Category Archives: Exercise

meet your needs

May 16, 2015 6:19 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Sometimes it’s difficult.

Repetitions or reps suck.  But you have to do them and you have to keep doing them till you start getting somewhere.  But they still suck.

Laps suck.  Going up and down the same lane over and over again.  Swallowing pool water, stinking of chlorine.  Why do I keep doing it?

After an hour or so I leave feeling a bit wobbly, a bit achy, but no stronger.  Or at least I don’t notice it.  That’s the thing about exercise.  You really don’t notice any improvement at first or at all for weeks, months, if not years.  As you get stronger you get accustomed to your new body and don’t notice any change.  But it all takes time.

Sometimes, when I look across at some of the power lifters or the competitive swimmers, or the fast runners I want to try to match them, to get onto their level.  Tired of waiting and going through the slow process.

I can maybe keep up with them for a little bit.  Match them stroke for stroke, lift heavier, keep pace running but after a bit I falter.  I’m not there yet.

I have to remind myself that I should not train to their pace but to my pace.  I remember way back when I first started and runners would jog past me as I started walking, not even running, but walking and how frustrating it was.  But I knew I wasn’t ready yet.  Over time I began to run and I could even pass some slower people but by that time that didn’t even matter at all.

It was the hard work and the commitment that mattered the most.

That’s what I have to remember these days.  I need to work out to meet my needs not do the work out that meets the needs of other people.  More patience, more hard work, more commitment.  That’s the only way that I’m going to achieve anything.

Posted in: activities, exercise, habits

it’s never over

April 24, 2015 7:07 AM , Leave a Comment ,

One of those Facebook posts that seems to circulate all over your news feed really hit home today.  It was titled “The after myth“.  The post was an essay about a fat person who took the time and did the work to lose a lot of weight and succeeded but a few years after her success realized that there is no after, there is just the now.

I’ve been on my health kick for the last four years now.  Begun as a necessity to restore my health.  Starting slowly, having several missteps and finally starting to see results in the last year.  I mean really big tangible results.  The type where the guy in the commercial holds up his giant pants and steps from behind them to reveal his “new” skinnier version.

No matter how you do it (whether it’s exercise, diet, stomach staples, whatever) these ads gloss over the time, the struggle, the long hours which stretch into days and then weeks, months, and years.  The process gets lost to get to the point on the TV screen.

It’s gratifying seeing people who I haven’t seen for a long time and having them tell me how much better I look now that I’ve lost the weight but I find it puzzling. Before the weight or after the weight, it’s still me.

I’m still the same person regardless of the weight and I found that this essay was right on the mark.  For me there is no “after”.  I have to keep to this lifestyle from now on.

Back in March I had to deal with the flu that was going round Houston.  First I had to take care of a couple of people who got sick for a couple of weeks and then I got sidelined by it as well.  My exercise routine went to hell and I began to pile on some weight.  Maybe it was not noticeable to anyone else but it was to me.  Just proved it to me that I don’t have a magical goal number to reach.  This is my life now.

My metabolism has slowed over time.  It was never very high but now it’s slowing down as I age.  I need to keep working out. I need to watch my diet, I need to keep the process going.

I am still the same person that I was at 288 pounds that I am now at 181 pounds.  I am just more aware and more conscious about the type of life I live and the consequences of my actions or in-actions.

I’m not defined by the number on a weight scale.  No one is, or at least no one should be.  I hope that I am defined by my actions and thoughts.  Hopefully those actions and thoughts will lead me to a healthier and happier life.

Posted in: activities, aging, diet, exercise, goals, health, life in general

A ripe old age

March 23, 2015 6:23 AM , Leave a Comment ,

A few months back one of my friends that regularly eschews all health related advice was discussing longevity.  Someone pointed out that some simple lifestyle choices may help him live a longer life.  He retorted “maybe it wasn’t that he would live longer but rather that it would seem longer.”  Meaning of course that he would have to get rid of all the enjoyable parts of life and live a pretty dismal existence just to get in a few more years of life.

The reason I thought about this conversation was that I saw a couple of news articles the other day.  One was about a 100-year-old woman who celebrated her birthday by skydiving and the other article was about a 104 year old that drank 3 soft drinks a day.

How is it that some people can live seemingly reckless lives and still feel vital in their later years while others practice control and are careful and may be lucky to reach 70?

Certainly genetics plays a large role in this.  Research has shown that some people are not only genetically predisposed to live longer but also may be predisposed to sidestepping certain congenital diseases such as cancers or heart disease.

Lifestyle will of course count somewhat in how you fare in your later years.  No matter how lucky you are in the genetic lottery mistreating your body is still a terrible idea and mistreating your body to the point that you cause it severe damage is just a bad overall strategy that may mean that you will not be able to enjoy all the benefits of your body into your later years.

But I suppose the main crux of my friend’s argument is that making sacrifices for the long haul just isn’t so appealing if in the long run you have nothing to look forward to but a bland existence.  In that I think he misses the point.

Just because you don’t go out and party every night when you’re young doesn’t have to mean that you are doomed to a spartan existence for the rest of your life. Rather, living a more regulated and moderated lifestyle gives you chances to do more down the years.

I feel lucky that I have survived my younger and wilder years fairly unscathed and that I am now more serious about my health.  I look forward to many years of exploiting my continuing health to try out more experiences, do new things, and savor what the future may bring.

Sure I get frustrated when someone on social media posts about a new restaurant or when someone tells me about a hot new bar or whatever place that they went to.  I would love to do more of these things.  But then again I also hear about their hangovers and having to go to the doctor for stomach problems or having to refill prescriptions that I have thus far avoided.  They won’t get to look forward to some of the things that I will get to enjoy later in life.

As long as I can keep my moderated lifestyle going I think that over time I will be the one that enjoys life more.

Posted in: aging, diet, exercise, genetics, health, life in general

An all out effort

February 15, 2015 6:12 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Pressure builds and keeps on building.  That’ just the way that life is.  The more you do, the more you have to worry about and the more reactive and proactive you have to become to keep everything going at the same time.

More than once in a while things will blow up.  I think it’s inevitable.  Then of course you have to scramble to assess the damage and to try to fix things.  Nothing is ever easy.

In the course of all of this effort you might suddenly find that you’re not feeling all that great.  Maybe one morning you will wake up and you can’t quite pin it down but you know you’re not up to 100%.  The rest of your day is thrown off by this and over the next few days and weeks you start going downhill.

This type of generalized fatigue is common.  It’s the sort of thing that can’t be pinned down and will slowly but surely seep in and affect all aspects of your life.

So what can be done?  You obviously have to address this before you can continue on with any of your other activities.  But you can’t just stop everything.  Luckily you don’t have to.

The problem lies in the way you live your life and how you are living your life and the solution is also found there.  Not in one aspect of your life or one activity but in all of it.

Stopping one activity or one part of your life will not get rid of your fatigue.  I mean maybe one part may be more directly responsible than others but I think it has to do with your life as a whole.  You have to modify everything you do to cure this disease.

So in no particular order.

Exercise – Maybe it’s time to cut down one part of your exercise regimen or change it up so you focus on another exercise.  Then again maybe you’ve not been getting enough exercise.  Add up all your weekly exercise hours and think to yourself “Is this too much or not enough?”

Diet – We all eat crap.  Sometimes it’s unavoidable.  You get invited out to too many meals with clients or family or friends.  Sometimes we indulge in a little treat and before you know it that treat becomes a regular meal.  Sometimes you find yourself eating “lunch” at 3PM and dinner at 10PM.  Try to exercise a little diet discipline.  On the other hand eating the same healthy foods all the time may make your system acclimated to a certain energy level.  Shake up your routine.

Work – The 40 hour work week is a poor joke to those who want to get ahead.  But 80 or even 100 hour weeks?  Come on!  Realize that there are only 168 hours in a week.  At some point in each day the line has to be drawn and that line cannot be crossed for anything.

Other work – You may have some outside interests or some other venture going on outside of work.  The same advice from above applies.  Remember that this was supposed to be a side project not the main focus of your life.  Treat it accordingly

Personal life – The main problem here is lending too much weight to this aspect of life. Sometimes you may have a problem in this aspect of your life and this bleeds over into other parts of your life.  You have to either address this problem or compartmentalize it.  Although I don’t advise doing the latter too much as it will inevitably escape out.  The other problem concerning personal life is that sometimes you don’t have one.  Focusing on work or exercise too much will over time lead to a hypnotic like state where you really don’t what you’re doing.  Break up the monotony.  Take time to do something pointless just for the sake of doing something pointless.  See some friends, talk to complete strangers.  Get another point of view in your life.

None of these suggestions will work on their own.  Rather it will be a combination of efforts in several different fields at various levels of intensity all working in concert to keep you balanced and working at the optimum level of efficiency.  There’s no one solution or one single therapy that will work universally.  What worked last year may not work this year.

All that I can advise is to keep vigilant and constantly reassess your personal needs with relation to your life.

 

Posted in: diet, environment, exercise, health, illness, life in general, rest, thought

Running past the app

December 25, 2014 7:07 AM , Leave a Comment ,

When I began trying to get fit I knew that I would need something to gauge my level of health.  This was around 4 years ago and the last time I had been in a gym or run a lap was over a decade earlier.  So I was starting from scratch and hadn’t a clue about anything, not even about how unhealthy I was.

After reading some books and websites, and then consulting a trainer I decided that walking and running would be where I would start my fitness crusade.  The general consensus was that in order to start getting healthy that I would need to walk at least 10,000 steps per day.  So I would need a pedometer, a little device to count my steps.

Most pedometers I’d seen were in the 40 to 100 dollar range.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make that much of an investment in something I might drop a week later.  Remember, this is at the beginning of the process and I was not all that sure of things at the time.

I was in a dollar store picking up some cheap batteries and next to the batteries was a pedometer.  A little cheap plastic device with a digital counter and a start and stop button and nothing else.  This was the most primitive type of pedometer, a pendulum pedometer.  Basically anytime you shake it back and forth you cause it to tick off one more step.  You could vigorously shake it in your hand for a minute and tick off a couple hundred “steps”.  The price was right and for my purpose it was perfect.

The next day I clipped it on and went through my normal day and lo and behold I barely took a thousand steps in a day. Depressing but eye-opening.  I took the pedometer for a few test walks and found what it took to get to 10,000 steps and did it.  After that I got a better sense of things and stopped using it.

A year or so later I stepped up the game and bought a pedometer watch.  It was much more accurate than the previous pedometer and could calculate distances and give me miles per hour for when I did run.  But I never really took to it.  After a couple of months I stopped using it.

My next couple of years were about building up my fitness habits.  I wasn’t really looking into better performance but just building up the  routine to make it habitual within myself.

But in 2013 I got a new smartphone that had a built-in fitness app.  This app used the phone’s built-in GPS application to plot my running routes and give me the amount of time I spent running and the distance covered.  This was quite handy as I could strap it onto my arm and not even have to set it up.  Just go and run and let the app do its thing.

I used it for over a year and watched my daily distance run over time grow and grow.  If I missed a day the app would show that on a bar graph and tell me how my average compared to previous months.  A handy motivational tool.

Then one day someone at the developer decided to update the app and erased all my records for the last 15 months.  In the blink of an eye all that hard work was gone.

Stunned doesn’t cover it.  Angry?  yes, a bit.  The new app works but I now have to log in before each exercise.  Not as automatic as I’d been used to before.  On top of this I now have to store my results on a cloud based app where it’s vulnerable to hacking.  I know, not a huge deal but still, why couldn’t it be stored on my phone.  Not the same easy experience that I was used to.

Along with this development I had been in a bit of a funk about my running lately.  I’d been missing days and doing less and this whole app mess didn’t help things.

I went on vacation and realized how much more I needed to do.  The vacation allowed me to set my goals for the coming year and one thing I realized is that the fitness doesn’t depend on the technology to work.  All the apps, and the watches, and the fitness bands are great but at the end of the day they don’t do the work for you, you do.

So the day after I came back I went out and just ran my regular route without the phone.  I’ve been running every day since that without needing to be prodded.  My fitness goals have been set and I’ve already contacted my new trainer to begin working out in the new year.

The technology was a good way to get back to where I needed to be in my life but it’s not the most crucial aspect of my fitness.  The point of it all is to feel better and to become the person that I want to be and no device will do that for me.

Posted in: activities, exercise, goals, health, running, technology

My routes

November 7, 2014 7:04 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I decided to share my walking and running routes for the past four years.

Mainly this is an excuse to air out my map making skills.  If you ever wondered what geographers do for fun, well…. this isn’t it.  I was using my mapping tools at work when this idea for a blog popped up in my mind.  By the way if you don’t have it yet, get Google Earth.  it’s a great little mapping tool.  Very easy to use and the basic version is free.

I started out with a mind-blowing 1-mile walk at night.  It took me half an hour and I came back sweating and breathing hard but it was a start.

start-9tenths

Then I “discovered” Hershey park and upped my game to 2 and a half miles of walking.  I would drive to the park and walk the route and within a month I had torn some tissue in my hip.  Any attempt at running was painful to say the least.  So I had to walk this route for 6 months.

park-2point4

My next progression was walking to the park rather than driving.  Up to 4 miles now but still walking.  Taking a few short sprints here and there and testing out my hip.

park-4

I hate taking the same route up and then back so for my next step up I completed a loop round the park.  Up to five miles now.  Still mostly walking but jogging here and there putting together a half mile here, a quarter-mile there.  Eventually segments would merge together.  One nondescript Saturday morning I took a chance and ran the whole course.  I actually did a victory loop at the end.

park-5

My daily run has now settled to about six and half miles.  I keep a couple of different routes to keep from getting bored.

standard-sixfive

standard-sixfive-2

If I wake up late I use my “emergency” route.  A quick 4 mile course that I can finish in less than an hour and still feel that I’ve accomplished something for the day.

emergency-four

On the other hand if I wake up early I go for my 8 mile route.  Took some creative routing to get it up to 8 miles.

challenge-8

Finally there’s the 16 miler.  I have failed horribly on this route twice.  I get around 13 to 14 miles before I have to walk or rather hobble home.  If I ever hope to run a marathon I need to achieve this first.  I  think I need to work up to it.  But I’m in no rush.

unachieved-16

What is your running regimen?

Posted in: exercise, life in general, running

the price

October 30, 2014 6:27 AM , 2 Comments ,

How can my arms feel like both limp spaghetti strands and like lead weights at the same time?

The plan sort of took shape about four years ago.  The general idea was to get back into some sort of shape after decades of neglect.  The first phase which I must say that I’ve thoroughly mastered, was the walking and then running phase.

This was where the heavy work of weight loss was to be done.  For the most part that has been accomplished.  From an all time high of 292 pounds I have reduced down to 184 pounds and still counting.  Right now I am probably at the tail end of what I can accomplish through running.  I will probably continue to lose weight but I won’t be able to garner as much benefit through running anymore.

The second phase, and what has turned out to be the harder phase, the upper body and torso phase began this year.  Exercises to increase muscle mass, exercises to burn fat, exercises to increase flexibility.  So far it hasn’t gone very well.

Let me be clear.  I am not expecting to look like some sort of body builder at the end of this process.  My philosophy behind this fitness plan is somewhat similar to the train of thought that I took when purchasing my Dodge Charger.  I was not looking for a car to go out racing every weekend but at the same time I did want a car that would have the muscle to get around other traffic when and if necessary.  In the same way I don’t expect to be overly muscled at the end of this process but to definitely have the strength and flexibility necessary for whatever eventuality arises.

Unfortunately (or maybe I should say fortunately) you can’t just go out and buy a body like that from a showroom.  You have to be willing to put in the price in both time and sweat.

First I had several abortive attempts to self start the process and those sputtered to a halt after a week or two.  Then after I realized that I needed someone to keep me on course I went looking for a trainer.  Apparently a much harder chore than at first blush.

I found several ads for trainers in the local papers and websites but the offers ranged from fairly clueless people who seemed to know less than I did to die-hard workout fanatics that would have me exercising 24 hours a day.  The local health store manager offered to connect me to a trainer he knew but the trainer never called back.  Finally I got a trainer through a local gym but things didn’t work out after a month.

So I’m almost back to square one.  I know a little more about the process than when I first started and I have made some inroads into forcing myself to work out 4 times a week without excuses but I know that I am all over the place.  I need to be more focused.

The plan right now is to first of all continue working out.  Some sort of exercise is better than nothing after all.  Next to re-double my efforts and find that right guide to get me on track.  Lastly to carry on.

The plan is working.  It’s not going to be one of those overnight success stories but it will succeed.

Posted in: exercise, habits, health, life in general, plans

forced discipline

August 19, 2014 6:50 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Way back when I started on my long winding path towards fitness I knew that I had no clue as to how I should proceed.  I knew I felt bad all the time.  That was a start but as far as anything else I hadn’t a clue.  I did some online research and concluded that my feet would be the primary instruments of weight loss.  But how far should I walk or run or jog?  Again not a clue.

So I determined that I needed a pedometer.  A simple little device that counts your steps.  A very basic tool.  I found a very cheaply made pedometer at a dollar store and clipped it on.  I wasn’t expecting much.  Just to get an idea of how much distance I covered in a day.  The results were startling.

I had no idea that I was that sedentary.  In the course of a day I didn’t even cover a mile!  The health guidelines I looked up online said I should cover at least 5 if not 6 miles per day.  The cheap little pedometer inspired radical changes in my behavior and diet.

When I got more into fitness I bought a pedometer watch to track my heart rate, distance, and steps taken.  I found it somewhat useful though limiting.

Years later I got a new smartphone with a fitness app.  Since most smartphones now have accelerometers and access to location devices, they can be used for fitness applications.  As it’s also a phone and a web device I found it pretty much irresistible not to carry it on my runs.  In the last year I have been using it to keep up with my general health trends.

You see, that’s what I need more than anything.  It has been suggested to me that I get devices like the Fitbit bracelet to more accurately track my workouts but I see that as overkill and potentially harmful.

I don’t really need or want to track every calorie I burn or eat.  I think that causes people to obsess on the tiny details and not focus on the overall health program.  What helps me more is to know that my health trends are generally going in the “right” direction and I find that it motivates you just enough without becoming a smothering presence in the back of my mind.

I really believe that with this that I can achieve my goals in time.  I may not do it in the smallest amount of time but I will get there.

Posted in: exercise, goals, habits, life in general

wrung out

August 11, 2014 6:39 AM , Leave a Comment ,

When August comes to Houston you can’t even get relief from the heat and humidity at 4 in the morning.  It’s pitch black and the city has had almost the entire night to cool off but once I open the door to step outside I immediately feel the stifling humidity that we’re notorious for.

More like an overwhelming sweater that covers your body than anything else.  You feel uncomfortable from the moment you step into it and you won’t feel better till you’re out of it but there’s nothing to be done but get this run done and over with.

pad, pad, pad, pad.

Your feet beat out a metronome like pace down the dark and lonely streets.  Occasionally a car may pass.  Usually it’s a paper delivery truck making the morning rounds.  Maybe it’s someone getting to work early to get ahead on their work, maybe it’s someone coming home after some personal drama.

Darkness and more darkness hides things here and there.  A night heron carefully walks round someone’s lawn and eyes me suspiciously till I pass by and am no longer a danger.  A cat lounges on the trunk of an old Chevy parked out on the street.  Just barely opening up his eyes to acknowledge my presence and then slipping back into an easy slumber.  A spider has carefully and meticulously woven an intricate lattice calculated to snare a juicy morsel.  Instead the web falls victim to some stumbling oaf that tears hours of good quality weaving and ruins an entire night’s efforts.

Once the sun rises and rules the land with an iron fist all of these characters will hide back in the shadows till night falls once again.  The streets will be even emptier of life.

I run off the street and enter the park.  The city sounds fade into the distance and the last rays of light from the street lamps fade behind me.  I plunge into total silence and darkness.  I tear through a couple more small spider webs.  Proof that no one has been here for hours at least.  In the 4th largest city in America I am alone.  Nevertheless I still get the creepy feeling that just out of my range of vision that someone is out there.

I hear a rustle and I stop breathing.  My ears straining to hear the slightest noise.  I don’t even think that my heart is beating.

nothing.

Nothing but the rhythmic patter of my footsteps.

The long road home.  A few more cars on the roads.  Big street lights lighting the way.  Not so long ago I would have been achy and tired by this point.  Now it’s all too routine.  The only outward sign of my effort is the sweat.

I don’t just sweat a little.  A virtual cascade of sweat pours off me.  The humidity again.

The last few streets.  I look up into the eastern sky.  Venus is clearly visible above the horizon.  Soon the sun will join it.  I could physically tackle another mile or two but I have to be at work soon.

I walk in the door and the coolness of the house hits me in my soaking wet clothes.  An instant chill.  I can hear the rustle of the damp cloth as I go upstairs. My knees are stiff as I bend over to untie my shoes.  Have to stretch the kinks out.

I try to take off my sticky wet clothes and they refuse to come off.  Finally I have to peel them off.  My clothes are literally soaked and dripping wet just as if I had just fallen into a pool.

I wring them out in the tub and see a cascade of sweat pour off of them.  The shower feels wonderful after all of that.

Now I am ready to take on the rest of the day.

Posted in: exercise, running

ebb and flow

July 30, 2014 7:11 AM , Leave a Comment ,

3:43 AM

I don’t want to do this.  I just want to skip today and sleep late.  Sit up in bed.  What will it hurt to skip a couple of days.

Sigh

I get up and start changing into my running gear

 

6:57 PM

I finished a chapter last week and I have no clue as to where to take the story now.

Sit and stare, sit and stare.  Nothing comes to mind.

Pace the room, read a magazine, look at a website.  Still nothing.  I start typing something.  anything.  Hope that a story will resolve itself from the effort.

 

9:01 AM

A pile of emails.  Requests, inquiries, return emails, phone messages.  So much to do.  Where to start?  How to start?  Where will I get the enthusiasm to tackle it all?  Start, one email at a time.

 

Energy is like that.  Some days you spring out of bed, fresh as a daisy.  Other days not so much.  When you’re young you have that energy to spare and you can disregard those low energy days.  As you age it gets more difficult.  Exercise and a good diet can help mitigate that to an extent but you also have to admit that sometimes it’s overwhelming.

But the thing is that you can’t give in to the lethargy.  Nothing good comes out of that.  You slip on one day and then another and soon you’ve got a bad habit going.  So you soldier on as best as possible.  If you’ve built up a routine over the years this will help you carry on during these spells of low energy.  Force of habit is a good motivator.  But what will get you across is just a sheer stubborn will not to give in.

You have to stand up straight and continue on regardless of how low on energy you feel.  No dramatic declarations of intent, no promises of rest as a reward at the end.  Just a determination to get things done.

Posted in: energy, exercise, goals, health, motivation