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Finding Time to Work Out

Getting out hiking is just one way to improve health and life.

I consider myself a gym rat. That is, if I had the time and fewer responsibilities, I would be spending maybe a couple of hours a day working out. That would include a good 35-45 minutes of aerobic work and then some strength training exercises. As it is, I manage to get to the gym 3-5 times a week for roughly an hour.
Things get complicated though when work decides to change starting times. Prior to last week, I was working out after work. This was affected by things such as having to work overtime. I could work up to a half hour of overtime and still do much of my workout. However, they changed our work schedule and now I go in an hour later. No working out after work. Now I have to get up at 5:00 and basically head straight to the gym. I'm not used to getting my body awake and moving at that time of day.
Ultimately it's a better fit if I can do it, because it tends to regiment me. They have been talking though about changing time again to coming in a half hour earlier. This would make it tough to get to the gym either before work or after.
The thing is, making time or finding time is the key to any ultimate success, and no matter what happens, I will get to the gym somehow.

Diet and Longevity

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the relative healthiness of white bread as opposed to whole grain breads. Her thought was that it that there wasn't much difference to the relative nutritional content of both breads. After researching that, I found that most "experts" agree. It appears that with the fortified flours that are used in white bread these days, there isn't much nutritional difference. The main difference appears to be in fiber content, and of course, you can get enough fiber elsewhere, and maybe we shouldn't be eating all that much bread in the first place. But what if we do? What kind of bread is best?

I like to look at real world examples for my healthy choices and one of the best examples of a healthy lifestyle was Jack Lalanne. Lalanne was prominent health guru of the 20th century. He is known for his feats of strength and vigor well into his old age. One of his favorite sayings was "if man made it, don't eat it", emphasizing eating food that were as close to nature as you could get them.

If we apply this to bread, then whole grain breads are healthier, and grains themselves, even better.

That kind of thing is emphasized over and over again in studies of the longest-lived peoples on earth. Simple foods, no preservatives or additives, lots of veggies and fruits. It's that simple.

Exercise as a Longevity Factor

Most people are aware that exercise prolongs life, or at least, prolongs how long you will live in good health. It doesn't need to be going to the gym. I recently read about a 105 year old man who spent much of his time dancing. Hiking, walking, jumping around in your yard, chasing your spouse around the room--all of these things add up to a long and healthy life, provided you don't catch some dreadful illness. However, eating right and exercise help even in the case of cancers and some other diseases. They give your body a chance to fight back. We know that not all illnesses can be helped by good nutrition and exercise, but in many cases, they can.

One Final Thought

Good relationships such as friendships and marriage are also key to longevity. Try to find good associations and get together frequently. Not only will you increase your likelihood of living longer, it will be a blessing in your life.

Fitness goals: What are they and how do I reach them?

I used to have a lot of goals regarding fitness. Now, my only goal is to keep going. I do have a goal of a minimum of three days per week exercising, and a goal to eat nutritiously. All of this in order to maintain my health for as long as possible, or rather to do everything in my power to live a long, healthy life.
Every once in a while, I calculate how all of that is going. I decided to do that for the month of May. Examining my eating habits was rather easy. I asked myself how often I eat healthy versus unhealthy. Most days of may, I had a very nutritious smoothie for breakfast. My smoothie includes the following: plain whole milk yogurt, goat milk, spinach, carrots, blueberries, eggs, banana, turmeric, and now nearly daily--chia seeds. Often I include, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, or some other veggies. That's a very healthy smoothie and I have it for breakfast nearly every day. I would say I skip it once a week and on those days I have something else healthy, like oatmeal with blueberries, yogurt, turmeric, and real maple syrup for sweetening.
I take a few supplements as well, mostly to help with blood pressure control. L-Argenine, CoQ10, some super Resveratrol combination thing, and a multi-vitamin. I drink a cup of green tea at least five days per week.
For in between meals, I have Clif Bars, which are packed with nutrition. Sometimes I break down and get some street tacos or other fun stuff for meals. Sometimes even cheesecake or pie. I don't believe that anyone should forego everything tasty and wonderful.
So I think I'm doing far better than the average person on eating well. I am meeting my goals there.

As far as exercise goes, I do a variety of things to try and maintain a healthy body weight and good fitness levels. I make it to the gym, usually around four times per week. I take a walk on Sundays. I go hiking when I can.

My gym routine includes exercises for cardiovascular fitness, that is, aerobic exercise, and also strength training. My main aerobic exercise right now is stair climbing, but sometimes I am too exhausted and finish up with treadmill walking. Every so often, I start on the stair climbing machine and within 1-2 minutes realize that it's just not my day and head over to the treadmill to complete the allotted time. I generally exercise from 30 to 45 minutes on the stairclimber/treadmill, depending on the day. Each piece of equipment has the capability to estimate how many calories are burned depending upon a person's age and body weight.
When I finish the aerobics I will go and do about 15-20 minutes of strength-training on a particular part of the body--chest and shoulders, legs, arms and back, abdominal/core. I rotate through one of these strength areas each time I go to the gym. Except when I don't. Sometimes it's all I can do to get through the aerobic workout. It is exhausting. I find though, that if I go more than a week without tackling a particular body area, the next time I do it, I am hurting much worse the next day. It never used to be like that in my youth. Sometimes I skip the strength-training part because I have worked late and I need to get home, either to make dinner, or to pick it up along the way.
That being said, I manage to kill it at the gym

Here's what I found out about my exercise results in May.

On the stair climber when I averaged both the days when I go to the gym and my days off, I do 67 floors per day, or 1139 steps. When I add in the calories spent on the stair climbing, the days of walking both on the treadmill and outside, and hiking (the one 6.8 mile hike I went on in May consumed 2750 calories alone) I burned off 13,722 calories during the month, an average of 443 per day, not counting the calories burned in the strength training.

I think I'm doing about as well as I can. And if I can do it, you can too. It takes very little time to eat better. You can improve your fitness by walking a little each day, but if you have access to an apparatus, like a stair climber, you can burn more calories in a shorter period of time. You can even do some great workouts in under five minutes with no equipment. Check this out:  I've tried it and it's killer!

So, no excuses! You'll feel better by doing something about your health. Go for it!

Thoughts on healthy lifestyles

As a self-described health nut, I'm always looking at ways to live healthier and happier--even into advanced age. Fitness has always been a big issue with me, and in fact I find myself frustrated about it way too often when the demands of my job and life as a caregiver affect my fitness plans, which they do frequently. Often also, in those fast-paced demanding days,  I find myself reaching for the easy thing to eat, instead of carefully planned and cooked meals. My lunches often end up as General Tso's Chicken along with some kind of pasta (though spinach pasta is part of the mix--or at least green pasta) with bits of broccoli in it.
That being said, I do put an immense amount of thought into doing what I can do easily to eat more healthy, and I investigate thoroughly the evidence for longevity and lifelong health that is evident in certain societies.
Which brings up something I just ran across today. I have done cursory investigation of the Paleo dieting regimen in the past and fairly recently discussed it with a fellow health enthusiast and was reminded that the Paleo diet ousts dairy products. The reason given for that is that humans eating dairy products is a relatively recent event in their eating lives. Recent meaning, only in the last 10,000 or so years have domesticated animals existed and prior to that, folks would have had to milk wild wildebeests and musk oxen--not a very pleasant sounding task.
My prior research into longevity though suggests that in one area of the world, goat's milk is a key contributor to that society's tendency toward long life. Dan Buettner's classic treatise on the subject, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest identifies goat's milk as one of the factors. This according to longevity studies of the Ikarians of Greece. Goat's milk apparently promotes healthy intestinal flora and is high in tryptophan, which is a stress-relieving hormone. See the book review here: Clickety-click
I concur with much of the Paleo dietary guidelines though. I'd add that the late exercise and diet guru Jack LaLanne believed in eating things that were as close to their natural state as possible. I firmly believe that eating that way plus having a killer exercise regimen let LaLanne live until he was over 96 and much of that very healthy--at the age of 70 he pulled seventy boats, some with people aboard, for a one mile swim.
Though I haven't yet reached LaLanne's proficiency at either fitness or dieting, I'm working hard at perfecting both. For breakfast most days of the week I make a smoothie filled with all kinds of good stuff. The mainstays include spinach, blueberries, carrots, raw eggs, bananas, and turmeric, though I occasionally throw in other greens like kale and am planning on trying beets soon. When I don't feel like making the smoothie, I have some oatmeal with blueberries, real maple syrup, and plain whole milk yogurt. When I really go off the road of my diet I will eat whole wheat toast with Crazy Richard's peanut butter (made with only peanuts) and a glass of whole milk. Whenever I miss my smoothie, I try to make it up later in the day. That doesn't mean I don't go AWOL every once in a while on my good eating habits. I do. But then I try to get back to what's good and healthy within a day or two of messing up.
That being said the second component of maximum health is a good exercise plan. I am convinced that exercise is just as key as a good diet is at helping someone maximize their potential for a long and healthy life. Right now I'm doing a variety of strength training exercises along with stair climbing for cardio. Often on my days off, I am hiking, skiing, or just getting outside and working for those stress relieving, emotional healing, life invigorating excursions that renew both body, mind, and soul. I won't be towing any boats across the bay any time soon, but I hope to lead a vigorous life well into my nineties, if not beyond.
Lastly, the keys to good healthy lifestyles include having good interpersonal relationships with family and friends, laughing a lot, and lots of hugs. That kind of thing I can get behind any day of the week.

Forty minutes of pain

My newest workout at the gym is what I call "Forty minutes of pain". It's really refreshing. What that involves is forty minutes on the stair climber. I have recently bumped this up to forty. It used to be thirty-eight, and I will still do shorter time periods when I don't feel up to the forty, or when my time doesn't allow me to complete forty minutes. But today, I did the forty and it was forty minutes of pain. I began the routine doing 71 steps per minute, then increased by 1 step every four minutes, until I got to 28 minutes, after which I increased by one step every three minutes. My goal was to burn off 700 calories. I didn't quite make the 700 by the end of the forty minutes, but after about 44 minutes (the last four part of the cool down) the calorie counter registered 700 calories burned. I also burned a few after the stairclimbers as I did my abdominal workout today. Here are the vital statistics:

Minutes: a little over 44
Floors: 191 (at about 17 steps per floor)
Steps: 3247
Calories burned: 700 (maybe 75 more doing the ab workout)

There's one more statistic that's worth noting:

Pieces of pie burned off: two

So there you have it, I have burned off several pieces of pie since Thanksgiving, but still haven't burned off all of the pie and other things I've eaten. Thus go the holidays. I also have a much harder time making it to the gym to do said workout from about mid-November through the end of the year, simply because my job as a mailman gets pretty crazy during that time period.

The bottom line is that forty minutes of pain is worth it to me so that I can do the things I love, which includes eating.

Today's keys for better health

I've recently been seeing a naturopath to try and figure out ways to lower my blood pressure without resorting to blood pressure meds. So far, so good. My last three measurements have been 110/62, 100/58, and 128/78. Those aren't bad readings. There is really no clear cut answer for what levels blood pressure measurements would be considered "low" other than how a person feels. If you have reading, like say, my middle one of 100/58, well that would typically be low, but not necessarily. It's more based upon whether or not you feel good. With low pressure you may feel dizzy or light headed. I felt none of those symptoms when I hit my lowest figure.

So what's helping me? I've been eating better. I have a smoothie for breakfast, try and eat less grains (the doc says it's not because they are bad for me, but because eating grains keeps us from eating veggies and fruit). I'm also avoiding foods with added salt, such as canned cream of mushroom, tomato, or cream of chicken. Though I still eat the occasional bad meal (yesterday I had chili cheese fries for lunch), I'm mixing in more lunches from home and progressing in a more positive direction--away from the fried foods in general, bringing tuna sandwiches to work, eating apples on my breaks etc.

I've also been doing things to control stress. Relaxing, deep breathing, controlling my own reactions to things.

My exercise levels have gone way down during the past couple of months due to being on the overtime list at work. I can only believe that once I'm back exercising like I should be, at the beginning of April at the latest, my health will improve even more. I will be able to go for a walk this morning while I'm waiting for Ann at her doc's appointment, and I will be skiing this afternoon, so it's not like I'm totally ignoring the exercise part.

So, here are the keys: avoid fast foods and extra salt intake, eat wholesome veggies and fruits, practice stress relief, exercise, drink plenty of water. A guy in my study group last night said that giving gratitude to God for the water as you're drinking it actually makes the water respond is a positive way and that studies have shown that. Though a cursory look found no studies to confirm this, it doesn't hurt to have an attitude of gratitude in all we do. A positive outlook, keyed by gratitude goes a long way to creating an atmosphere in which good health can flourish.

Life, Glen Frey, and the Eagles

A guy posted this on a Facebook page, about the Eagles Glen Frey who died yesterday,. I thought it was very good:

So, so sad! Way too young to die, 67 is not old but what we all have to realize is that you can die at 37 just as well as you can 67. It's not about getting old or your age, it's keeping your health strong and staying on top of it. That's all we can do. I beat Stage 9 cancer just a year and a half ago and it was a very fast moving rare aggressive cancer. Keeping positive, never be afraid, don't think about it or give it a second thought. Keep your spirit unbroken, be a warrior and say you won't beat me, and do all of the different treatments you have to do no matter how sick they make you and painful they are you have to make up your mind from the start and verbalize it out loud and say, "I will win, nothing is going to take me down, I'm not finished with my life here on this earth, my goals, dreams and what I intend to accomplish yet. I will not let anything stand in my way or leave this world until I'm ready and I'm done with what I set out to do." A strong mind and relentless spirit will carry you through the darkest of times. Always pay attention to changes in your body, listen to what it's trying to tell you if something doesn't feel right and hurry up and go get checked out. That is vital for survival! Fly with the angels Glenn, your music will live on here forever.

I'm committed to life. I'm committed to survival. We never know when it's our time to go, but one thing's for sure--we can fight the diseases that ravage us. We can eat right, work out, try to get enough sleep and drink enough water. We can laugh. We can grab life by the scruff of the neck and make it do what we want it to do, and if we can't quite get it done, we can have a great attitude about our efforts. What we can do is put our full effort into making our lives incredible and robust.

Starting to get too cold to be shirtless. Final fitness update.

I began my fitness journey months ago. If you've been following, you know I've had some major setbacks including Ann's hospital stay, my own bouts with diverticulitis, etc. My original goal had been to make it down to 185. I had promised a shirtless photo if I made it. Frankly, I've been hovering between 186 and 189 for the past month. I'm in great shape for a 56 year old. I'm not bragging, but I'm telling you what's possible. I exercise between 3-5 times per week and usually for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes max. I'd say I average four hours of exercise per week. It's generally 30-45 minutes of cardio, followed by 15-20 minutes of strength training. My own goal with this isn't to actually lose weight, but to keep fit enough to do the things I love to do, like hiking, fishing, and going on picnics (ha ha!). My eating regimen is a balanced diet, never eating too much junk, but not avoiding it entirely--just trying to be sensible. I post this picture to show those who think exercise requires large amounts of time to produce results, that it really doesn't. All it really takes is consistency, frequency, and trying to use common sense with the foods you eat. I will post this pic and then you'll never have to look at me shirtless again.

Even an old guy like me can stay in reasonable shape.

Fitness challenge update

Sometime in the spring, I started out with the goal of getting down to 185 pounds. It has been an interesting road, including my wife's bout with pneumonia, and my own struggles with diverticulitis (twice). I've had to stop exercising or cut way back on exercising for several periods of time averaging a week or more. I've gone on vacations and bludgeoned my diet. Somewhere in there, my blood pressure has risen and won't come down by ordinary means. Still, I've managed to make it to where my weight is fluctuating between 186 -187. I'm getting close to my goal of 185. That shirtless pose is just around the corner.Yesterday, I ran a treadmill 5k in 27:42, which is faster than I've run that distance, on the road or treadmill, in at least three years. I'm in good shape. I'm feeling good. And, I think I may have pinpointed the blood pressure culprit.
Since I exercise a lot, I sweat a lot. I also work out of a blazing hot mail truck in the summer, again, sweating a lot. When we sweat, we lose electrolytes, namely, potassium. After evaluating my symptoms, I think I have a potassium deficiency.
My plan is to radically change my diet and include many foods that will build up my potassium stores. It remains to be seen what affect this will have on my bp, but I'm hopeful.

You can't beet this...

Just about four days ago, I was talking to a friend about beets. I said I didn't like them, but that I'd only really tried the canned variety. Then, just two days later, I got my latest issue of Eating Well in the mail. Surprise, surprise, guess what was on the cover? No need to guess, because here it is:

 So, I thumbed to the article inside, just to see what was up. Here that is:

Kinda makes me want to eat beets...

The mysterious ways of weight loss

This past week I fluctuated between 187 and 186.5. It's the first time in years that I've been below 187 at all, so I was pumped. The funny thing is, now I'm very conscious of the things I'm putting in my body. I'm wanting to reach my goal of 185, but it seems that I may be able to do even better. That being said, we who have weight-loss goals would do well to keep a couple of things in mind. The first is that there are nearly always daily fluctuations in weight. Most of those are due to water intake (or lack thereof). I have found myself in this process doing the two step forward, one step back kind of thing. It's to be expected. What needs to be considered is the overall trend, not the day to day weight.
The second thing to consider is that we should be focusing more on fat loss instead of weight loss. I think this is where one of my pet peeves comes into play, and that's the height to weight ratio tables that are used to compute your overall health. Body Mass Index measurements are really a false way of figuring out overall health. The reason being that someone who is heavily muscled will have a higher weight to height ratio than someone who does no strength training. I personally do a bit of strength training and have larger muscle mass than say, a skinny guy who never does body weight exercises, but who may be way out of shape because of no exercise to speak of. A far better way to indicate health is through body fat percentage, coupled with resting heart rate, blood pressure, and a few other indicators.
That being said, the most important thing is that we are out there doing something to improve our health. Whether it's giving up soft drinks, or stopping by the gym, we can all do something. Make it a goal and start today.

My personal fitness challenge

I'm still on my way to get down to 185. Originally I had the goal of doing so by July 4th, but my wife's hospitalization, my own bouts with diverticulitis, and a few other roadblocks delayed my attempt. However, the past two days that I've weighed myself, I've been at 187.5, and 188. That would be on Thursday and today--Saturday. It's the first time that's happened in this attempt. Of course, that could possibly have something to do with getting my haircut. Even though I just got it trimmed a bit, I've been known to lose a pound or two after a haircut in the past. Maybe that's why I gained a pound between Thursday and Saturday. Or, it could have been the buffet we went to last night.

My personal fitness challenge

Remember a few weeks ago when I started my personal fitness challenge of being down to 185 pounds by July 1st? You probably also remember all the setbacks I've had during that time. Still, I think I started at 192 and I'm now down to 188. That's a loss of four pounds in two months...not great, but considering all the illnesses for both Ann and I, it's definitely progress. Now, I'll be shooting for mid-August to lose the rest. Wish me luck!

Back to the weight loss goal

A few weeks ago, I embarked on a plan to lower my body weight to 185. I began at around 192. Then, Ann got pneumonia and I spent a week with her at the hospital eating crap food from the cafeteria, or junk food from nearby restaurants. The week she got home was more of the same. This past week was the first week I've been able to do my full workout regimen all week in over a month. I weighed myself two days ago and I was at 192. The original goal was to lose the weight by July 1st. That doesn't look realistic any more, but now that I'm back at it, I'm still trying for it. Two days ago, I also ran a 28:17 5k on the treadmill, which is back at the shape I was in at the beginning of this weight-loss plan. Now if I have no other mishaps, my goal should happen by the end of July. I will still try for the first, but it doesn't appear likely.

All that being said, here's my before shot:

Look, I don't have any kind of shirt off shot to share with you, but if I reach my goal, I promise it (the after shot) will happen. It will be the first, last, and only time I will appear shirtless online. My only reason--to show you what can be done with an hour of exercise at least four times a week, and reasonable eating habits. Stay tuned.

How to stay on your diet

Yesterday, I discovered a new dietary aid that will help keep people from eating things that aren't on their list of things they should eat. I think I could possibly make it rich with this new innovation.
The innovation? Hair in the food. That's right, hair. Yesterday morning someone was sharing some delicious-looking red velvet cake, homemade, for his birthday. He cut up the cake on the break room table. I had just finished eating an apple and a Kashi granola bar, but that cake was looking mighty tempting. I left the break room, hoping the cake would all be gone before I walked back past the room. However, the next time I walked past, there were 3-4 pieces left. I decided I really wanted one.
The first bite revealed my new secret diet keeping device. A hair, roughly three inches long, protruded from the edge of the cake. I pulled it out, but my desire to finish eating the cake was immediately quelled. Into the garbage it went—upside down on the plate so that the guy who brought it wouldn't know I'd thrown away nearly an entire piece of his cake.
If there's one thing I can't stand to find in food, that makes it instantly unappetizing, it's a hair. Well, flies aren't very appetizing either, but I don't generally find them embedded in cake, enchiladas, or bread dough items like I do human hairs.
I wonder why that happens. Generally it happens whether or not I know the head whose hair it came from, but when I don't know whose head it came from, it's even worse. And if it was a pubic hair—well, thankfully, that has never happened to me.
I wonder if it's possible to market something like this to help people lose weight, or to stop eating unhealthy foods. Theoretically it is. I have huge numbers of hair on my head, and they always grow back, so I could make practically unlimited batches of chocolate chip cookies, cheesecake, or lasagna filled with my new diet discovery. I'm surprised no one else has thought of it.

Weight loss, first update

Although I've been fighting a new schedule and cold weather, my exercise program is going well, and my eating habits, despite Easter, are on a better track than they were two weeks ago. I started working on my goal of 184 or less a little over a week ago, and at that time I weighed in at 193. Today I tipped the scales at 192. Not much, but I'm heading in the right direction. I will be getting a fitness assessment soon, which will measure my recovery heart rate, body fat percentage, flexibility and several other factors. I will post the results of that when it's done. That will give me a good basis from which to compare results.

Diet and holidays

One thing that's fairly obvious is that it's much more difficult to maintain a diet on a holiday than it is on a regular old day or week. Easter is no exception. But this isn't something to stew over (pun intended). In addition to their literal meaning of "holy days", holidays are meant to be times to have good food and good times with friends and family.

The question is, how do we deal with staying on top of our eating habits when we have holidays in our lives? I saw a sign the other day that said something like, "no amount of hard work can make up for bad eating habits." And that's the key. Eating habits. The most important thing is that your habits of eating well are entrenched and that you get right back to them after your holiday splurges.

The occasional piece of carrot cake isn't going to hurt you. It's the daily eating of fast food, junk foods, candy and desserts, and soft drinks that will take its toll on your health.

So don't be afraid to eat that piece of pie today. Just don't make it two pieces. And get back to eating healthy tomorrow.

Health and fitness goals

This week, I began my outdoor running for the year. I'm kind of a wuss now, and I don't really like running outside in the winter anymore. Too much opportunity to slip on unseen ice and face injury, and for pete's sake, it can get just too darn cold.


My work schedule actually precipitated a complete change in my workout schedule. I now have to split my workout into running in the morning and strength training after work. It's either that, or give up writing in the mornings, which I'm loathe to do.


All of this is part of my goal to get to 184 by July 1^st. Right now, I weigh in at 193. It fluctuates though, because at the beginning of the week, I weighed 191, but yesterday, 193, and I haven't eaten a lot of food. The body normally fluctuates because of wather intake and other factors, so that doesn't worry me. For the past few weeks I'd been at 193-194, so the 191 kind of was an anomaly anyway.


My goal of 184 is one I chose because that's the lowest I've weighed in the past ten years or so and it was the weight I was at when I did the tremendous Half Dome hike in Yosemite National Park. It was the weight I was at when I felt the most in shape that I have been in in quite some time. I will shoot for that, even though I realize that weight actually is a bad way of figuring out general health. It is one way, one factor, and that is all. It's possible that since I'm concurrently doing strength training that I will build muscle which will add weight and my general fitness won't be expressed by a loss in weight. I'm allowing for the possibility and I will know if I'm in great shape or not regardless of my actual weight. I also expect to get my body fat percentage down below 15 percent. I'm really not a fanatic about getting my body fat percentage down to zero or close to it, especially after reading about this study a few years ago: Extra Weight Leads to Longevity, but a healthy lifestyle leads to greater happiness and greater resistance to injury and many kinds of diseases.


I'm a firm believer though that what we eat is more important than exercise in maintaining a healthy life, and in weight loss. I've already begun the diet transformation that will be a part of meeting my goal. I'm not going to totally cut out things that are bad for me, but they will be the exception and not the rule. For snacks, I will more often grab an apple or some other kind of fruit or vegetable, instead of grabbing a cookie or brownie. I'm beginning to train myself in doing so, and wise food choices are the real key to fat loss.


I will post my progress here from time to time.

My workout plan

If you're thinking of setting any New Year's goals as far as exercise goes, now may be the time to start instead of waiting until after the first of the year. Why? Because getting into good habits sooner rather than later is always best. I try to do mine year round, because it helps with activities I like to do, such as hiking, backpacking, and just about anything else, and I keep consistent on it because at my age, if I quit for even a week or two, it hurts too darn bad when I start up again. Just to help kick start you, here's more or less what I do on a weekly basis. For all my exercises, I rest 30-45 seconds in between sets.

Monday: Running 20-30 minutes. Ideally, it's 30 minutes, but realistically, I often can't get out the door early enough. Then I do my leg workout.

 I begin with 2 sets of 30 reps on the hip abductor machine. Here's what that looks like: Hip abductor exercises
Next I do 2 sets of 15 on the seated leg press machine
My next exercise is two sets of twenty Hip Swings. Here they are.
Next are lunges. I do mine with a twenty pound dumbbell in each hand, two sets of 15, alternating legs. Like this: clickety-click
I then do two sets of 20 calf raises, but I do them differently than most people do them. I raise up as high as I can go, and then just let my body weight (no extra weights) drop me down suddenly, instead of slowly. This actually helps to strengthen the achilles tendons.
Later on in the spring, I will add stair lifts onto a box or platform about 1 foot high, both front and lateral, so that I'm doing 30-35 to the front, then 30-35 with each leg to the right and left.

Tuesday: Running 20-30 minutes. Tuesday is chest and shoulder day, so here's what I do. First of all, this is a rotational thing. In other words, I go through each exercise once (except for the dips, but I could work those into the rotation as well if I wanted to), and then go through them a second time. On the pushups on one leg, the second time through, I raise the opposite leg off the floor, the same thing with the overhead shoulder press.

First I do a couple of sets of 15 dips. Dip exercises. I do mine by raising my legs to the front, so I'm bent at the waist. This helps build the core at the same time as working on chest and shoulders.

Pushups. I do pushups on one of those half exercise balls, called a Bosu Ball. As in the top image on this page: Bosu ball exercises. I do as many of these as I can until failure.

Second exercise is another one on the Bosu ball. With this exercise, I lift one leg as I do the push up. Again, doing the pushups until failure.

Next, I do decline pushups. Again, I do them until failure.

My next exercise is bench dips. A good video of how to do them, from beginner to more complicated is found here. I do 20 repetitions.

For shoulders, I do a variety of raises, with very light weights. My front raises  and side raises I do with an 8 lb. dumbbell in each hand and I do one set of 15. I also do overhead shoulder press standing on one foot as I do so, to increase core stability. I have a 12 lb. dumbbell in each hand for this. For both front and side raises, I raise the weight until it's completely vertical as taught by my physical therapist. I can't find any videos of exactly how I do it, but straight arm side raises and straight arm front raises can be found on this page. Just remember that I do them all the way up, until my arms are over head. For the side raises, I start with my hands down, palms facing forward, then move my arms in a wide arc from bottom (down near my hips) to top. If I can find a video, I'll add it later.

I will often do a set up pushups, then a set of side raises, then the one leg pushups, then another set of side raises, alternating shoulder and chest exercises. This seems to work well. I go through it until I've done two sets of every exercise.

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: I begin with a 20-30 minute run. Thursday is back and arms day, really biceps and forearms because the triceps is worked on chest/shoulder day.

Here are my back exercises:

First, I lay on a mat on my abdomen and extend my arms out at the side like a bird, my fingertips angled at 45 degrees toward my feet. From there, I raise my arms up toward the ceiling, hands sideways with my thumbs pointed up, 20 reps. Next, I move my arms to the 90 degree position, repeating the exercise. Finally, I point my hands upward at 45 degrees, toward my head, then lift them again off the floor and back down, 20 reps. The idea is to look like you're making a snow angel, only on your stomach instead of your back, and to raise your arms up toward the ceiling and lower them back down.

My next exercise is similar to a swimmer doing the butterfly stroke. Still lying on my stomach, I reach up above my head until my hands touch, then swing my arms down toward my lower back, crossing them above my back, then back up to the above the head position. I do twenty of these.

Next I do pushups, but with the elbows out wide, hands turned in. This stretches the scapulae and increases range of motion. Twenty reps. I wish I had pictures of these exercises. If I find some I'll update it.

The next thing I do is seated rowing. I do two sets of 15 with 90 lbs.

Finally, I do two sets of lat pull downs with 70 lbs. With both the rowing and the lat pull-downs, the object is to engage the scapulae, so with the rowing, focus on bringing your shoulder blades back toward each other.

The only thing I do for my biceps is dumbbell alternate bicep curls. I do four sets of 22 (eleven per arm) with 25 lbs. My forearms are engaged in this exercise as well, and always remember that when you tighten your grip on the bar, and then do any exercise, your forearm flexors are strengthened.

Friday: Running 20-30 minutes. Friday is abs day and I basically follow Coach Nicole's ab workout. I have modified it though and have dropped the leg raise portion of it from my personal workout, and added planking, both facing the mat, and from both sides. I've also added an exercise call the prone extension.

Saturday: Right now, I'm doing nothing on Saturday. In the spring, I will be adding a long run, probably around 45 minutes.

Diet Considerations

One thing I've found is that maybe even more important than exercise in maintaining a healthy body weight/composition is diet. I personally have exercised at times to extremes, and still haven't been able to lose the extra fat around my mid-section. On the other hand, I've found when I eliminate or severely cut back unhealthy food and concentrate on eating stuff that's good for me, instead of just good, the fat begins to melt away. Too bad that celery doesn't taste like cheesecake or that cheesecake doesn't have the same number of calories as the equivalent in celery. That would make for an ideal world.

Goal: Reducing body fat

In researching the optimal way in which to lose body fat, I've found a couple of  important facts. First of all, it's the total calories you burn through exercise, or through a reduction in intake, that are important, not the kind of calories. In the past, many have suggested that by exercising aerobically at low-intensity, one could enter a "fat-burning zone", while exercising at a more intense rate would put a person out of the fat-burning zone, and into the carb-burning zone. Research has not proven this to be true.

Simply put, less calories in and more calories out is what creates fat loss.

The argument persists between low to moderate intensity workouts versus high intensity workouts. Which is better? The answer is, both can be productive at reducing fat. There is a simple equation that illustrates what I'm trying to say, and that is, the higher intensity exercise a person can safely maintain for as long as the person can maintain it will burn the most calories. So if you're time is limited, a high-intensity cardio workout for 20 minutes, may be the equivalent of a moderately intense 30-40 minute workout--at least as far a burning calories goes.

An excellent article on the subject can be found here: http://www.mens-total-fitness.com/cardio.html

The bottom line is, to lose fat effectively, you need to exercise at a pace that you can continue doing 5-6 days a week for  the rest of your life. Increasing duration or intensity will speed up the overall fat burned during any one particular session of exercise. Once fat-loss goals have been reached, you can generally back off a bit on the total amount of exercise.

Key also in this is diet. My best advice is this: Avoid fast foods, eat desserts sparingly, get enough protein in your diet in a form other than red meat, eat a lot of veggies. Also, choose good snacks to eat throughout the day, and that doesn't mean Oreos or Twinkies!

Good luck on making your fitness goals in 2011! I'm right there with ya.

Getting ready to get fit in the New Year

Well, Christmas and Thanksgiving are both past, and I'm hoping my dependence upon "goodies" has receded as well. Of course, New Year's Eve can also be a time of eating large and putting on unwanted poundage. With my New Year's goal of losing 20 pounds by the end of March, I can't wait until I get past December 31st to start. In  the past, I've found that the most effective ways of burning calories include first, controlling what you eat, and second, doing some high-energy burning form of exercise. Eating is the most important. There have been times when I've exercised like a mad man for weeks on end and had the pounds slowly trickle off, one or two ounces at a time. However, when combined with healthy eating habits, such as abandoning french fries, shakes, and donuts, the pounds seem to come off much faster. So, my health tip of the year for you is to stop eating poorly, and only partake of sweets on rare occasions, maybe once a week eat a cookie or two. Also, plan your menus to include lots of veggies, and a lot less fat. I'm going to do it. Join with me for a fit New Year.