My week was low energy, but last weekend and this weekend I've been trying to up the intensity and keep it going. Last week I ran intervals on the treadmill at the gym after my workout on Saturday, and then NordicTraked on Sunday morning.
The treadmill was terrific! I had the iPod on, and I swapped between walking (about 3.4 mph) and jogging (at 5.5 mph). I swapped between them based on my heartrate - when I got over 140, it was time to slow down. It was probably half and half overall.
I had a hard time going on the NT - I'm not sure why. This used to be my favorite (actually only acceptable) aerobic machine. But I was slogging with the skis and just couldn't get a rhythm going. I had the iPod plugged in on shuffle and kept hitting "skip" as songs came up. I was a good twenty minutes into it before finally I was moving easily, and my mind was free to wander instead of focusing on the effort to keep going. I got my time in, but it was never great. I decided part of the difference was the treadmill motion - I had no choice but to keep going. With the NT, I had to motivate the motion, and adjust my speed. Just that much harder.
This morning was another great interval run on the treadmill. Both my walk and jog were faster - it just felt more natural to keep it going. I ran for much more than half of the total time, and it took longer for the heart rate to get up high. I was truly invigorated after the session, and went off to the farmer's market filled with endorphins and smug self-satisfaction, which caused me to buy lots and lots of good fresh healthy foods.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Red Shoes
This morning the cumulative lack of sleep all week caught up with me. I went to my workout but it was a real bust. Everything was like walking uphill through sand.
But I put on mt red shoes this morning and everything seems better when strutting through the halls in high energy footware!
- iPhone uPdate
But I put on mt red shoes this morning and everything seems better when strutting through the halls in high energy footware!
- iPhone uPdate
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Bicycling
My little girl won't ride a bicycle! (I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, "won't" instead of "can't", but I'm really not certain.)
I love bicycling! When I was her age (who thought I'd ever say that phrase) my bike was my road to the world. I took off and took long trips all around town (Ann Arbor), miles farther than my mother knew I was going. I needed a map, because I knew nothing about how to get around. But I loved the freedom, the exploration, having a destination. The way I felt then about the bike is the way I have felt in turn about flying small planes, voyaging in sail boats, paddling in the kayak, even taking long urban hikes. I like the autonomy of not having a firm destination, being able to just wander, explore the byways, stop when I want, go home when I want. My little girl has never experienced that at all.
Her oldest brother did, I know for sure. The first summer the boys spent in Bellport they both learned to ride bikes and were up and out often. There was a cul de sac they could ride to, just two blocks away, and A. did constantly. He spoke of the freedom, and how on the bike he was flying. His horizons got a lot bigger from that.
The younger boy needs to feel useful. Not for him a useless trip around a circle. But Grandma needs something from the store in the village? He was the man for that. Hop on the bike, list in hand, pick up the bread or milk or cheese, tell the cashier to charge it to Grandma, and off back home with mission accomplished and a sense of purpose fulfilled. He got a whiz-bang new bike for his birthday last year, and he and his friends quickly expanded their horizons, riding to a small amusement park nearby or to the zoo.
Through college and grad school years, the bike was my main form of longer distance transportation. I had fat tired used bikes from the police sale with saddle bags in back. Only when I was a young professional living in the Chicago suburbs did I get a bike with gears. The first time I rode my bike off the road and on a bike trail I was astounded at how much fun it could be, and it became a more regular form of exercise and recreation for me. When I moved here to Maryland, I was entranced with the relatively flat and level bike trails along the streams (I have never enjoyed hills). I have a stream trail just a hundred yards from my house, nine miles in either direction and connecting to additional trails at either end. During the Big Loss of 1998, I generally rode my bike for hours on Sunday morning.
Sadly for me, when I got a new bike a couple of years ago and started back up again, the knees objected every time I went more than about five miles (and five miles is truly nothing on a bike). According to the knee doctor, I probably could build up my tolerance for riding with time on the stationary bike, enough to allow me to do more serious street riding. I haven't bothered to try because I find the stationary bike the most boring and least challenging aerobic machine I've been on.
But tonight I got out my bike to try to get my girl up on it, just to give it another try. She refused so we have more persuasion to do. I had to give the bike a whirl around the block after I pumped the tires, just to make sure it still worked. I liked it. I liked it a lot. So I'm going to be trying it again, perhaps around town for errands first before a long trail ride.
I love bicycling! When I was her age (who thought I'd ever say that phrase) my bike was my road to the world. I took off and took long trips all around town (Ann Arbor), miles farther than my mother knew I was going. I needed a map, because I knew nothing about how to get around. But I loved the freedom, the exploration, having a destination. The way I felt then about the bike is the way I have felt in turn about flying small planes, voyaging in sail boats, paddling in the kayak, even taking long urban hikes. I like the autonomy of not having a firm destination, being able to just wander, explore the byways, stop when I want, go home when I want. My little girl has never experienced that at all.
Her oldest brother did, I know for sure. The first summer the boys spent in Bellport they both learned to ride bikes and were up and out often. There was a cul de sac they could ride to, just two blocks away, and A. did constantly. He spoke of the freedom, and how on the bike he was flying. His horizons got a lot bigger from that.
The younger boy needs to feel useful. Not for him a useless trip around a circle. But Grandma needs something from the store in the village? He was the man for that. Hop on the bike, list in hand, pick up the bread or milk or cheese, tell the cashier to charge it to Grandma, and off back home with mission accomplished and a sense of purpose fulfilled. He got a whiz-bang new bike for his birthday last year, and he and his friends quickly expanded their horizons, riding to a small amusement park nearby or to the zoo.
Through college and grad school years, the bike was my main form of longer distance transportation. I had fat tired used bikes from the police sale with saddle bags in back. Only when I was a young professional living in the Chicago suburbs did I get a bike with gears. The first time I rode my bike off the road and on a bike trail I was astounded at how much fun it could be, and it became a more regular form of exercise and recreation for me. When I moved here to Maryland, I was entranced with the relatively flat and level bike trails along the streams (I have never enjoyed hills). I have a stream trail just a hundred yards from my house, nine miles in either direction and connecting to additional trails at either end. During the Big Loss of 1998, I generally rode my bike for hours on Sunday morning.
Sadly for me, when I got a new bike a couple of years ago and started back up again, the knees objected every time I went more than about five miles (and five miles is truly nothing on a bike). According to the knee doctor, I probably could build up my tolerance for riding with time on the stationary bike, enough to allow me to do more serious street riding. I haven't bothered to try because I find the stationary bike the most boring and least challenging aerobic machine I've been on.
But tonight I got out my bike to try to get my girl up on it, just to give it another try. She refused so we have more persuasion to do. I had to give the bike a whirl around the block after I pumped the tires, just to make sure it still worked. I liked it. I liked it a lot. So I'm going to be trying it again, perhaps around town for errands first before a long trail ride.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Our Frail Bodies
I'm exercising and losing weight so I can get out there and do stuff. Also, I don't want to be perceived as old, fat and feeble. Looking at people on the street, I see the slow and careful and hunched over movers, easily picked up far away as old. I remind myself, "shoulders back, abs tight, walk tall, move briskly".
But there are no guarantees when dealing with mechanisms as complex and frail as our human bodies - especially ones that have been used heavily already. Obviously, big catastrophic accidents occur - a friend at work is dealing with the long term care of her physically and mentally injured significant other after a car crash -but smaller traumas, and just plain aches and pains and wearing out show up unexpectedly and often. Sometimes it doesn't take much to knock us off our planned course of virtuous diet and exercise.
A friend tripped playing tennis and hurt her knee and suddenly her summer is about knee surgery rather than going to the pool. Another friend fell on her bike and spent a couple of weeks gimping around with scrapes all over. I tripped over my own feet in April and bent three fingers on my right hand back and it still hurts and I have lost grip strength and can't shake hands with firm shakers without wincing. I have to periodically flex the fingers after gripping the kayak paddle for a while, but it doesn't keep my from going. I am terrified my knees will go from intermittent pain that can be avoided by careful mechanics, to become real barriers to moving. I keep an eye on my misshapen bunion inflicted foot, and I haven't worn heels in years.
The worst physical pain trauma I've been through was a bout of sciatica a few years back. For months, I couldn't bend in the middle comfortably. I couldn't sit still, I couldn't drive long distances, and sometimes the pain would wake me up in the middle of the night and drive me out to walk. I could almost always walk. But sometimes the pain was so intense all I could do was rock and whimper quietly to myself until serious medicine kicked in to make me goofy but relieved. The first day of 2004 I did not take any drugs was some day in June-over six months of pain meds every single day. This pain had me going through the endless back pain protocols: over the counter meds, physical therapy, X-rays, MRIs, stronger painkillers, acupuncture, traction, finally minor surgery. I don't know what worked, but finally something did. And the physical therapy led to my embracing exercise.
The sciatica never completely went away, it just got down to the level of an annoyance rather than the focal point of my life. I am not able to take ibuprophen any more (destroyed my stomach during this process) periodically get approved for one of the limited prescription alternative non-steriodal anti-inflammatories, which are all bad for your heart. I get to choose among bad things.
Lately, the pain seems to have morphed into a slightly different version of a muscle cramp when I leave a certain position. After I bend over, or twist to the right, the muscle on my right hip freezes up and cramps. I can't straighten up and I have to gasp for breath from the pain. I found a slow twist into the pain I can do that seem to free up the cramp. But when the pain strikes me, at first I am hunched and bent and can barely move - looking like the feeble old folks I'm doing my best not to become. I try to detach myself from the pain and analyze it- is it that I can't straighten up, or that it hurts too much to straighten up? It seems I can't, but I can't tell if that's become I cannot command my body to inflict more pain, or the nerve/muscle connection is truly not working and not allowing me to move a certain way.
Why can't I just feel good? Why does our warranty run out and parts stop working?
But there are no guarantees when dealing with mechanisms as complex and frail as our human bodies - especially ones that have been used heavily already. Obviously, big catastrophic accidents occur - a friend at work is dealing with the long term care of her physically and mentally injured significant other after a car crash -but smaller traumas, and just plain aches and pains and wearing out show up unexpectedly and often. Sometimes it doesn't take much to knock us off our planned course of virtuous diet and exercise.
A friend tripped playing tennis and hurt her knee and suddenly her summer is about knee surgery rather than going to the pool. Another friend fell on her bike and spent a couple of weeks gimping around with scrapes all over. I tripped over my own feet in April and bent three fingers on my right hand back and it still hurts and I have lost grip strength and can't shake hands with firm shakers without wincing. I have to periodically flex the fingers after gripping the kayak paddle for a while, but it doesn't keep my from going. I am terrified my knees will go from intermittent pain that can be avoided by careful mechanics, to become real barriers to moving. I keep an eye on my misshapen bunion inflicted foot, and I haven't worn heels in years.
The worst physical pain trauma I've been through was a bout of sciatica a few years back. For months, I couldn't bend in the middle comfortably. I couldn't sit still, I couldn't drive long distances, and sometimes the pain would wake me up in the middle of the night and drive me out to walk. I could almost always walk. But sometimes the pain was so intense all I could do was rock and whimper quietly to myself until serious medicine kicked in to make me goofy but relieved. The first day of 2004 I did not take any drugs was some day in June-over six months of pain meds every single day. This pain had me going through the endless back pain protocols: over the counter meds, physical therapy, X-rays, MRIs, stronger painkillers, acupuncture, traction, finally minor surgery. I don't know what worked, but finally something did. And the physical therapy led to my embracing exercise.
The sciatica never completely went away, it just got down to the level of an annoyance rather than the focal point of my life. I am not able to take ibuprophen any more (destroyed my stomach during this process) periodically get approved for one of the limited prescription alternative non-steriodal anti-inflammatories, which are all bad for your heart. I get to choose among bad things.
Lately, the pain seems to have morphed into a slightly different version of a muscle cramp when I leave a certain position. After I bend over, or twist to the right, the muscle on my right hip freezes up and cramps. I can't straighten up and I have to gasp for breath from the pain. I found a slow twist into the pain I can do that seem to free up the cramp. But when the pain strikes me, at first I am hunched and bent and can barely move - looking like the feeble old folks I'm doing my best not to become. I try to detach myself from the pain and analyze it- is it that I can't straighten up, or that it hurts too much to straighten up? It seems I can't, but I can't tell if that's become I cannot command my body to inflict more pain, or the nerve/muscle connection is truly not working and not allowing me to move a certain way.
Why can't I just feel good? Why does our warranty run out and parts stop working?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Alcohol Helps with Weight Loss! Hallelujah!
Got this link in a newsletter from my seventeen-year-old's extreme fitness gym (he started going there to learn parkour a couple of years ago, and it changed his exercise and eating habits). I'm too tired to study it, but what I gleaned is some (moderate amounts of) alcohol helps lose weight because of some mumble mumble chemical reaction. Maybe I should never go back and read it thoroughly - just take the conclusion and run with it.
Update after re-reading: Drink dry wines and spirits, straight or with seltzer or diet soda. Only consume protein and alcohol the day you drink - no sugar, few carbs, no or low fat. There is a rationale. I'm not sure I care - this could work for me. I sense some rum in my future.
Update after re-reading: Drink dry wines and spirits, straight or with seltzer or diet soda. Only consume protein and alcohol the day you drink - no sugar, few carbs, no or low fat. There is a rationale. I'm not sure I care - this could work for me. I sense some rum in my future.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Upping the intensity
My "calories burned" each day is below where I'd like it to be. If I'm going to continue to have some ice cream from time to time, I've got to burn more. I also really want to feel strong and competent. I'm not sure I'll be able to add a lot more time to my exercise routines, so I'm going to try to add intensity.
Yesterday, after working out with my trainer, I got on the treadmill and did intervals, alternating between a walk and a run. You set up the speeds in advance, and then a single button flips between them. I've discovered the least comfortable speed for me is about four miles per hour - not fast enough to break into a jog, but way too fast to walk comfortably on my short little legs. So I alternated between 3.4 mpg for the walk, and 4.5 mph for the jog. I had on the iPod and it made all the difference to be able to keep going. I was actually having fun, and I stopped because of time rather than exhaustion. I had all the electronics on - BodyBugg, iPod, and heart rate monitor. When jogging, the heart rate quickly went up to 140, and when it kept climbing I would switch to the walk until I was back down to about 120 beats per minute.
Last night, I did another long brisk walk around town - about four miles in about 80 minutes. Not so very brisk, I guess, but way better than sitting on the couch. While walking, I can listen to books instead of music, so I clocked off the miles with several chapters of a biography.
I was up and out this morning, up to check on my boat and then to go kayaking. I have a waterproof bag for the iPod, where it plugs in inside the bag, and then there is a port to plug in headphones outside the bag. So for the first time, I was able to listen to music while paddling. I went about four miles, pretty much paddling non-stop, for just under 90 mintues. I'm convinced the music is what kept me going - previous paddles have tended to be "paddle paddle glide, paddle paddle glide...." where this one was just paddling steadily. I averaged 2.6 knots (top speed 3.5 knots) which is quite respectable. My heartrate stayed around 100 - it really is hard to get the heart going with just my arms.
I won't be able to maintain this level of exertion - I could be taking a walk right now, for example, but I'm instead sacked out here on the couch. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep well tonight.
I've got good food to take to work tomorrow, and dinner tomorrow planned. All this, just to blow through what appears to be my new set point (plateau) and get the needle moving back down.
Yesterday, after working out with my trainer, I got on the treadmill and did intervals, alternating between a walk and a run. You set up the speeds in advance, and then a single button flips between them. I've discovered the least comfortable speed for me is about four miles per hour - not fast enough to break into a jog, but way too fast to walk comfortably on my short little legs. So I alternated between 3.4 mpg for the walk, and 4.5 mph for the jog. I had on the iPod and it made all the difference to be able to keep going. I was actually having fun, and I stopped because of time rather than exhaustion. I had all the electronics on - BodyBugg, iPod, and heart rate monitor. When jogging, the heart rate quickly went up to 140, and when it kept climbing I would switch to the walk until I was back down to about 120 beats per minute.
Last night, I did another long brisk walk around town - about four miles in about 80 minutes. Not so very brisk, I guess, but way better than sitting on the couch. While walking, I can listen to books instead of music, so I clocked off the miles with several chapters of a biography.
I was up and out this morning, up to check on my boat and then to go kayaking. I have a waterproof bag for the iPod, where it plugs in inside the bag, and then there is a port to plug in headphones outside the bag. So for the first time, I was able to listen to music while paddling. I went about four miles, pretty much paddling non-stop, for just under 90 mintues. I'm convinced the music is what kept me going - previous paddles have tended to be "paddle paddle glide, paddle paddle glide...." where this one was just paddling steadily. I averaged 2.6 knots (top speed 3.5 knots) which is quite respectable. My heartrate stayed around 100 - it really is hard to get the heart going with just my arms.
I won't be able to maintain this level of exertion - I could be taking a walk right now, for example, but I'm instead sacked out here on the couch. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep well tonight.
I've got good food to take to work tomorrow, and dinner tomorrow planned. All this, just to blow through what appears to be my new set point (plateau) and get the needle moving back down.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Back to Logging Food
The only way to make any progress is to log my meals. I know I need to track every bite. And swallow, if its beer. Started today. Knowing I'm going to have to do this will also motivate me to have good stuff around to eat. Starting out a weekend with good resolve.
It would be so-o-o-o easy to blow the whole thing. Making the struggle of the last six months meaningless, as was pointed out to me. I can't do that. It's summer, and there is plenty of good fresh food stuff to plan food around. There is a farmer's market near my gym - I think that will be my second stop tomorrow. Don't even know what is in season - I've not been cooking much for the past couple of weeks.
It would be so-o-o-o easy to blow the whole thing. Making the struggle of the last six months meaningless, as was pointed out to me. I can't do that. It's summer, and there is plenty of good fresh food stuff to plan food around. There is a farmer's market near my gym - I think that will be my second stop tomorrow. Don't even know what is in season - I've not been cooking much for the past couple of weeks.
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