Get Fit Slowly

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So, one day of logging everything that I ate is in the books. It’s only 7:40 in the evening, so I may have another cup of yogurt or another string cheese or something…But you get the idea. Taking a look at the bar graph and you’ll see that my diet is too high in fat and too low in protein, but the carbs are just about right. It’s so hard for me to find easy to eat high protein foods that don’t involve throwing a steak on the grill. I might have to investigate some protein powder supplementation. What do you guys do to get your protein?

I also ran 4 miles in 36 minutes on my treadmill and immediately ate a handful of nuts and a string cheese to replenish the calories lost.  I don’t think I ate enough today, but I still feel like I was eating all day.  That’s a good thing though, right?

I just read a recent article in the LA Times that provided a link between a lack of sleep and an increased risk of artery hardening.  According to the article, over a 5 year study, 27% of people who slept less than 5 hours a night had coronary artery thickening.  12% of those who slept between 5 and 7 hours a night had hardening while only 6% of those who slept more than 7 hours per night had artery hardening.

Researchers aren’t sure as to the reason behind the correlation.  However, they do speculate as to some possible reasons.  First, your blood pressure is higher when you’re awake.  If you spend more time awake than you should, then your average blood pressure may be high enough to cause some hardening of your arteries.  Another possible reason may be due to stress.  Stressed out people tend to sleep less, eat poorly, and exercise less.  All of these things also contribute to artery hardening.  Stress also increases blood pressure and levels of a hormone called cortisol which has been shown to cause similar effects.

Whether or not this study is repeated later–it was a very small study that definitely needs some more work–getting enough sleep is a very important aspect of being fit.  Inadequate sleep has been linked to health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.  Health benefits aside, I like to get enough sleep for one simple reason.  I like to sleep!

I guess I’ve been silent long enough. That time of the year is hear again. It seems everyone under the sun–from fitness blogs, to news agencies, to the local rag–all have articles where people are listing their New Year’s Resolutions. Inevitably, they deal with diet, health and fitness. I’ve read somewhere that 50% of resolutions fail within the first month and that they mainly do so because people aren’t specific enough with their goals and they don’t set up a plausible plan of action (POA) to achieve said goals. Goals such as I’d like to lose weight, get in better shape, or become a better person don’t have a lot of teeth to them and so they’re easy to forget about. I don’t want to fall in to that trap so I’m going to tell you about a few very specific goals I have for the upcoming year. But first, let’s talk about some of the progress I’ve made. In the past year I’ve:

• lost 22 pounds
• decreased my body fat by 6%
• went from a non-runner to a frequent runner
• competed in my first 10K race and 2 other organized races of shorter distances
• took my shirt off at the beach and didn’t worry about it

I didn’t accomplish all of the goals that I set for myself in 2008.  For example, I thought I would have reached my goal weight by this time.  Instead, I’m only about half way there.  I also would have liked to have been a little more consistent with my blog posting last year.  I have yet to figure out how to work ahead!  Everything I write is for today, maybe for tomorrow, but never for the days or even weeks after.  I’d like to get to the point where I spend a few hours blogging and get the weeks posts completed.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but I can definitely improve on it.

So how about 2009?  Here are the fitness goals that I’d like to accomplish before the end of the year:

• lose another 17 pounds to get down to 175 pounds
• drop another 6% of body fat to get down to 18%
• complete a 1/2 marathon in under 2 hours

Here’s my POA so that my goals don’t fall by the way side during the first month.  According to the many calorie calculators available online, I need about 2600-2900 calories/day to maintain my current weight.  In order to drop a pound/week, I need to create a daily 500 calorie deficit.  So I’m going to shoot for 2000 calories per day.  I’m going to keep track of my calories using fitday.com.  And after workouts, I plan on immediately replenishing burned calories with a high quality snack that contains both a dairy product and a protein.

Dropping body fat is going to be the hardest of my goals.  Staying within my 2000 calorie budget, eating low fat foods, high quality carbs, and lots of proteins will be my diet plan.  Meanwhile, back at the gym, I plan on rehiring a personal trainer to meet with every other week.  Once a month, I want my body fat measured.  I also want him to give me totally different, high intensity weightlifting and cardio workout every other week that will raise my heart rate, build muscle mass, and keep my body guessing.  After I’ve dropped some weight and built some muscle mass, I’ll ask him to coach me up on the proper form of all the exercises in the stronglifts 5X5 program.

My final goal for the year will probably be the easiest for me to complete.  To complete this goal, I have to run a 9:10 min/mile pace for 13.1 miles.  If I find a relatively flat course to run, I think that I can accomplish this goal pretty easily.

Always keeping these goals in my mind will help me have another productive year on the fitness front.  I don’t think I’ve ever had two good years in a row–I’m confident that I can do it this time!

At the start of 2008, I set an ambitious goal for myself. I weighed 207 pounds with 33% body fat. I decided that I wanted to lose 40 pounds by the end of the year. It didn’t happen.

First of all, it took me a long time to get started toward my fitness goals. I mostly sat around and wrote about getting fit instead of doing anything about it. It wasn’t until a Get Fit Slowly reader prodded me into action that I was able to get off my butt and get to the gym.

Two steps forward, one step back
For several months, I did well. I exercised. I tried to watch my food intake. (I ate healthfully for me, but that’s not saying a lot.) By mid-summer, I had dropped 20 pounds and was down to 26% body fat.

Then, of course, I injured myself while training for the marathon. Several of you &madsh; most notably Greenman2001 — cautioned me that I was ignoring the “slowly” part of my mantra. I didn’t heed your warnings. Instead, I kept plowing ahead.

When a family health crisis occurred and my nagging injury did not improve, I lost my focus. I was able to tread water for a couple of months, but by November I was starting to put on weight. Now, at the end of the year, I’m back up to 197 pounds and 31% body fat.

It would be easy to become frustrated by this turn of events. Actually, however, I’m pleased. Sure, I wish I’d kept off the weight I’d lost, but look at the net gain for 2008. I lost 10 pounds. That’s not a lot, I know, and my current habits are poor, but it is progress.

A brand new day
My goal for 2009 is more modest than 2008. I’m not going to try to lose 40 pounds. I’m going to try to lose 20. I know I can do it. I’d done it by mid-year last year. If I can get down to 177, then I only have to maintain for the year to meet the goal. More than that, however, I want to change my diet so it’s healthier still. (I’m eating better than I was at the start of 2008, but still have my weaknesses.)

I went to the gym yesterday to renew my membership. As soon as I’m finished writing this, I’ll get out of bed, put on my gym clothes, and exercise for the first time in a month. It’s going to feel good.

What about you? Did you meet your fitness goals for 2008? Whether you did or you didn’t, are you happy with your progress? What are your objectives for 2009?

Though I may not post as often in the coming months, I’ll still be here, and I still plan to share my progress. I hope you’ll join me.

If there were two aspects of my life that my wife would like me to improve upon they would be my desire to pay attention to details (see: anal retentive) and my desire to be more of a runner.

In fact, the other day, Pam came up to me out of the blue and said, “Hey Mac…I just read in Runner’s World that some research group qualifies you as a runner if you run 50 or more times per year. Are you a runner?”

I responded emphatically with a quick “Absolutely, I’m a runner!” There are two things about this that surprised me. First off, until this year, I never would have even considered wanting to be labeled as a runner. But I have to admit, I’m rather proud of the fact that I’m a runner. At least in some research groups eyes anyway. But I was also very surprised at how quickly and definitively I responded to the question and at how much pride I have in saying that I’m a runner.

A few seconds later, Pam continued…”It says here that you’re a frequent runner if you run over 100 times per year. Are you a frequent runner?”

This time I paused and thought a bit. I don’t really know the answer, so I responded something about how I’m probably flirting with becoming a frequent runner. I’ve kept pretty good records of all my workouts this year, so I could probably go back and count my runs and get a pretty good estimation of how many runs I’ve completed. But that would be, well, a little bit anal retentive. We can’t have that now can we?

It’s been a long time since we’ve posted anything. Needless to say, when things get busy for JD and me, this blog often gets put on the back burner. Don’t get me wrong, there has been a lot of stuff to write about; I’ll try to catch you all up in my life and fitness endeavors.

Holiday travel
Pam and I wanted to get down to Southern California during the holidays so that we could visit with our friends and families during this time of the year. But we also wanted to be home for Christmas because well, there’s nothing quite like being at home on Christmas morning–the hot cup of coffee, the warm fire, the smell of the tree, and the excitement of the kids. So, pre-Christmas, we headed down to L.A. to visit the aforementioned friends and family. Upon leaving, we had two inches of snow on the ground. Pulling out of the driveway, I hastily threw the tire chains in the back of the van and we waved a goodbye to Megan and Pam’s dirty snowman. We spent a wonderful 9 days in L.A. and then we returned home to Salem (which may as well have been the north pole). It took us about 4.5 hours over two days to make it 70 miles from the airport in Portland to our hotel in Salem. Hotel? Yep, upon our arrival, we learned that our house had been without power for the three days prior due to all the wind, and ice. We finally made it home to a modern house, complete with electricity and running water, on the Tuesday before Christmas. All of our plans for baking and delivering cookies to our friends were out the window and we were dashing from place to place trying to finish our last minute shopping, wrapping, and house preparations for the visit from Pam’s sister’s family AND from Santa Claus too! It was a very hectic couple of days, but we made it.

Weight management
Upon arrival back at home, I was dreading the scale. But that Tuesday afternoon, I forced myself to step on it and was only mildly disappointed. During the previous 11 days, I only exercised one time! The very first day in L.A., I ran 3.5 miles. After that however, I made poor choices and decided that eating and socializing were more important than exercising. I did spend one day walking all over Disneyland while carrying/pushing Megan in the stroller. And I did play golf one day, but I drove in a cart so that doesn’t count. So my weight went up from 191 to 194.5 in 11 days. Since my return home, I’ve gotten my eating under control and today I went back to the gym. This morning the scale was back down to 191.8. So I’m heading back in the right direction.

Fitness Levels
I don’t have a lot of fitness progress to mention. Back in L.A. when I went on my 3.5 mile run, I ran very fast for me. The first mile was uphill and I ran it in about 9 minutes. but the last 2.5 miles was a very gradual downhill and I ran my first sub-7 minute mile ever. The other 1.5 miles were completed in under 12 minutes. I felt really good on those last 2.5 and really crappy on the first mile. Then today at the gym, I ran for three miles and lifted for 30 minutes. I’m already sore, but I feel like I’m ready and motivated to get back on the lifting program. I’m not sure about stronglifts yet as I’m really afraid for my back, but I will be lifting again starting now.

GFS Changes
JD and I are struggling with the identity of GFS. All along, we’ve meant for GFS to be solely a motivational tool to keep us working towards our goals. By writing about our endeavors, and having you all read about them, we feel like we have someone to hold us accountable for our actions. It works great and we’ve been very successful in our fitness progress. But as our readership increased, we both have started to feel the pressure of producing higher quality pieces–and more of them. We have tried to stick to an everyday posting schedule, but things inevitably come up and the schedule falls by the wayside. What does all of this mean? I’m not sure yet. This much I do know. We’ll keep working on and reporting about our fitness progress and hopefully you all will continue reading and holding us accountable.

“Today’s the day I’m turning it around,” I told Mac last Monday. “I’m ready to re-dedicate myself to fitness. I’m ready to re-dedicate myself to Get Fit Slowly.” In my mind, I was already marking the date: twelve eight oh eight.

It’s not that I had descended into terrible habits. I’m doing a decent job of portion control. My food choices are better than they have been in years (though still not great, by most measures). I may not be exercising as much as I should, but I’ve managed to maintain my weight. Still, it had been over a month since I’d done regular exercise, and I wanted to get back to it.

But, hours after talking with Mac, I was sick. I had a fever. I was nauseated. All of my grand plans went out the window as I sat around for four days trying to recover. And then our weekend was busy. And then Portland had a rare snow storm.

“I’m so frustrated,” I told Kris. “I want to exercise, but I can’t. It’s too cold. The roads are icy.”

“Dance,” she told me. She knows that I love playing Dance Dance Revolution on the Wii, and that it’s excellent aerobic exercise. “Dance. But try not to knock the ornaments off the tree.” (She says that when I do play Dance Dance, it’s more like Stomp Stomp.)

I considered Kris’ suggestion but said, “Eh…” And I did nothing. That’s when I knew: I’d fallen prey to inertia.

Inertia can be your best friend — or your worst enemy. When you’re eating well, when you’re exercising regularly, it’s easier to continue making smart choices. Your inertia carries you forward, helping you to overcome those little treats or the days off.

But when you’ve been eating poorly, when you have not been exercising, inertia works against you. You become accustomed to sitting on the couch, watching television, or writing your blog. It becomes almost impossible to make the right choice.

As a veteran of the Inertial Wars, I’ve developed a few tricks for overcoming the do-nothing habit:

• Just do it. The key to overcoming a sedentary lifestyle (or poor eating habits) is just to start. Don’t set a magical date sometime in the future. (Right now, January 1st is tempting.) Start now. Putting your goals off two weeks just allows the inertia to build.
• Make small progress. You don’t have to go out the door and run a marathon. When speaking with Lauren Muney recently, she challenged some assumptions I had developed. I had decided that exercise wasn’t worth the trouble unless I was doing a lot of it. That’s not true. She helped me to see that just getting out the door and going for a walk around the block is a start. It’s better than nothing.
• Don’t aim for perfection. When you’re overcoming the inertia, your goal isn’t to be perfect. Your goal is to re-develop the good habits you’ve had in the past. You want to do something, no matter how small. Today, for me, that means Dance Dance Revolution. It’s not the best exercise, but it’s something.
• Tell somebody about it. When you’re trying to change a habit, your friends and family can be a valuable resource. Let them know that you’re trying to exercise and eat right, and ask them to help. It’s as if you have a group of people that can help nudge you along, helping you to maintain your forward motion when your energy begins to flag.
• Take it one day at a time. Most of all, don’t overwhelm yourself with the long view. Not at first. Goals are important, yes, but when you’re working to overcome inertia, it’s most important to just get out there every day and make the right choices. Don’t let yourself be weighed down by how far you have to go. Just focus on one step at a time.

The best way to fight the bad inertia, of course, is to try to avoid the situation in the first place. If you are eating well and exercising regularly, make it a point to maintain those habits. It doesn’t hurt to take a day or two off, but be on guard for situations that might cause you to lose momentum: holidays, vacations, illnesses, injuries. When you see a potential derailment approaching, make a commitment to yourself to get on track as soon as possible.

As for myself, it’s time for me to stop writing this post and to go get lost in the joys of DDR. I love that game. It makes me sweat.

On several occasions, I’ve heard that drinking diet sodas may be detrimental to those who are trying to lose weight. But I’ve never given it much thought. To me, a calorie counter, it makes more sense to drink a soda with 0 calories than a soda with 100 calories.

But new research suggests that I want that soda because I’m craving the very thing that is taken out of the soda when it becomes a diet soda–SUGAR. In a February study by the American Psychological Association, rats that were fed yogurt with glucose ate less calories than those that were fed yogurt with saccharin.

The reason for this isn’t entirely evident yet, but researchers tend to think that if you crave sugar and eat something sweet that doesn’t contain it, you confuse your body. You want the sugar so badly, that you keep eating until you get it. In the process, you may eat more calories than you otherwise would have if you let yourself drink that regular soda in the first place.

But some people still swear by sugar substitutes: they help them lose weight by limiting the number of calories they eat and that their cravings are satisfied by these fake sugars. So I say do what works for you, but you may want to reconsider those diet foods if you’re not losing weight as fast as you’d like to. Remember, it’s OK to eat everything in moderation–even sugar.

Photo Credit

My parents’ pantry worries me. Whenever we go visit, I struggle with food. I also realize that despite my successes with losing weight and exercising more over the past 14 months, I am still addicted to food. I’ve been here 24 hours and I’ve opened cupboard doors and kitchen drawers countless times, stared at food that I don’t need to be eating for many reasons–the biggest one being that I’m not even remotely hungry.

So far, I’ve been doing well and have limited my intake of junk food. But I still WANT to eat it. I love crappy junk food and if it’s any where near me, I’m drawn to it like a magnet. Let’s face it, the only reason I don’t eat a lot of cookies, crackers, and candies at home is because I don’t want my family to eat them and so I rarely buy them.

So yeah, I’ve made tremendous strides. I’m healthier, lighter, fitter, firmer, and more disciplined than I’ve been in a very long time. But I have a lot of work to do. If I don’t find a way to curb my cravings for foods that have absolutely no nutritional value, at some point I’ll fail. I don’t want to fail, but I don’t want to have to battle food this hard for the rest of my life either. I really want to look at that cookie in the cupboard, and then choose the orange in the fruit bowl because that’s what I want to eat–not what I should eat. Maybe some day, but not today.

Photo Credit

Here’s a few posts from the fitness health network. Both weight ladder and fat man have written a few posts recently that I can really relate too.

I frequently write about how important it is to ramp up your metabolism. Of course, the most proven method of doing this is trading fat (which isn’t very metabolically active) for muscle (which is very metabolically active).

One of the few things I remember from my psychology classes is in college is that “genes + environment = behavior.” Israel wonders if being fat is in our DNA. Of course the answer to this question is yes. And no. The post also has some interesting perspectives on the usefulness of carrying extra fat.

And finally, weight ladder gives a nice synopsis ofwhat eating healthy is. Go check it out.

I’ll try and come up with some more interesting posts next week…I promise