Time to Get Out There and Do Things!

I've really been sloughing off in my activity level. I blame it on reading, as well as the turn of the seasons and the overwhelming urge to den up until spring. But it's a fact: I was busy all summer, but I've really turned into a slug recently. Here is the data.

See how I've declined from my active summer.  Now, I've got to more consciously move. I don't think its about having a few peak, busy weekend days. I think it's more about moving every day, getting the low days up higher.

I've got a tool I haven't used much. I wear my magic armband, but I only upload and analyze the data every two or three days. I can actually get a running total of calories burned, or steps taken, during the day with my little remote monitor. I haven't looked at it much, but now maybe I can work it into my motivation - check calories before lunch, after work, after dinner, and perhaps amend my behavior accordingly. Since I've got the thing, it's certainly worth a try.

A couple of hundred calories a day difference should add up to a real difference in my weight. When I think about the relative difficulty of cutting out a couple of hundred calories, or adding the same number in exercise, I'm not sure which is more difficult. But it's clear which should be more fun!  I don't do exercise I don't enjoy, so adding back the activity is way better than cutting out the beer and ice cream. Now just have to find the time, while leaving in time to get to bed early enough to keep the sleep up too.

Plus and Minus

I got my flu shot today. A very big plus- about the only preventative maintenance item I'll do for myself.

On the negative side, I hurt my knee simply by standing up wrong last night. I felt something move out of whack on the kneecap and thought "uh oh"! It is slightly swollen and hurts like the billy blue blazes. I did go to the gym this morning, and the elliptical machine was painful but walking on the treadmill was fine. And there are plenty of exercises involving the arms shoulders and core so that my time was not wasted.


- iPhone uPdate

Sleep: Diet in the News

A Science Friday piece  I listened to on podcast today talked about a study that showed sleep deprivation did NOT prevent weight loss - just slowed it down and prevented healthy weight loss.  The sleep-deprived cadre in this study lost weight, but they lost muscle mass, while the folks who got lots of sleep lost fat.  OK - we know lack of sleep is really bad for us, and this is just more bad news, because who ever gets 8 1/2 hours sleep like the folks in this study? So its just more stacking the deck - if you are heavy, you are more likely to sleep badly, and that makes it harder to reduce your fat... The only saving grace here is that this is very typical of all weight loss research - it was a really tiny study (10 people, only five in each group!) and they only followed them for two weeks (what weight loss regime has any meaning at all for only two weeks?)

The call-in radio show digressed into a lot of discussion of sleep research and health interactions, and got me thinking about my own pathetic sleep. I wear this magic device that measures my actual sleep, but what good does it do me? I've now got ten months of tracking my sleep almost every single night, but I'm not using that information to help myself. But I'm a data hound, and now I'm on the trail. How can I make this heap of data points tell me a story about what is going on, a story that will help me change something and feel better and lose weight more easily?

OK, first just look at the bare facts. How much sleep do I get? Between six and seven hours, regularly. This is not enough. Is this because I do not have sleep opportunities (I don't go to bed)? Or is it because I'm tossing and turning and not sleeping in the middle?What can I do to make my average be closer to eight hours a night? What can I do to prevent the really short nights, when it is less than six hours? I don't have all the answers to these questions, but I will dig into it more deeply in the near future.  I've got the data, and I'm really good at diving into this kind of an analysis.

Reading: The Alternative to Life?

I've been a big reader all of my life. I learned to read early, learned to read fast, and was forbidden to watch tv as a child. Instead, I always had my nose in a book. I would walk to elementary school with the book open and my head down. My teachers would try to get me to put it down at recess but nothing was going on around the playground that was nearly as interesting as Swallows and Amazons. We moved a lot during an unfortunate time in my life- grades six, seven, eight and nine were each in different schools in different states and even different countries. But who needed friends when there were books?

As I moved on to adult life, my reading has ebbed and flowed in direct counterpoint to how busy and absorbing the rest of my life is. Without recounting all the ins and outs, I have sometimes wondered which was the cause and effect. Over the past several years, my life has been rich and full. I am completely incapable of putting a good book down and walking away from it. Thus, reading was relegated to a few deliberately lone weekends or solo business trips. I would save up my books, eying them on the shelf and walking around them until it was safe to pick one up, plunge in, and be gone to an alternate universe until the last page is done.

I discovered audiobooks on long drives, and adopted them also for chores and walks. But with audiobooks, you have to start and stop in arbitrary places when the activity is done. Plus, listening is three or four times slower than my reading speed. So my audiobooks are mostly nonfiction, or harder literary fiction, not mysteries or thrillers or fantasy novels. They are books where I am intellectually, rather than emotionally, engaged.

Now I've got my kindle. Suddenly, thousands of books are in the palm of my hand. I like to find mystery or science fiction authors, and then read a complete series. Neither the library nor Borders is likely to have older books in a series, but those are pure profit to Amazon to make available as only electrons.

I got the kindle barely a month ago. In that time, I've read eleven novels- probably more than all of last year put together. They vary in price from free (out of copyright nineteenth century books) to twelve dollars for a best seller only available in hardback. I've just come back from fourteenth century England, in Ken Follett's World Without End. The problem is, I was there almost all weekend. A gorgeous three day weekend, and I spent it on the couch. No walks, (but a sail- I had made a date, and a family dinner date). A fair amount of unconscious eating took place. I had a reasonable sized list of things that needed doing around the house, and crossed out just one small chore as complete. Right now, I'm blinking out, because I finished this absorbing book at 1:00 am this morning.

I think years of my life sped by while my nose was in a book. Now, with the whole literary universe in my fingers, can I manage to retain a grasp on the physical world and not upset my focus on my active life?

- iPhone uPdate

Statistics

Good news on the numbers front this week. But the pattern shows why its so important to weigh every day, and consider my weight to be the average for the week, not the daily point.

I saw a new number this week - one pound lower than seen for quite some time. In fact, I looked at the graph, and the last time I saw this daily weight was exactly SIX years ago - October 2004!  How about that for real progress!

My average for the week was 0.9 pounds lower than last week's average. But on the last day I weighed, I was actually up a half a pound over the weight from the same day last week!  Just a factor of the salty meal the night before, but if that was the only data I had for the week, it would be really discouraging.

Progress breeds progress, as activity breeds activity. Hooray for progress.

Sunshine!

I get so much energy and optimism from the light. Today has been lovely, and we're expecting a terrific long weekend. I rode the Vespa in, first time in about three weeks, and every time I do I urge myself to ride it more often.

I got out for a walk at lunch, and stretched my normal mile and a half to two full miles. No ipod, no destination, just striding along (though I did have some really peachy sturdy green shoes).

Here is the route:  Friday Walk

And here are the stats:

Start 11:27 AM

Finish 12:11 PM - Average 19:40 /mile walk time 40:55, 2.08 miles, 171 calories, climb 79 feet, stopped time 3:06

My walking seems to routinely be just under twenty minute miles. It's a really comfortable pace, and I think I could keep it up for a very long time.  Today on the way in to work, I saw a bunch of pink ladies walking for October breast cancer awareness month. The Avon walk I did back four (?) years ago was the longest walk I ever did.  At 20 minute miles, the first day (a marathon in length) would be nine hours. I walked that many hours, but didn't get the whole 27 miles in before I was done. 

This has been an ok week - at least I broke 2000 calories every day, and saw a new number on the scale for the first time.  More wrap up later.

Jogging

Up and out this morning to get to the gym at work. I spent a half hour on the treadmill and covered by it's measurement exactly two miles. For me, that's a jog, not a walk. On average, that is- I'm doing intervals.

Today I strove for longer intervals at a jog. Most were three minutes long. I'm watching my heartbeat, and I get a bit nervous if it gets too fast. I'm not sure what too fast is, however.

The facts: according to the standard formula, my maximum heartbeat is 165. I saw 92% of that regularly during the jogs. For the first time, today it did not seem like it was continuing to climb. Instead, with deep breaths and focusing on the music, it seemed I could stay at that rate. Previously, I hit that rate and dropped back to a walk because I was nervous, not simply because I was out of gas. Today, I maintained for three minutes at the run and then two minutes at a jog, for the first twenty minutes anyway. Then I stayed at a walk and raised the incline way up, keeping my heartrate at about 80%.

I want to push to longer and longer runs/jogs. I'm definitely making some progress.


- iPhone uPdate