking and some chicken to thawing, gathered up my wallet and keys and iPod and a camera with five exposures left and $1 in change (for water), and drove off to Wildwood Metropark.

I found an excellent parking spot, close to the trailhead; however, I failed to note what time it was when I arrived. D’oh! Anyway, I loaded up with my wallet, keys (obviously, since I couldn’t leave them in the car, could I?) and iPod, and went to decide on a trail.

Wildwood has about six trails, ranging in distance from 0.6 miles to 3.1, I think. I decided to take the yellow Meadow Trail, which was 1.2 miles. I thought that was fair to start a walk-jog routine. And away I went.

I’d decided that, instead of looking at my watch constantly, I would start jogging when whatever song that was playing got to the first chorus. I’d jog/run/whatever for one minute, then walk until the first chorus of the next song. That seemed like a good compromise.

Until I got to a.) The Pixies, who have two-minute songs, and b.) another band with a six-minute instrumental. That threw off my jogging cycle mojo hardcore.

About that time, I took a wrong turn down what wasn’t the yellow trail, so I ended up on a paved path. S’ok — I still knew where I was going, but I didn’t know exactly what distance I’d be travelling anymore. Since my mojo was thrown off and my distance gauge was no longer valid (since I forgot to bring my pedometer), I just jogged when I felt like it. ‘Let’s jog the length of this fence’ or ‘Let’s jog to the tree’ or something like that.

“That’s nice and all,” you’re saying, “but how did it GO?”

Surprisingly well, actually.

My first jogging stint was right out of the gate. Walked down from the trailhead, got on the yellow trail, started jogging. I really enjoyed it, and didn’t want to stop after my minute was over — but I did, anyway. Then I realized that I was winded. Bad. I hadn’t noticed while I was jogging, and I wonder how long I could have jogged before my body spoke up.

My next stretch was a little harder, and slightly embarrassing. A guy probably five years younger than me was on the trail in front of me when it came time for me to break into a jog again, so I psyched myself up to pass him. My keys were jangling in my back pocket, but there was nothing to be done about that. I was sure I looked like a total dork with my keys on one ass-cheek and my wallet on the other. Oh. well.

Approached, no problem. Passed on the left, no problem.

Pants started to fall down. Problem.

I didn’t even consider stopping to pull them up and cinch in the drawstring. Nope. Not an option; this is my jog-time. Instead, I yanked up my workout pants as I ran, trying to run faster to get around the bend and out of sight. They just fell right back down. I was sure this guy could see my underwear at this point, and I tried to be funny by making a frustrated gesture to the world in general as I hiked them up again and successfully disappeared around the corner. Once my minute was up, I had run waaaay too fast and winded myself even worse than before. But I did pull up my drawers and tie the drawstring tight. Guess that’s why it’s there — to keep your pants up while you’re running with keys and wallet and iPod on your person.

All in all, I think I had about four or five jogging stints and spent somewhere just over 30 minutes with my walk-jog. Next time, I’ll be more careful with checking the time and staying on the right trail. And bringing my pedometer.

After the walk-jog, I went back to the car, fetched my change and my camera, bought a water from the vending machine, used up the last few exposures on the camera I was testing, then got back in the car and headed home.

When I got home, the rice was done, which tells me I was gone at least an hour. That’s good. Finished making dinner (Szechuan chicken) and divided it into thirds: one for dinner, one for tomorrow’s lunch, and one for Aaron when he gets home tonight. Yummy.

So, how do I feel? Well, my quads were already sore from yesterday’s workout, and they’re even more sore now. My ass is sore. Actually, come to think of it, just about everywhere is sore, between yesterday’s PUSH workout and today’s interval training (if you want to call it that).

But I feel GOOD.

I’ve still got the memory of that I’ve-been-breathing-hard feeling in the back of my throat and my upper lungs, and I feel like my heart rate is still a little elevated (not much, but enough that I notice).

If I can do this every Tuesday and Thursday, and do it with Aaron on Saturday or Sunday, and keep up with my M-W-F PUSH workouts, I think I’ll see results. At the very least, I’ll feel better, which is part of what this thing’s all about.

P.S. – Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post or sent me e-mail. I really appreciate having friends and acquaintances who step up to help and know how to motivate me. You guys are teh awesome! ^_^

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)!