Got my Vitamin D

A ninety minute paddle with at least my face and forearms soaking up the sun. About four miles. My arms are really feeling it- as I got more tired, I found how to rely more on the core muscles.

It is truly gorgeous out. Probably in the seventies and sunny. My polarized sunglasses make the color of the trees more dramatic. I went up to the headwaters of my creek where the water really just disappeared. We are having a dramatically low tide, and the water continued to drop during my trip. Since the moon is full, I imagine there may be an equally dramatic high tide later, nut sadly I won't be here to see it.

I have to plan for my eating today and this week- I'll be serving fatted calf most days (due to the delightful though unexpected appearance of my college boy) and I have to work on overall family portions and plan mine in as well.


- iPhone uPdate

Games and Sports

I have never been into playing sports or games. Maybe I'm just that little bit too old. Title nine didn't really come into effect until I was out of high school. I played field hockey and rounders in school in England, and field hockey again in high school. That is, I played in required gym class only. My afterschool Time was focused on reading. My family of proud indoorsmen watched sports on tv, and I remember a halfhearted attempt for the family to take up tennis (I was so bad I never had a rally and so never liked it). My dad and my brother played with the basketball hoop on the driveway, but I never once made a basket perhaps because I was so short.

As a twenty something in a new state for a new job, I played softball after work. It was clearly just a social event for me- I was terrible. Luckily, the whole coed league was pretty relaxed so they never threw me off the team. I also was never into being competitive. Not into team spirit or caring about winning. I liked playing catch, though. I had someone coach me on the mechanics of throwing and I liked the unhurried windup, release, and thwack! of the catch.

I am actually quite competitive about many things, but usually if it's clear I'm not going to win I'll just abandon the field rather than redouble my efforts.

As I tap this out, I am watching the middle child play ultimate frisbee, a sport his brother is quite fond of. It's sort of soccer/basketball with a frisbee. It appears to be a geek sport, for which I cite as evidence my geeky kids are into it, the fact start times, league standings, and line calls are really casual, (never a ref allowed). Just in case more evidence is needed, one of the team's numbers on their jerseys are five digits long including at least one decimal.

My little girl loves her soccer club, but in seventh grade this is her last year. I'm thrilled she likes it, and I'd like to find another alternative for her next year. One of her friends went to a more competitive league this year, which has the added draw of the Obama girls (and their parents) being involved.

Me, I love ranging up and down the sidelines during the games, and taking a walk around the field during practices. I think I'll be staying with a solo or non-competitive sport. Kayaking tomorrow!

- iPhone uPdate

Gym Rat

I did make to the work gym this morning, and had a nice new increase in my jog versus walk times.  I made the first mile at about 14:20 minutes, and the second at about 30 minutes. I jogged for three 4 minute periods and one 2 minute (for a total of only 14 minutes - doesn't sound that impressive, after all, but its more than I've done in years and years). My heartbeat didn't reach 150 until the third jogging period, which is good. It got right up there on the fourth period, and hit 155 after two minutes, which is why I cut back at that point.

So I feel good right now. I have a very tight schedule today, so I treated myself to egg and sausage breakfast, and now I'm off and running mentally.

Upping both walking and sleeping

Based on a sample of one, I can boost my calorie burn and my step total. I took a look at my little portable device several times today. I had a very brief sortie at lunch - literally around the building and back in again - but then added in an evening walk to get the total for the day up a bit.

I've had a good week for sleeping. Having dug into the data, I'm pretty sure the best way to sleep more is to turn out the light earlier and try to sleep more. There seems to be a fairly consistent gap between the amount of time the device says I'm asleep and the amount of time my device says I'm lying down.  Note the cautious wording there - it's not perfectly accurate in telling the difference. Sometimes, when I'm watching tv or reading a book, apparently I'm so still it truly thinks I'm asleep. For example, yesterday early evening I was reading horizontally on the couch, and it counted 29 minutes of actual sleep. Then there is a gap when I actually got ready for bed, and then just three minutes of lying down in bed before falling asleep.

It felt like disturbed sleep last night; I remember getting up to pee at least twice during the night. I have many restless nights and last night was on the restless side, but not completely out of the ordinary for me:
3 minutes lying down
1 hour 10 minutes sleeping
2 minutes awake
44 minutes sleeping
2 minutes awake
1 hour 47 minutes sleeping
8 minutes awake
32 minutes sleeping
2 minutes awake
2 hours 43 minutes sleeping
4 minutes awake
20 minutes sleeping
2 mintues awake
20 minutes sleeping
4 minutes awake

then up and out of bed.

It's quite typical to have just one stretch of solid sleep, and it is always at the end there. I know from fatigue science that typically from three to five am local time is everyone's Window of Circadian Low (yes, we say "wockle" around the office) and I usually am soundest asleep during that time.

Even though it was restless, it adds up to 7:45 total sleep, which is really terrific by any standards.

So I think its time to get ready for bed now, not an hour from now!

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.