As should be obvious, I have had the longest hiatus from posting to this blog since I opened it. This wasn't intentional, but was a direct result of my exercise routine and church teaching prep cutting into the spare time I would have had to post.
I did want to report back in on how my healthier lifestyle is progressing.
When I started this exercise routine I wasn't extremely excited about it because I had real doubts that I would be able to stick with it, and to me it was worse to start and give up than not to start at all. I still have those concerns because it's an extraordinary challenge to squeeze my routine in, but I have stuck with it. I don't know if I'll be still doing this in a few years, but my mindset right now is that nothing I'm doing now is worth it if I don't stick with it over the long haul.
One thing that changed since I last posted is that I did actually start watching what I eat. I didn't at first because I didn't want to commit to more than I could stick to. However, in March I determined to try modifying my diet because I felt like if I'm already exercising hard I should do what I can to see good and more speedy results. I started using the app Lose It! to keep track of what I eat, and I've been a real stickler to keep on top of it. This has actually helped me stick with the exercise routine because it's undeniable now that there's a benefit to what I'm doing.
At this point, the benefit I can see is having lost about 35 pounds and somewhere between three and four inches of belly fat (belly-button level). My body fat levels have gone from somewhere in the 25% to 28% range to 20% or 21%. I know my VO2Max (how much oxygen your lungs can take in) is improved too because I can breathe better when exercising, but I don't know how to measure that. All of this is gravy (hmmmmm... gravy), however. My real goal is to lower my triglycerides and LDL cholesterol, and I won't have a reading on those until my next annual doctor's appointment in January.
I've had a few observations along the way.
- Most of the diet challenge was finding foods I'm happy to regularly snack on at night. For now I've settled on a rotation of apples, celery, pickles, oranges, and carrot sticks. I'm convinced that this is the change that has effected my health the most.
- Early on, I'd occasionally still be hungry come time to go to bed, but I rarely am any more.
- I still snack on cereal and cheese and crackers occasionally. The difference is that it is more sparing, and I'm careful to limit the amount of milk I swallow with the cereal. I remember my great aunt telling me that I should use all of the milk that I poured into my cereal when I was a kid, but I believe now that advice made more sense when she was a child during the Great Depression than it does today.
- I used to make peanut butter and jelly regularly just because it was easy. I very rarely do that any more because it's a high-calorie food.
- If I'm ahead in my calorie count for the day, I absolutely splurge on some food I'm craving. There are two reasons for this. One is that eating too few calories negatively affects metabolism. The other is that there's a great psychological benefit to being able to regularly eat higher calorie foods when I'm ahead for the day.
- I track calories because those are quantifiable, but I'm coming to believe the calories matter less than that I'm eating more fruits and non-starchy vegetables.
- I personally avoid diet and fat-free foods and beverages. I used to drink Diet Pepsi, so I cast no judgment on those who use those. In fact, if you like the taste it might make sense. Whatever research I've been able to find on those products has made me doubt that diet and fat-free foods are beneficial, however.
- My weight loss has been reasonably steady at around a pound a week (maybe a little more) throughout this whole process. Everything I'm reading indicates that you don't want to lose more than two pounds a week.
- Just in the last few weeks I've started watching videos from NutritionFacts.org. They basically just walk through what the research says about different dietary habits, and it's extremely interesting. I'd recommend it for anyone who's interested in improving their health through (possibly minor) dietary changes, such as consuming a few more nuts a day or eating brown rather than white rice.
- I never dreamed I'd be the sort to look into supplements because that's the world of snake oil salesmen and bodybuilders. In fact some research indicates that vitamin supplements have a negative affect on peoples' health. However, I just ordered creatine supplements for the first time because the effects that specific supplement has on the body align with my personal health goals (namely, I'm targeting18%-ish body fat). It's a whole new world for me.
- Even after exercising for this long it's still obvious that my body has not been gifted with endurance or the ability to get a runner's high. Maybe it's because running is not part of my routine?
- I'm actually amazed at the number of minor things that these life changes have helped with (example), and I've also discovered some things that I didn't realize were an issue that I still need to put a plan together to address.
- I have never once exercised in a gym, and I don't ever expect to have a gym membership because I don't have time to go. If my exercising relied on me going to the gym, I wouldn't exercise at all. Everything I'm doing right now is from a FitnessBlender YouTube video in my living room.
So, lest anyone make the mistake of thinking I'm doing anything extraordinary, the following is the routine I've been doing.
When I first started out I was very out of shape, so I just rotated through the following routines, exercising five or six times a week until I started seeing some improvements. Mind you, they felt very slow in coming, but I did start to see them after a few weeks.
Then, I started working in some resistance exercises into my routine because I had read that it was important to have a mix of cardio and resistance to lower LDL cholesterol.
As I improved I slowly started working in more challenging and/or targeted routines and dropping old routines. Right now I have a five-day rotation that I typically go through in a week.
Day 1: Abs/Core (The hardest of all days)
Day 2: Tabata Style HIIT Aerobics
Day 3: Arms and Legs
Day 4: Beginner HIIT Aerobics
Day 5: Total Body Workout
I'm constantly reassessing this, so there will be changes in the future. I still have a lot of room for improving how challenging my cardio routines are, and I need to start stepping up my weights on "resistance" days. For now this is what I'm doing, though: about 140 minutes of exercise a week plus some watching what I eat.
Golden sometimes joins me in my exercising as well. Those are fun days.
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