It's true that in the past, I have occasionally waxed ineloquent about the potential evils of technology, particularly phones with the Internet, often grabbing our attention from the people right in front of us.
I do not retract any statements.
However, when it comes to exercise, I've gone all starry-eyed with the technology at my fingertips. You see, I'm a results person. I don't get out there and sweat for an hour in the Colorado heat on the odd chance that it might do something good for me. I want to know things about what I just did, specific things.
Here are some things my phone tells me as I run:
1) Runkeeper app (free) keeps track of my distance via GPS.
2) Runkeeper keeps track of my pace and tells me at the end how my average pace compared to previous runs. For instance, yesterday I completed my fastest 4-6 mile run ever. I like to know this stuff! It also tells me my current pace as I'm running, which makes me pick up my pace, especially at the end. Did you know that when people run these 100 miles ultra marathons they have a pacer who runs next to them at the end to help them with their pace so they don't burn out? Well, well, well, I may not have a personal pacer, but I have a pacer in my pocket. It's very handy!
3) Fitbit keeps track of my heart rate during the entire run and when I'm done, I look at a graph of my heart rate and compare it with other runs.
4) I get to listen to the one year Bible and free audio books downloaded from the library the entire time I run. It's like reading and exercising at the same time. And it makes the miles fly by.
5) And of course, as I've mentioned before and just can't help mentioning again, there's the resting heart rate measure on the Fitbit app. I exercise because I like the results, and seeing my resting heart rate drop by 30 beats per minutes is downright amazing to see. Amazing. That'll keep me running!
6) I may sound like a living, breathing Fitbit commercial but I'm just so crazy about it, so one more thing. When setting up the app on your phone (which was suprisingly simple and intuitive) you can enter in your weight, age, and gender. Based on these facts plus the number of steps you've taken in a day and the kind of exercise, the app calculates the total number of calories you've burned. Now here's the cool part. You enter in a weight loss goal, as in, I'd like to lose 1 lb a week, and it calculates at each meal how much you should eat based on how much you want to lose and how much you've exercised that day. Say you get to dinner time and you only have 100 calories left for the day to stay within you goal. Well then, you take a few turns around the block and it allots you some more calories. I often enter food in before I eat. You can also manually track sports like basketball for a half hour, skating, swimming, etc.
Some people like to get out there and sweat for the pure joy of it all. Well good for them. Others get a Fitbit. I would say it was some of the best money I ever spent, except it was given to me. A pretty good gift. You should get one.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Slow and Steady Wins the Race
I used to be, well, not so smart about how I approached exercise. It went like this. I woke up one day and I said: "That's it! I'm getting in shape and I'm starting right now!"
When we so had many little kids and no income for a gym membership, I did what every good mom of young kids did, I plunked in a Billy Banks TaeBo VHS at nap time. My problem was that I bought the ADVANCED tape. And when I say advanced, I'm talking about not being able to move for the next week. I'm talking about your arms hurting so bad you can't even lift them, much less lift a child into a swing, or even push the swing. Mommy was useless for days, and that was quite a problem. So that was the end of my workout endeavors. Someone would get sick, or I would get sick, or we would go on a trip, and I would never get back on the bandwagon. My approach was all or nothing.
But as years went by, a very wise pastor would often mention the benefits of plodding on in any endeavor instead of doing life in fits and starts. The message began to sink in and then I was introduced to Couch to 5K. The concept intrigued me. Just because a couch potato can only run for 60 seconds before being so tired that they are about to collapse, doesn't mean they should run for 60 seconds and then stop for the day. Instead, for week 1, one can run for 60 seconds and walk for 90 seconds and do that repetition 10 times. Then on week 2, one can run for 90 seconds and walk for 3 minutes and repeat that many times. You only have to run three times a week so you rest a day in between.
I was hooked. It was the slow and steady I was after, with my own running coach in my ear buds telling me when to start and stop (there is a free app that allows you to listen to your own music and then interrupts to tell you when to walk and run.) This app became my best friend. In 9 weeks, one can go from complete couch potato to being able to run a 5K.
But the truth is, I'm a bit of a wimp. It took me more than 9 weeks. Sometimes I'd repeat weeks. If we went for a trip or I had a sickness, I might start back up a few weeks before when I had left off. Several times I made it to a 5K only to let winter keep from running for months and I'd have to start the program over. But it didn't matter how many times I started and stopped; the point was I was running. I had a program to return after each relapse into couch potato.
So my approach to exercise has now changed significantly since those early kill-yourself-or-nothing days. I don't mind being a little sore; it shows you're pushing yourself. But I will no longer go from absolutely no exercise to 1 hour sessions with Billy Banks kick-boxing. It's all about pacing now.
Truthfully, my 5 mile runs three times each week feel like no big deal, even though my first half is always uphill. I feel great. The hardest part of running for me was when, in C25K, we had to go from 10 minute runs, to doing our first 20 minute run, I think the end of week 6. I thought I would DIE. But once I conquered that, nothing was as hard. Not even uphill in Colorado thin air. It's all good, now that I slowly built up my endurance. Slow and steady.
When we so had many little kids and no income for a gym membership, I did what every good mom of young kids did, I plunked in a Billy Banks TaeBo VHS at nap time. My problem was that I bought the ADVANCED tape. And when I say advanced, I'm talking about not being able to move for the next week. I'm talking about your arms hurting so bad you can't even lift them, much less lift a child into a swing, or even push the swing. Mommy was useless for days, and that was quite a problem. So that was the end of my workout endeavors. Someone would get sick, or I would get sick, or we would go on a trip, and I would never get back on the bandwagon. My approach was all or nothing.
But as years went by, a very wise pastor would often mention the benefits of plodding on in any endeavor instead of doing life in fits and starts. The message began to sink in and then I was introduced to Couch to 5K. The concept intrigued me. Just because a couch potato can only run for 60 seconds before being so tired that they are about to collapse, doesn't mean they should run for 60 seconds and then stop for the day. Instead, for week 1, one can run for 60 seconds and walk for 90 seconds and do that repetition 10 times. Then on week 2, one can run for 90 seconds and walk for 3 minutes and repeat that many times. You only have to run three times a week so you rest a day in between.
I was hooked. It was the slow and steady I was after, with my own running coach in my ear buds telling me when to start and stop (there is a free app that allows you to listen to your own music and then interrupts to tell you when to walk and run.) This app became my best friend. In 9 weeks, one can go from complete couch potato to being able to run a 5K.
But the truth is, I'm a bit of a wimp. It took me more than 9 weeks. Sometimes I'd repeat weeks. If we went for a trip or I had a sickness, I might start back up a few weeks before when I had left off. Several times I made it to a 5K only to let winter keep from running for months and I'd have to start the program over. But it didn't matter how many times I started and stopped; the point was I was running. I had a program to return after each relapse into couch potato.
So my approach to exercise has now changed significantly since those early kill-yourself-or-nothing days. I don't mind being a little sore; it shows you're pushing yourself. But I will no longer go from absolutely no exercise to 1 hour sessions with Billy Banks kick-boxing. It's all about pacing now.
Truthfully, my 5 mile runs three times each week feel like no big deal, even though my first half is always uphill. I feel great. The hardest part of running for me was when, in C25K, we had to go from 10 minute runs, to doing our first 20 minute run, I think the end of week 6. I thought I would DIE. But once I conquered that, nothing was as hard. Not even uphill in Colorado thin air. It's all good, now that I slowly built up my endurance. Slow and steady.
Bye Bye White Stuff
There are some things you just have to learn for yourself.
For instance, even though just about every sane diet book, magazine, and website that's ever existed has endlessly preached the merits whole grains, brown rice, and the like, and has ranted incessantly the evils of all processsed carbs, there was a part of me that just never caught on. Call me slow, or maybe just skeptical. (I'm talking about real nutritional advice here, not: "See how you can lose 20 lbs next week with this ONE WEIRD TRICK.")
I used to believe in the difference between whole grains and processed grains with about the same conviction that I believe in eating all organic. I thought there were some slight health benefits that some overachieving health nuts were all crazy about, but that the difference wasn't really that significant.
But ever since I started the no sugar diet I've tuned in to my body's hunger messages and I've discovered something very interesting: white stuff messes with me. After eating something white and processed, even without sugar, I feel MORE hungry after eating it than before I ever ate.
I know that sounds loopy, and when I tried to explain it hubby, he was very puzzled. But maybe one can't understand it who hasn't experienced it themselves. And whether or not anyone understands why it happens, I have my own empirical evidence: this is how I feel. White carbs make me hungry.
I wrote before how a no carb diet also makes me also crazy hungry, and since that discovery, I wasn't watching carbs other than sugar. But I felt miserable eating white stuff. I never felt satisfied.
Now what I've discovered is that brown, whole grain stuff works in my system as if it were a completely different food than the white stuff. The difference isn't slight, it's astonishing.
Have you ever sat next to someone who has been thin their entire life, in fact, maybe who even wishes she could gain a little weight, but no matter how hard she tries, she just can't gain a pound? And have you ever watched this person eat and noticed that even though she just told you she thinks she is too skinny, she was only able to eat half her dinner and pushed the rest aside? "I'm stuffed!" she exclaims. She is not endowed with supreme self-discipline, she simply isn't hungry. Food is metabolized differently. Her hunger and full signals work. They're not broken like mine.
Have you ever wished you could feel more like that person when you eat? What I've come to discover about eating a certain way is that it has the potential to turn me more into that person in that I can feel full and satisfied like them. I might not feel exactly like that yet, but I am much closer.
Avoiding white carbs makes me have healthier attitude toward food. It's such a freeing feeling and that is what makes me want to keep going with the way I'm eating. And that's why I like my new approach to eating healthy. When I'm doing these things because I see how it affects how I feel, I'm so much more likely to stick with it than doing it simply because Oprah said to. I just needed to find out for myself.
It's great fun to be one's own science experiment: you should try it.
For instance, even though just about every sane diet book, magazine, and website that's ever existed has endlessly preached the merits whole grains, brown rice, and the like, and has ranted incessantly the evils of all processsed carbs, there was a part of me that just never caught on. Call me slow, or maybe just skeptical. (I'm talking about real nutritional advice here, not: "See how you can lose 20 lbs next week with this ONE WEIRD TRICK.")
I used to believe in the difference between whole grains and processed grains with about the same conviction that I believe in eating all organic. I thought there were some slight health benefits that some overachieving health nuts were all crazy about, but that the difference wasn't really that significant.
But ever since I started the no sugar diet I've tuned in to my body's hunger messages and I've discovered something very interesting: white stuff messes with me. After eating something white and processed, even without sugar, I feel MORE hungry after eating it than before I ever ate.
I know that sounds loopy, and when I tried to explain it hubby, he was very puzzled. But maybe one can't understand it who hasn't experienced it themselves. And whether or not anyone understands why it happens, I have my own empirical evidence: this is how I feel. White carbs make me hungry.
I wrote before how a no carb diet also makes me also crazy hungry, and since that discovery, I wasn't watching carbs other than sugar. But I felt miserable eating white stuff. I never felt satisfied.
Now what I've discovered is that brown, whole grain stuff works in my system as if it were a completely different food than the white stuff. The difference isn't slight, it's astonishing.
Have you ever sat next to someone who has been thin their entire life, in fact, maybe who even wishes she could gain a little weight, but no matter how hard she tries, she just can't gain a pound? And have you ever watched this person eat and noticed that even though she just told you she thinks she is too skinny, she was only able to eat half her dinner and pushed the rest aside? "I'm stuffed!" she exclaims. She is not endowed with supreme self-discipline, she simply isn't hungry. Food is metabolized differently. Her hunger and full signals work. They're not broken like mine.
Have you ever wished you could feel more like that person when you eat? What I've come to discover about eating a certain way is that it has the potential to turn me more into that person in that I can feel full and satisfied like them. I might not feel exactly like that yet, but I am much closer.
Avoiding white carbs makes me have healthier attitude toward food. It's such a freeing feeling and that is what makes me want to keep going with the way I'm eating. And that's why I like my new approach to eating healthy. When I'm doing these things because I see how it affects how I feel, I'm so much more likely to stick with it than doing it simply because Oprah said to. I just needed to find out for myself.
It's great fun to be one's own science experiment: you should try it.
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