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Garden Gloves Great for Running

We are getting a taste of early winter with temps in the 30s.  I’ve found that the white, knit and cheap ($1.00) garden gloves at the local hardware store provide just the right cover to keep hands warm while jogging.

I’m Heading to the Park to Run

A five minute drive from my house we are lucky enough to have a park that plays host to local high and college cross country meets.  It has a very hilly, open field and wooded running courese.  It also has about four miles of very well designed nice single track (single tire-wide trail ideal for mountain biking and hiking).

As soon as the wife gets back from the gym, I’m heading out there to get some practice running on the natural earth to prepare for a 5 mile cross country race I run in November.

Yet Another Great Question

My wife said she was not looking forward to her workout.  She asked me if I ever felt that way about mine.  Sometimes, I said, but not too often.  Not as often as I did before I learned a few handy tricks.  Here are those tricks:

Interest I pick activities that I’m interested in.  I mainly run and bike.  I enjoy both activities.  If you’re having trouble staying motivated to exercise, ask yourself whether you really like the activity or not.  If you don’t, try other activities.  Also, ask yourself if there are different ways of doing the activities.  For instance, if I ran and biked only on stationary equipment, I would go bonkers.  I would not look forward to my workouts.  I can’t do it more than a few times a year when the weather is really bad outside.

Variety I try to maintain variety in my workouts.  There are several ways to add variety.  There’s variety in activity.  I like jog and bike mainly.  But, there’s also variety within each of those activities.  For example, to add variety to my running I can run different routes, different lengths (usually 2.5 – 5 miles) and on different surfaces (sidewalks, trails, off-road).  I can sign up and run a 5k, 4 mile, 5 mile or 10k race almost anytime.   Be creative.  Sometimes I take my running gear and run at my parents house, when I’m on a business trip or vacation to get a change of scenery.

For biking, I bike on the road or off-road.  I can go by myself or meet up with one of the several groups that ride near my home.  I can also sign up for various pay and charity rides.  I can pull my kid on a trail-a-bike or with my wife on our tandem, or both.  I can ride with fast riders (I learned the art of drafting early in my life) or slow down for some chit-chat with slower riders.  I can ride my 10 – 20 miles loops quickly from my front door, or we can pack up and ride on a number of family trails within a couple hour drive.   Every year I look forward to the one or two times to snow bike.

The point is, within my two main activities – running and biking – there are quite a number of ways to engage.  I’m only limited by my creativity.

In addition to exercising, it’s good to build up on your natural activity like yard work, cleaning and keeping your house organized.

Intensity Another drag on my motivation use to be my belief that every workout had to hurt.  “No pain, no gain,” right?  But, I found that’s a big myth.  My body isn’t built for continuous punishment.  Every week I vary the intensity of my workouts.  I usually do one or two workouts at a very low intensity, one or two and a medium and one at a high intensity.  I also “listen” to my body.  I’ll lower the intensity if I’m just not feeling it.   Taking the pressure off to not have to set a new PR each time out makes the workout much more psychologically enjoyable.

Another Great Question

Several days ago a co-worker asked what it was that got me motivated to lose weight.  I found that question hard to answer. 

I think for me, maintaining my weight was always important, but my “beliefs” around weight control were based on myths that were making me fatter.  I let my eating habits get out of control, even though losing the weight was a goal.  I just hadn’t made the connection yet between what I put in my mouth and my waist line. 

Once I faced the truth and realized that whatever I was doing wasn’t working, I opened my mind a more to alternative explanations to weight control, which allowed me to learn the stuff I wrote about in my book and on this website. 

The bad news is that I can’t pinpoint exactly where this motivation came from.  The motivation is important.  Having the persistent motivation may give me an advantage over others.  I’ve known several people who learn the same stuff that I did to lose weight, become motivated to apply that knowledge and are successful.  But, for some reason, they seem to lose the motivation eventually and gravitate back towards bad eating habits and put weight back on.

I’d love to hear from people who are “Born Again” (that is, had no motivation for years and then found motivation) in regards to weight control and have had many years of success.  I’d love to know their secret.

Good Chat with Friend

A few days ago, I had a good chat with an old friend about weight loss and weight control.  His story is similar to mine.  His eating habits gradually shifted over years to where he was eating more and more.  He was active and exercised regularly, probably more regular than me, but he just lost track of what he put in his mouth.

His uh-oh moment came when he was camping with his sons and they were climbing hills and he realized it shouldn’t be as hard for him as it was.  That’s when it dawned on him that he had been gaining weight gradually over the last several years and he really put some on in the last year or so because his eating habits got to he point where he felt like he needed to stuff himself when he ate.  That’s where I ended too. 

Once he changed his eating habits to take in less food, he realized he was never hungry.  It’s a liberating experience to realize that you only need to take in the right amount of food to sustain yourself.

Another Diet Myth

On my Diet Myths page I ask for your submissions for other diet myths.  Thanks to Karen for submitting this one:

Eating less than 1,200 calories a day slows metabolism and makes it impossible to lose weight

I added this as Diet Myth #5 and here’s what I wrote about it:

My belief:  In the short-term, say over about a week or so, I believe there is some truth to this.  When you dramatically cut your calorie intake, I believe your body responds by lowering your metabolism which makes it harder to lose weight.

But, eventually, physics wins out.  Even at a lower metabolism, your body likely needs a minimum of 1,200 – 1,400 calories to “keep the lights on” or pump your heart, expand and contract your lungs, maintain your body temperature, etc.  If you’re move around you likely need more.

If you aren’t getting this energy in your diet, you’ll get it from your fat and muscles.  Anorexics are the real world evidence of this.

That being said, I do not recommend an ultra low calorie diet.  I don’t think it’s necessary and I think you are asking for physical and psychological trouble.  For example, ultra low calorie diets might cause issues with thyroids, hormone balances and who knows what else.  Psychologically, it can become addictive and lead to anorexia.

I’m a believer in eating the rough amount of calories that your body is designed to take in.  If you want to weigh around 150 pounds, eating 1,500 (no significant physical activity) to 1,700 (moderate activity) will get you there eventually.  If you want to get there faster, I recommend doing it through exercise rather than fewer calories.

Great Question

I received this e-mail from a friend today:

By eating right, my daily calorie consumption is at a comfortable 2000 calories. I am not experiencing any effects, i.e.- hunger, weakness, etc. In fact food is actually better and my body is feeling stronger and more efficient.

According to my BMR and daily exercise routine, for my weight and age I am burning nearly 3000 calories.

Q-Is it OK to continue a daily net calorie burn? Will my body just continue to lose weight until it eventually arrives at an equilibrium point (cal eat=cal burn) ?

My answer: Good question.

If you want to maintain your weight, you need to eat about the same number of calories that you burn.  If you continue the net calorie burn, you will continue to lose weight and die. That’s physics.  When you reach your desired weight, you need to balance your calories in and out.

It’s a great sign that you’re not experiencing any effects – hunger, weakness, etc. That means you are eating right, you’ve balanced your hormones and got your body to tap into those fat reserves to fuel any deficit. You also have a lot of muscle reserve that your body will metabolize if you keep up the deficit.

I think you will start to feel effects when you’ve lost most of your fat reserves.  I did.  When I got down to 130, I had no fat reserves.  If I missed a meal or snack by 15 minutes I’d start to get light headed and weak, even though I wouldn’t get hunger pains.  As long as I was eating I was fine.  I added back 5-6 pounds to get some fat reserve back and that helped.  It was weird to start eating more.

Here’s where a scale can help you.  As you get closer to your target weight, I recommend incrementally increasing your food intake.  I wouldn’t recommend going from 2,000 to 3,000 cal per day immediately.  I’d recommend going up in increments of about 200 calories for 2 – 3 weeks at a time and monitor your rate of weight change.  The standard estimates of calories in food and calorie burn have large enough margins of error when applied to individuals that I wouldn’t trust those outright as the sole guide.  That’s why the scale comes in handy.

For example, you may be more efficient than average at exercise so you may only burn 75% of whatever it is that you base your exercise burn on and you’ll find that you can maintain your weight on 2,400 to 2,600 calories a day.  If you go to 3,000 cal/day you may put 10 – 15 pounds back on within a year or so.

Great Video

I enjoyed this video and I think I learned something.  If you have acid reflux, you should watch this.  We never think about the pH balance of food we eat.  This illustrates that there’s other impacts to the body to consider about our diets than just weight loss. 

This made me wonder about something.  My father-in-law swears by taking a spoonful of honey and lime juice several times a day to fight off colds.  Perhaps the lime juice helps balance his pH.

I Heard from Friend Today

He says he read my book, liked it and used some of my suggestions and has pulled his belt back four notches since June and now he needs to buy some new clothes!  I’m happy for him and I’m glad that something I wrote a few years ago could help him out now.  That’s why I did it.

He also reminded me of something I’ve learned over and over again since I wrote my book.  We all have to have our own “epiphany” to want to lose weight.  Bad food habits are like other bad habits – smoking, alocholism, gambling – you can’t get someone to change their ways until they decide its right for them.