Food, Exercise, or other Reports

bmeadows380

I realized I had co-opted the 10,000 step thread as a personal reporting for my exercise efforts and thought that might not be a good thing to be doing, so I started a new thread instead.

I figure to use this to talk about anything I've been successful at today, whether it be exercise improvements or woes, calorie counting efforts, or anything that I'd just like to muse about out-loud. I almost called it an accountability thread but didn't quite go that far because I'm the sort of person who starts to stress when I have deadlines or have to answer to someone else with this sort of thing; accountability partners make it worse for me; not better. I suppose its because of my innate need to please and fear of failure; its much easier on me if the only person I'm answering to is myself; shoot, I"m hard enough on myself anyway!

But, if you want an accountability partner, go ahead and use this thread if you want. Or if you just want a place to talk about your experiences, that's fine too - this isn't meant to be just my own place. You know me - I like to talk!




So, my fitness tracker says I got 12,298 steps in so far today; however, about 2,000 of those came from playing the piano and don't count. I did get a 4 mile walk in today and that's where the majority of the remaining 10,000 steps came. What I find interesting is that yesterday, when i took that 5 1/2 mile walk, I was really struggling there near the end to get home, though I did make it. Today, the 4 mile walk wasn't a problem - I was fine getting home and still have energy to do some house chores tonight.

First off, I'm kind of amazed at myself that I was even able to take a 4 mile walk today after that walk yesterday - I expected to be paying for that extra long one yesterday by being tired and sore today, but I'm not. So I'm a bit excited to think that perhaps that means my stamina is increasing and my leg muscles are getting stronger.

Secondly, I walked that 4 miles today in 1 hour and 15 minutes, which averages out to a 3.2 mph walking rate, which has surprised the heck out of me! Yesterday's walk also averaged out to around 3 mph - I actually quadruple checked those numbers because I couldn't believe it; it didn't feel like I was walking that fast!

So not only has my stamina increased in the lost month's efforts to get more active, apparently, my innate walking speed has increased because when I first started, my average speed was somewhere between 2.5 and 2.75 mph. It's nice to sit back and look at my progress and realize I'm making some!

tomorrow is back to work, so no time for hour long walks. But my plan is to get up and get a 30 minute elliptical session first, because while that doesn't get my heart rate up much even when I increase the resistance, I'm still moving. And I need to go to the bank and post office tomorrow, which will be a 2 mile walk at lunch time. I also hope to have time tomorrow evening to fertilize my yard and get some flower bulbs transplanted, so hopefully, I can get all that done and keep the activity up.

Tuesday and Wednesday are going to have to be indoor exercise days, though.

I also really need to get a body weight routine going and start with some sort of weight training. I have a hard time doing this on my own, though, because I never know if I"m doing them right. I'd really prefer to start weight training with a trainer for a few weeks, but that's out right now, or course, and I can't afford it anyway.

I found one at nerdfitness:

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/

Is anyone in the know to be able to tell if this is a good one to start with?

bmeadows380

Today ended up a very good day. I got my elliptical session in this morning - 30 minutes. It's not a very stringent workout, I know - its a cheap machine that was given to me and even at higher resistances, it doesn't get my heart rate up much, but I'm still moving and I am still working my leg muscles, so I figure it counts as steps and gets me going in the morning.

I vacuumed my house at lunch time.

Then this evening, I needed to go to the post office uptown and circled around my bank at the other end, making a 2.3 mile circuit and doing it in 39 minutes - which calculates to 3.5 mph! I knew I was moving faster as I felt the stretch more in my legs and I was breathing a little harder - not so hard that I couldn't talk, but hard enough that I probably couldn't have sang, which I read somewhere is the rate you want. I was really surprised, though, when I came home and calculated that rate - I couldn't believe I had gotten myself moving that fast!

Then, to finish the evening off, and because I wanted a slice of the homemade bread I made this weekend along with a slice of the low calorie yellow cake mix I made (Pillsbury classic yellow sugar free mix substituting a 5.3 oz container of Chobani fat free greek yogurt for the oil and baking in a bunt pan for 16 slices at 99 calories a slice), I did 28 minutes of a beginner low impact workout video on Youtube - and did it completely through no pauses!

I counted 1/3 of the walk calories and a little under 1/2 of the video calories and did not count anything else today, which gave me around 182 calories more. My fitness tracker shows me having a total of 11,811 steps today, but it counted steps while I was doing the video. Still, I hope that all that workout effort translates to being lightly active instead of sedentary today?



When I checked my heart rate on the fitness tracker, my average rate for the walk was 123 bpm, and 132 bpm for the workout video. Using the formula 207-(age*0.7), I have a maximum heart rate of around 179. My resting heart rate is around 70 normally, which gives me a heart rate reserve of 109 and a minimum target heart rate of 125 bpm, which the site that I got the formulas from says is the target heart rate I should shoot for for moderate exercise and for those who have just started regular exercise. So for me, 50% effort is 125 bpm, 60% effort is 135 bpm, and 70% is 146 bpm.

So sadly, my 3.5 mph walk did not quite get my heart rate up to 50% effort, though I was keeping a fast of a pace as I could walk. The exercise video just missed the 60% effort mark. From what I've read elsewhere, 40-50% is beginner level, 50-60% is intermediate, and 60-70% is advanced intermediate, with 50-60% considered very light effort and 60-70% considered light effort.

According to the chart below, the walk was not even into zone 1, despite the effort I put out, and the exercise video was zone 1 almost zone 2.

A bit discouraging, but I'll keep chipping away at it. I'd like to get to the point where I can average the 60-70% heart rate mark for the best benefit, but its obviously going to take time to work up to that. But I see some improvement: back in February when I started walking, the best I could average was around 2.75 mph; I am now easily staying at 3.0 mph and pushing my way to 3.5 mph!

And of course, my fitness tracker isn't exact, either, so I may have been just over the thresholds anyway - with the effort I was feeling, I think I might have indeed been doing a little better.






I got the formulas here and this is apparently an up-to-date formula and the old 220-age formula is not recommended any longer:
https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Your-Target-Heart-Rate

The effort scale I got from here:
https://www.lifespanfitness.com/fitness/resources/target-heart-rate-calculator




Zone 1 - Healthy Heart Zone: 50% - 60% of your Max Hr

Easiest, Most Comfortable Zone

Exercise Benefits: Body fat decreases, blood pressure lowered, cholesterol lowered, muscle mass improvements, decreased risk for degenerative diseases, safety high.


Zone 2 - Temperate Zone: 60% - 70% of your Max Hr

Cruise Zone – you can train for extended periods of time in this zone 75% - 85% of all calories from fat as fuel, 6 – 10 calories per minute

Exercise Benefits: Gain muscle mass, lose fat mass, strengthen heart muscle, fat utilization zone, training your fat mobilization, fat transportation, your muscles to burn fat, your fat cells to increase the rate of fat release, increase in the number of mitochondria in the muscle.


Zone 3 - Aerobic Zone: 70% - 80% of your Max Hr

Transition Zone – from two health zones to two performance zones still feels comfortable, you will break a sweat, but no anaerobic burn sensation

Exercise Benefits: Improved overall functional capacity with increase in the number and size of blood vessels, increased vital capacity, respiratory rate, max pulmonary ventilation, pulmonary diffusion, increase in size and strength of the heart, improvements in cardiac output and stroke volume.

conniewilkins56

Whatever all this mean, I think you did a great job lol

bmeadows380

@conniewilkins56 lol Thank you!

What it all means is just that when you are doing aerobic exercise, one of the great benefits is that it can strengthen your heart as well burn fat, build a little muscle mass (not like weight lifting but still, you are using muscles, after all!) and can help blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. The higher the intensity, the more benefit.

The intensity level is based upon how hard your heart is working when you exercise. It's calculated based on your age. Your resting pulse rate is the number of beats per minute when you are resting - doing nothing but sitting or laying in bed. If you take your blood pressure when you first get up of a morning and are using a digital monitor, the resting pulse rate will be shown on the monitor. The maximum heart rate is the hardest your heart can beat period - of course, you don't want to get to that number

Heart reserve is just the difference between the max and the resting rate, or the extra energy potential the heart has to handle increased demand when you get to moving, working, etc. You don't want to use all that reserve potential, but you do want to push your heart to use a portion of it because it exercises the heart and makes it stronger. Your heart is a muscle, after all, and needs worked out just like all your other muscles to make it stronger and healthier.

So for beginners, they are recommending using 40-50% of that reserve capacity; for light exercisers, you want to shoot for 50-60%, and eventually, you'd like to be using 60-70% for maximum benefits. And the other benefit is that your body burns fat while you are working out, and the higher the intensity, the more you burn.

Weight lifting is ideal for building muscle and strengthening what you have, but aerobic exercise has great benefits too and works those muscle out.

conniewilkins56

I need to exercise so badly....I don’t know why I can’t push myself...you are very motivating...I think it’s great you are becoming so much more active!

bmeadows380

mid-day update. Got my elliptical in this morning, but I'm not counting it in my exercise log. I was on it for 30 minutes, and after 3 minutes at 1 resistance, jumped it up to 5, then 7, then 5, then 6, then 4, then 2 to end. Heart rate was only 108 and firmly in zone 1 for me.

I just finished up a 30 minute aerobic workout that was a mix of boxing and leg workout (if I dig out a body weight routine this evening, it will definitely be limited to upper body - I've got my squats in for the day!). Heart rate for this one was again 132, or just barely shy of that 60-70% rate.

After logging in my weight this morning, my HappyScale trend is down to 257.1 lbs. Last Thursday, my weekly record was 259.3 lbs. That's a 2.2 lb difference in 5 days, so I'm losing just a little fast than I really should be, and definitely faster than the 1.75 lbs I had been working toward. So, I'm going to add back in about half of the aerobic workouts now, and stick with 1/3 of the walks while still leaving out the elliptical as that's more for just getting my step count up. I really had no idea how much exercise calories to use, so we'll stick with this value for the next month and see where I am this time next month and this time in May.

I'm not going to get a walk in today because of rain and because I need to go to the store on the other end of the county tonight, but if I have time after I get back, I'll look up that upper body resistance workout to max the lower body one I did in my aerobic video today.

bmeadows380

got a 20 minute elliptical session in this morning, a 30 minute areobic session in at lunch, another 30 minute elliptical session in this evening, followed by 1 set of different upper body free weight beginner strength exercises. And all because it was raining and cold and I couldn't walk outside again.

But tomorrow is to be pretty, so I just might get a walk in then!

NovusDies

bmeadows380 wrote: »

@conniewilkins56 lol Thank you!

What it all means is just that when you are doing aerobic exercise, one of the great benefits is that it can strengthen your heart as well burn fat, build a little muscle mass (not like weight lifting but still, you are using muscles, after all!) and can help blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. The higher the intensity, the more benefit.

The intensity level is based upon how hard your heart is working when you exercise. It's calculated based on your age. Your resting pulse rate is the number of beats per minute when you are resting - doing nothing but sitting or laying in bed. If you take your blood pressure when you first get up of a morning and are using a digital monitor, the resting pulse rate will be shown on the monitor. The maximum heart rate is the hardest your heart can beat period - of course, you don't want to get to that number

Heart reserve is just the difference between the max and the resting rate, or the extra energy potential the heart has to handle increased demand when you get to moving, working, etc. You don't want to use all that reserve potential, but you do want to push your heart to use a portion of it because it exercises the heart and makes it stronger. Your heart is a muscle, after all, and needs worked out just like all your other muscles to make it stronger and healthier.

So for beginners, they are recommending using 40-50% of that reserve capacity; for light exercisers, you want to shoot for 50-60%, and eventually, you'd like to be using 60-70% for maximum benefits. And the other benefit is that your body burns fat while you are working out, and the higher the intensity, the more you burn.

Weight lifting is ideal for building muscle and strengthening what you have, but aerobic exercise has great benefits too and works those muscle out.

Actually during the first part of exercise you are burning glucose (if you have eaten recently) and then glycogen. It is only in prolonged exercise you move to fat. It doesn't make any difference though because as you know you burn fat whether you exercise or not. It is the total sum of your energy in - energy out that determines how much fat is used to make up the energy deficit.

While exercising if you push too far on fat only it backfires on you and you hit what I call the "pit." It makes me feel bad for hours. It is something I have to be careful of because most of my early morning exercise is all fasted and I typically burn 600ish calories.

bmeadows380

@NovusDies thank you for the clarification! I'm not up to date on exercise standards and had only just started looking into the heart rate thing. My fitness tracker puts heart rate in as fat burning zone, cartio traning zone, and peak training zone, with cardio higher than fat burning. But I don't pay attention to the different zones, on the heart rate itself.

I'm noticing that my energy levels are dropping as the week goes along. Monday was easy to get the aerobic session in; yesterday was hard. Monday I blew through the elliptical session; this morning it dragged. But I do the elliptical sessions before breakfast.

NovusDies

Getting your heart rate up is good for your fitness and it improves things like cholesterol.

Your energy may be dropping because you are not eating enough. My understanding of glycogen (and I am no expert) is that while in a calorie deficit it never replenishes completely. It will replenish some and that happens when you sleep at night. It stands to reason that the higher your deficit the less glycogen is replaced and that makes exercise more of a struggle.

That is why we mistakenly think of sleep as regenerative when it comes to energy. It is not. The power drain continues but some of the energy is moved around so that you can get at it faster.

Since glycogen is made from carbs I have been eating more of them to help balance me out better. I have also been saving and eating more calories for dinner. In the past my dinner was seldom more than 250 and often 0 because I would just skip it. The problem with skipping now is by the time I exercise the next morning I would have been without food between 2pm and 5am.

It keeps getting easier though so I feel like I am adapting and I may be able to go back to my normal way of eating. If not, I can keep doing the 600ish calorie dinner thing.

As you keep pushing forward your numbers will help guide you and you will also be able to tell when you need to eat a little more.

What we are going through I call "re-tuning" and it comes with some negatives. We are getting stronger and building stamina but there are energy hurdles as our body tries to adapt to a sudden change in expenditure. Like you I ramped up pretty fast which is probably not ideal but it happened and now I work though the downsides of it.

bmeadows380

I have trouble getting enough sleep during the work week, especially Monday night - I might have gotten all of 3 hours that night. So I"m running on a sleep deficit until Saturday, when I can sleep in. I figured that was part of hte problem, but its hard to bust an attack of insomnia and work starts when work starts, so I can't just snooze until I get my 6 hours plus.

I eat higher carb anyway - approaching 50% most days. I make an effort to hit my protein level too, so fat is the macro that tends to suffer. First thing of a morning, I hit that elliptical with little in my stomach, so couple that with lack of sleep, and I see where the slow down is coming.

I try to have something carby before the aerobic workout, but I also don't want too much on my stomach then, either.

Evenings are my hard time, so my calories are saved until then, and I often don't eat dinner until 7 or 8 pm, and usually have my last snack around 10 before bedtime, so at least I still have something for mornings.

I strongly suspect my biggest problem is the sleep thing, something I"ve struggled with for years. I"ll keep plugging away at it.

NovusDies

Sleep is a big factor too. I have suffered from insomnia since I was a teen. It can definitely make a person feel sluggish.

You are smart so you will figure out how to make it all work.

bmeadows380

what I need is for there to be about 30 hours in a day Then I could spend those 10 hours for my job, get my dinner made, all my exercise done, get the chores done around the house, get my slow down free time, studies I want to do, and still get 8 hours sleep a night

bmeadows380

okay. I did a 30 minute elliptical session to start my day. Got in a 29 minute aerobic session that got my heart rate up to an average of 131 at lunch. And I just came back from a 3.8 mile walk in 1 hour 7 minutes (3.411 mph, so I just put in 18 minutes at 3.5 mph since MFP doesn't let you do increments). I can declare that I was active today! Especially since all that has got me up to over 14,000 steps today!

Here's hoping that this helps my strategy to wear myself out so I'll sleep well tonight.....

NovusDies

I hit 23,308 steps yesterday was was 500ish below my personal best so far. My new shoes are really making the difference but I pushed a little too hard so I am scaling back a little today.

My Apple Watch April goal is a staggering 100 minutes a day of exercise. I am thinking I am not going to be going for that particular badge. I can do that a few days in a row but then I need a light day. That sucks because I have earned Jan, Feb, and March "awards" so far.

bmeadows380

I"m a little light today. Had the usual warm up elliptical session this morning which I don't count as its not real intense, but the aerobic video was a mix of aerobics and resistance with more emphasis on resistance. It was a pretty good leg workout, but wasn't really heart pounding, either, so I only counted 1/4 of it. I have a 4 mile walk planned for this evening; which will definitely put my step count above goal and then some!

@NovusDies I was about to say that 100 minutes of exercise is insane, but then I stopped to think about my 67 minute walk + 20 minute elliptical session + 25 minute aerobic session yesterday, and I realized I had over 100 right there. Huh? Whadaya know?

Oh, I see - 100 minutes a day for the entire month. Nope, you're right - that wouldn't be happening for me, either. I"m trying to keep my activity up during the week, but I need a slower day too to reset, and I plan to do nothing more than take a walk on Sunday.

bmeadows380

got a 4.5 mile walk in this evening, so I'm good for the rest of the day! The thing is, it was at about a 3.3 mph rate. There isn't an entry for 3.3 or even 3.25 - its either 3.5 or 3.0 mph. I had to choose between counting 3.5 at 1/4 of the time (20 minutes) or 3.0 at 1/3 time (27 minutes). I went with the 3.5 - it was lower.

In any case, it pushed my step count up to 14,000+, so I call it a good day!


Tomorrow won't need a walk - I plan to push mow my lawn, and its fairly good size!

NovusDies

bmeadows380 wrote: »

got a 4.5 mile walk in this evening, so I'm good for the rest of the day! The thing is, it was at about a 3.3 mph rate. There isn't an entry for 3.3 or even 3.25 - its either 3.5 or 3.0 mph. I had to choose between counting 3.5 at 1/4 of the time (20 minutes) or 3.0 at 1/3 time (27 minutes). I went with the 3.5 - it was lower.

In any case, it pushed my step count up to 14,000+, so I call it a good day!


Tomorrow won't need a walk - I plan to push mow my lawn, and its fairly good size!

I think at 14k you are on the line of very active but you are definitely active+ so calculate what your calories would be at that activity setting and let that guide how you enter your exercise.

I am bad at taking it easy. 21,261 steps and 106 minutes of exercise. It won't last though. I can't do 30 straight days with 100 minutes. Not with these knees. Even if I took ibuprofen daily which I refuse to do.

bmeadows380

well, the step counter reads 14,000 steps. Except it counts all that aerobic exercise as steps, including all the punches in the boxing segment. Which was exercise, of course, but not exactly steps. So in reality, I might be closer to the 10,000.

When I check my alternate account, it seems that the difference between sedentary and lightly active is around 290 calories; counting back 1/4 to 1/3 of my exercise calories like today actually gets fairly close - I earned 226 exercise calories today, with a margin of error to cover the inexactness of the counting.

21,000 steps easy?!!! I couldn't keep up with you on my best day! lol My knees aren't shot, but at the same time, after 30 years of being obese and having twisted my right one 4 times in the last 20 years, I have to be very careful with them. They don't hurt, but at the same time, they don't have an easy range of motion. I especially have to be careful with the squats in the aerobic exercises - I can't get down nearly as far as I should because my knees won't forgive the force.

I don't squat easy at all. If I need something on the floor, or am gardening, I've got the bad habit of bending at the waist instead.

On the plus side, I'd been having trouble with lower back pain when standing for too long or sitting for too long. During today's walk, I realized that I wasn't having that trouble any more. Or at least not even close to the same degree it was in the past! The long walk today did have my back muscles tight by the end and my neck, but the lower back was fine. Before, it would hurt so bad that I couldn't hardly move.

Another thing I have to really watch is the muscles in my inner thigh. I"m not sure which one it is, but it has a very bad tendency to charlie horse on me, especially if I'm going from a prone to standing position off a bed, the couch, etc - think lifting your left up to slide it over the bed's edge in preparation to standing. Usually, it will give me a warning twinge and I know to immediately change the position of my legs or else, but sometimes I get no warning and those muscle lock up and put me in the worst agony I've ever experienced - including the twisted knees! I have to lay on the floor and spread into a split, stretching my legs out from my hips as far as I can to get it to let loose, and sometimes it takes a while for them to release. And often, I'm stuck in that position for a bit of time because as soon as I move to stand up, they lock up again - I can't get out of that split position without them locking. And once I get them to let go so that I can get up, I'm sore the rest of the day. This started around 5 years ago, now, and I'm not sure what is causing it. My mother has a time with calf charlie horses, but I can get out of those when they happen pretty easy; this inner thigh lock is a different monster all together.

bmeadows380

My monitor only shows 8,000 steps in for the day, but that is definitely not reflecting my effort. I push-mowed my lawn and it took 1 hour 47 minutes to do so. While my yard has flat areas, there is a steep bank between me and my neighbor that I forced the mower up several times, and banks in the front that I pulled that mower up and down. Plus, my push mower's body has about had it (it's 10 years old, after all, but the motor is still great and fires on the first pull!), so the deck is lower to the ground which results in it being stiff to push. Plus, the fitness tracker only seems to count when my arm is swinging. I set it to treadmill because that seems to continue to count the activity's heart rate even if my arm isn't moving, which is much better than the walk setting - I found this out on the elliptical; if I set it for a walk but use the handles, the fitness tracker says it doesn't monitor movement and shuts down. If I set it for treadmill, it seems to do a little better, but I've still learned to let the arm with the tracker swing free to get the step count. It's not exactly the best position to be in while using the machine, I know, but to get it to count its what I have to do.

anyway, so while it did record my activity the entire 1 3/4 hours, I don't think it caught all my steps such as when I was pushing the mower, or pulling it with the hand that had the tracker. And that was a lot of muscle use anyway! My upper arms got a workout from pushing and pulling that thing too.

I also got a 27 minute bike ride in. My bike is a single speed cruiser with coaster brakes. I walked the last 9 minutes or so because there's a fairly steep hill going back home and with a single speed bike, I know I wasn't going to be riding up that hill. But I was amazed at how much time I actually spent peddling the other 18 minutes. I figured I'd be walking at least half of that or cruising and really only peddling a fraction of that time, but I wasn't able to cruise much at all and only had to get off and walk twice for a very short distance. I covered 3 miles in that 18 minutes and I was quite happy with the ride.

My legs aren't used to the motion of peddling, so I'll have to keep the rides short and work up. However, all the walking I had been doing the last month paid off in mowing the yard and riding the bike- I wasn't straining or huffing and puffing to get the mowing done, and my legs weren't jelly when I finished mowing or riding the bike! The upper part of my thighs were definitely sore during the ride but aren't bad now, though they'll probably will be so tomorrow. But I think in this case, the aerobic videos I've been doing has helped because they incorporated a lot of leg work including squats and lunges which works those upper thigh muscles - I know because when I first started them, I couldn't hardly sit down for 3 days afterwards!

I was happy with the ride as well because I didn't have any trouble being wobbly and handled the speed bumps in the street fine. It gives me something else I can do alongside all the walking or when I have limited time. The walks get more more calories for now because I can go for a much longer period, but the biking burns more calories. I'd probably burn even more calories if I could stand up and ride, but those days are long gone, so I sit the whole time It'd probably do better with a geared bike as well, but I can't afford a new bike and have never ridden one with gears or hand breaks, so for something that is only done occasionally for now, I'll stick with what I have. Besides - I grew up riding single speed bikes with coaster brakes, and even though its been around 25 years since I last rode one, the muscle memory was still there - that is, when I need to slow down, my brain automatically shifts that foot backwards; I'm kind of afraid of trying to switch to a hand brake bike because of the precious few seconds it would take for my brain to remember it needed to squeeze the handles instead of slamming that foot back, and in some situations, that few seconds could be the difference between getting stopped safely or having an accident!

NovusDies

@bmeadows380 I meant that I was supposed to take it easy and I didn't.

We are at 2 different stages. You are moving far more than I was when I was in your shoes so you you may be moving more then me when you get to where I am now. You will probably be limited more on time than physical ability. I am limited on both which is why I get up at 5am to get what I can.

10k steps would earn you active calories not lightly active calories. I don't distinguish between steps I get from the elliptical and steps I get walking. The elliptical steps are worth more anyway on calories.

Saturday I hit a personal best of over 25k steps. Instead of taking it easy on Sunday I went over 20k steps again and combining that with the landscaping and cleaning the garage I am in some serious pain today. My hamstrings are on fire. If I do not really take it easy today I may be forced to take it easy tomorrow and potentially more. I did the elliptical this morning and walked 3 miles so other than taking care of the dog and watering the lawn I think I really will take it easy today. My morning routine has already yielded 11k steps so hopefully I won't get much more than 15k for the whole day.