Another short entry, this one on the blog itself. My view count isn't huge (the topic is pretty esoteric, after all) but the geographic locations of viewers is really fun. Here's a list of some countries where you all are from:
USA
Germany
Russia
United Kingdom
Canada
Romania
India
Ukraine
Sweden
France
United Arab Emirates
China
Netherlands
Ireland
Poland
Australia
Israel
Turkey
Serbia
There are others, but the statistical data scrolls up at each level to the top 10, and some of the lower viewing countries fall off. As I see new ones, I'm editing this post to add them to the list. Periodically I'll put up a new post with an updated list.
But I just noticed that I had 13 viewings of my blog from Romania in the last month, and coincidentally the first book of my children's series is set in Romania! Cool!
I'm just doing a short entry today to include a couple of good videos I found on Nordic walking techniques.
This is a good one on basic instructions:
This one makes the moves very clear, even though it seems a bit redundant throughout:
This one shows some technique variations based on exercise objective and terrain:
This one is in German, but you don't need to speak/understand/read German to understand the technique details of shoulder swing, arms,hands, stride, etc. shown here:
I read something that made me revise my water plan. Instead of calculating water based on your full weight, apparently the correct measure is based on lean-body mass instead. So if a 200 pound man had a 25% fat index, his lean body mass is 75%, or 150 pounds. His basic water intake each day should be 150/2 = 75 ounces, with additional water to compensate for caffeinated beverages (same formula as before - 2 oz. water for each 1 oz. of caffeinated beverage). If you don't know what your fat index is, a safe assumption is about 15% for men and 25% for women. Go lower if you're very fit, and higher if you're not.
Okay, on to my June fitness update:
June, 2013:
Exercised 22 days out of 30 (~5 days/week)
Weight Training x 1: 35 minutes
Recumbent Bike x 9 (30 minutes, 6 miles)
Lap Swimming x 12 (45-50 minutes, 8 - 100 meter laps for a pace of ~ 4.50/100m)
Average blood pressure: 110/75 (still coming down - yay!)
May weight loss: 0 lbs.
Total weight loss since starting exercise program: 5 lbs.
Yup, you heard right - zero pounds lost! Argghhhh!
Okay, so after a depressing/confusing few days during which I ate too much, I've decided, in the fine words of the British Empire, to keep calm and carry on. Just a heads up, you might want to skip the last part of this entry, since it's just me trying to figure out the logic of how an overweight person can go from essentially no activity to working out (in a reasonably exerting way) 6 days out of 8 and not lose any weight.
BUT FIRST...
I bought my Nordic walking poles. They're Leki's Traveler, with shark release and smart tips:
There are two adjustment points, so that they telescope down to about 2 feet, which means they can easily be packed in a suitcase or backpack. I'm 5'4" and my correct extension on the poles is 110 cm. There are setting on both sections, and both of mine are set to 110 to get the full 110 cm length.
The shark release/grip is built into both the handle and the gloves, so they can slide in and with the press of a button slide out again. They come with the wrist-straps shown, but you can also get half-finger gloves or full winter gloves and mittens, which will be great come winter in Minnesota.
I've tested them and really like them, but haven't yet begun this component of my exercise routine. I hope to incorporate them this month, though, and build up to a reasonable walking distance by fall. We'll see. I think if you're fit, this technique feels like a great way to get a full-body work-out, but if you're out of shape, it's definitely more work than just dawdling along. You feel the effect from head to toe, which is its advantage, but also means for me a slow start no doubt.
SECOND:
Take a look at this video:
I was fascinated by this swimmer's motion. The stroke is so elegant and effortless - graceful is the absolutely correct description. I did some research on the total immersion freestyle stroke technique. It's developer is Terry Laughlin, a just-ok high-school swimmer and college coach who went on to perfect and train this method as a regular part of the Navy Seal program. The guy in the vid above is the president of TL's company.
Apparently TL, while a college swimming coach, noticed a difference in how really fast swimmers swam vs the slower swimmers. He didn't understand why it worked, but he studied the technique in slow-mo photography and developed what he referred to as the Total Immersion's Perpetual Motion freestyle technique. When he started teaching that technique, the slower swimmers got faster.
The basis of the technique is that there are two ways to get from point A to point B faster (through the water):
1. Increase your rate of propulsion through the water (stroke and kick harder/faster, etc.).
2. Reduce the drag of the water around you by changing your 'shape' and motion while cutting through it.
Total Immersion uses the second rather than the first technique. In theory it allows racers to get from point A to point B faster and more efficiently (i.e. expending less energy, thus allowing them to conserve energy for longer races/swims - which is why he teaches Navy Seals, who have to do a 6-mile swim dragging gear to graduate from their program).
Now I'm neither a race swimmer nor a Navy Seal, and since my purpose is to burn calories and fat, and gain muscle and fitness, the part about expending less energy was a head-scratcher for me. But he said something in a video that really resonated with me. To paraphrase:
Land exercise works the engine (heart), while water-exercise shapes the vessel.
By 'shapes the vessel' I think he was referring to how swimmers using the TI technique shape themselves to reduce drag, but it also refers to the fact that while swimming is not the best fat-burning technique for overweight people, it is a very good way to shape your body, increase muscle mass, endurance and lung-power, etc. While burning fat is my number one objective, this is certainly a close second. I had already decided in June to shift my exercise routine to more land-based and less water-based exercise for this reason, and now I want to practice this technique as well.
Here are some of the key components of this technique:
1. Stay low in the water, and point the top of your head like a laser in the direction you're going. Your head weighs about 10 pounds - don't 'carry' it while swimming. That will wear you out and hurt your neck muscles.
2. Extend your arm fully after the catch part of the stroke. Think of it as stretching your body out as much as you can from the tips of your fingers on the stroking hand to your toes.
3. Make a smooth entry to the water before you extend, then relax your hand for the catch/down-stroke. Keep strokes aligned with your shoulders, instead of passing beneath the center of your torso.
4. Don't roll too much - it expends too much energy and disturbs the laminar flow of water around you (increases drag). But DO turn your whole body slightly and not just your head for breathing.
5. Immediately following the catch stroke, snap your hip down and kick to finish the stroke, with the emphasis on the foot opposite the catch hand. When you do it right, you might only kick twice, instead of 4, 5 or 6 times per stroke.
There's a series of 6 vids where TL talks about the TI technique if you're interested, starting with part 1 (which is mostly his history - the latter pieces demonstrate and explain the technique):
Last Part (which will be my tedious musings on the logic of burning fat)...
Okay, so as a non medical professional, I think there are basically two things that affect a person's weight:
1. Energy in vs energy out
2. Metabolic rate
Of course I could be wrong, because if there was an absolutely right answer to this, the medical community would be harvesting that knowledge to eliminate obesity, which is clearly not (yet) the case.
Energy in vs energy out is affected by two things:
1. Calorie consumption
2. Exercise
Metabolic rate is the more complex issue. Here are just a few things that affect it:
1. The condition of your thyroid
2. The set-point your brain 'sees' and tries to adhere to.
3. The conditions under which you're exercising/eating which influences how your brain responds.
4. Intestinal health (bacteria and enzymes which can help or hinder how your body processes food).
I've tried to view my own situation in as objective a way as possible, and here's how I tend to break down these issues:
1. Calorie Consumption: Mine, at worst, has been the same as before I started exercising, and perhaps a little less.
2. Exercise: From very (very) sedentary to working out 6 days out of 8 (3 on, 1 off) for 30-45 minutes a session. I started June doing 3 swimming sessions for every 1 land-based exercise sessions, but shifted that near the end of the month to 1 swimming session for every 2 land-based exercise sessions. I have a caveat here that's sort of interesting. When I used the treadmill, even at a slow speed, my heart-rate accelerated to near anaerobic levels. There are three work-out levels: fat-burning, aerobic, and anaerobic. Fat burning burns fat (duh). Slow speeds and longer times are necessary for this. Aerobic levels work your heart and lungs. You need faster speeds for shorter duration to exercise in this area. Anaerobic happens when you push your heart too hard. This is not an area where you want to be, as it has almost no positive effects, and many negative ones. Since my heart-rate goes up quite high during land-based, weight-bearing exercise, to get to the fat-burning state I have to do slower and longer sessions to keep my heart-rate down. As health improves these settings change, of course.
3. Metabolic Rate: Currently treated for hypothyroidism (slow thryoid). Before my cancer was diagnosed, my thyroid spun out of control and I was treated for hyperthyroidism, but it went untreated for 6 months, and began to burn itself out, so now it's very slow and I take a med. to adjust it. This hyper to hypo-thyroid condition, along with active cancer vs times in remission, was the reason for 4 big weight swings (down 70 pounds in 3 months, up 110 pounds in 5 months, down 70 pounds in 3 months, and finally up 40 pounds). This left my starting and ending weight (pre-cancer and now post-transplant) at exactly the same place.
Okay, so same or less calories, far more exertion (energy out), metabolic rate same recently, but with a chaotic 5-year history. My thyroid seems stable now, at a slow (hypo) state, and is treated medically to bring it into normal range. It sure feels that those three things would have resulted in weight loss, but nope, I ended the month at exactly the same weight as I started. Of course the caveat of high/anaerobic heart-rate during land-based/weight-bearing exercise could be the fly in the ointment for me. Gaining muscle mass can also mask fat-loss, so there's that effect during the early stages of an exercise program as well.
Here's the flip side:
1. I've definitely lost inches - my clothes show that - so I've increased some muscle mass.
2. My blood pressure is coming down steadily (from 130/85 at the end of April to 110/75 now).
3. Overall I feel stronger and better.
So the exercise is doing something, just not showing any result on the scale. I'm pretty sure if I stopped exercising I would begin to gain weight, so that's just not an option. I've also wondered whether or not my brain's set-point has been readjusted upward. I'm at almost the exact weight I was in the hospital post-transplant, and I wonder if my new immune system recognized that weight as my set-point, and now my brain is resisting change. If that's true, I'm just going to have to work through it until my brain catches up.
My revised exercise strategy, based on the above data, is as follows:
1. Continue 3 on/1 off for a 6 out of 8 days exercise cycle (flexible, of course, but consistency is key).
2. Shift toward land-based exercise, with a mix of weight-bearing and non-weight bearing. Right now I'm going to go for 1 laps, 1-2 recumbent bike, 1 treadmill/walk for my 3 days on cycle.
3. Reduce speed/resistance and increase duration of land-based exercise to move into fat-burning mode.
Here's what I'm not going to do: worry about the scale. Not even if I have a few more frustrating months where that's concerned. I'm looking at developing a lifestyle change for good, not a fad or short-term 'diet' of any sort, and for that the scale is not going to be the primary measure of my success. I'll keep recording the number, but no matter what that number is, the strategy is set:
