What? Me Run?

I am not a runner.  I have never been a runner, and I have never even wanted to be a runner.  I always felt that guys my size (greater than six feet and 200 lbs) weren't built for running.  This view was reinforced when I started looking inside athlete's knees, especially runners', and saw the amount of damage they were doing to their joints, and it was further supported when any attempt at running after my back injury 12 years ago sent shock waves of pain up my spine.  Any cardio activities for me have been destined to be relatively low impact.

That being said, I was watching one of the news magazine shows last year and they had a piece on the rise in barefoot running.  One of the primary premises behind the movement is that the current method of running that most westerners use where the heel strikes the ground first is unnatural, inefficient and a primary contributor to the multiple injuries and pain associated with running.  There is increasing support for a more natural style of running where the strike of the foot happens more towards the ball of the foot and the heel doesn't even really touch the ground.  This stride goes by many names, including midfoot or forefoot strike running (FSR), depending on who you ask and the exact technique.  Regardless of the name, however, this running form allows the natural shock absorber of the lower leg to soften the impact and promotes a more efficient forward lean. Proponents also contend that you not only don't need a thickly cushioned soled shoe, but that you should have as little sole on your shoe as possible (if any) to allow the foot to naturally adjust and respond to the terrain (leading to one of my favorite new oxymoronic, marketing terms, “barefoot" running shoe). Indeed, all major athletic shoe manufacturers and many boutique brands now offer minimalist running shoe lines with little or no angle to the thin midsole.

From a biomechanics and an evolutionary perspective, this all makes perfect sense.  I wasn't convinced that I should be hitting the jogging trail but it provided some perspective that maybe roadwork wasn't necessarily evil.  I had further conversations with a colleague who is a forefoot strike runner that provided additional support to its benefits, and she suggested a book called Born to Run by Christopher McDougall for more details. 

Fast forward to 2012 and I found myself looking for more variety in my cardio routines.  My trainer wanted me to try spin classes but it definitely wasn't for me.  I'm not even that big a fan of regular bike riding.  With the weather turning so nice, I also wanted to get off the machines and get outside a little. So last week I decided to go for a walk and maybe try out some FSR.  If you've never tried it before, it's a little odd at first; it almost feels like your prancing around on the balls of your feet.  After a while, though, it begins to feel somewhat natural and the stride becomes quite a bit easier.  What I noticed immediately was that there was no jarring in my spine.  In fact, unlike heel strike running, the impact seemed to lessen with longer strides.  It felt comfortable enough that what was intended to be a 45 minute walk with intermittent running became a 40 minute run with only about 5 minutes of walking toward the beginning. After not having run more than a hundred yards at a time over the past 15 years, I put in 5K on my first morning out!

Now, I'm not going to tell you that it was all a beautiful thing and I'm now a runner for life.  For starters, as you might imagine, after running more than three miles with my heels never touching the ground, my calves are letting me know that they weren't quite ready for that kind of abuse.  Although, I could imagine they would be the size of cantaloupes if I did this full time. I've spent a great deal of time over the past week stretching them out and keeping my tracks a little shorter. It was also very apparent during the run that I've done some damage to my knees carrying around all that extra weight for the past 12 years, and my need to get those joints scoped and cleaned is coming soon.  Until that happens, I'll still mostly stick with the lower impact cardio, but what is encouraging is I now have another option for my cardio routines to keep things interesting and this one that doesn't require anything more than some open space and a good pair of shoes (maybe).  

Willpower

I heard a great interview on public radio this past weekend with the author of a book published Aug 2011 called "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength". They were discussing willpower and weight loss and I thought there were a few very interesting points that I would share. 

1. People who give themselves continuous feedback on results are more likely to succeed. One study showed that people who weighed themselves everyday were more successful at losing weight than those who only weighed themselves once a week. It certainly has been my experience (see blog below).
2. In order for your brain to function optimally and exercise willpower, it must have glucose. If you are not getting enough nutrition, than your resolve will weaken; a dietary Catch-22. This sounds like one more good reason to eat back those exercise calories and ensure your daily calorie deficit isn't too low. 
3. The author mentioned that the people with the best success set moderate, reasonable goals, like 1 lb a week. This goal would also ensure that brain's getting enough fuel. 
4. People that exhibit the most willpower construct their lives to routinely avoid situations that test their resolve and so they have a store of willpower for when they really need it. 

The discussion was intriguing and made me add the book title to my "want to read" list. 

Advice is worth exactly what you pay for it

When I was first learning to play golf, almost every person I’d play a round with had some sort of advice to help me with my game.  In an effort to improve, I not only listened to these various volunteer coaches but I’d buy the magazines, books, videos and devices that all pledged to straighten my slice, improve my iron play or help me putt like a pro.  They each had their own unique perspectives and opinions on the right way to hit a little ball into a hole in the ground.  With apologies to a few individuals who actually did help me, what I came to learn during those times is that advice on improving your golf game is worth exactly what you pay for it.  The more you spend on help and instruction, the more you benefit from it in performance and over time; and free advice is generally worth exactly that, nothing.  If you really want to improve, you need to do two things; go see a professional who can analyze your swing and game and work directly with you on your specific needs, and then go out an apply what you learned with attention and intention.  It’s much more expensive and time consuming than the other options but its the only way to see real results.

I’m quickly realizing that fitness is much the same.  Especially this time of year, we are inundated with information on diet programs and fitness routines that promise us results for our New Year’s resolutions fast.  We also get loads of advice from family, friends and coworkers who are more than willing to tell us what worked for them (for a while, anyway).  Even the websites that we join with forums to support one another are filled with opinions and suggestions that can be confusing, contradict one another, and are sometimes not even medically sound.  So, again, I remind you that advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.  Infomercials are free, even if there products aren’t.  Their recommendations that you need to join their program or buy their DVDs aren’t even advice but advertising.  Recommendations from friends you have in person or in cyberspace are worth what you pay for them also.  The only way to get real results is find a fitness professional that can assess your individual needs and develop a program designed specifically for them, and then go out and apply that program with attention and intention.  

That’s my advice to you, and you can take for what its worth knowing exactly what you paid for it.

Then and Now pictures

Most of my blog posts are about my journey to health and fitness and have even posted my weight loss ticker from myfitnesspal.com in the margin on the right----> but I've recently had some requests for pictures.  Since not everyone has access to Google+ yet where I have my pictures posted, I thought I'd put then and now pictures here.  I'm still a work in progress but making good headway.
Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement.  If you want to see more of the journey in pictures, you can join Google+ and I'll add you to my friends and family circles and share the photos.  (With apologies to many, I'm moving away from Facebook.)

Then (July 2010)                                   Now (Dec 2011)

Review of the Zephyr HxM bluetooth heart rate monitor

Introduction

What is the Zephyr HxM bluetooth heart rate monitor?  The title is fairly self explanatory but it is a chest strap heart rate monitor that communicates via bluetooth wireless with an Android smartphone for fitness tracking.  Please note that it is not compatible with iPhone.

A bluetooth HRM is ideal for me for several reasons.  First, it reduces the number of accessories I need to have with/on me when I work out.  I carry my phone for music so the HxM frees me from having to wear an HRM "watch".  Not a huge deal for most but the "watch" accessory does get in the way when I wear gloves for strength training.  Second, because it doesn't have a "watch" and uses the phones hardware for GPS, computing, etc., it is much less expensive than most of the other high-end HRMs at around $99.  To get the most out of it, you will need to buy a pro-level app for your phone but that's only an additional $4-$5 and you'll get that back in discount if you buy the device through the app's website (See Software below). Finally, the tracking is uploaded automatically to the application's websites so you can see all the details of your workout including route, speed, heart rate, etc. without any data entry.  It would be great if it uploaded automatically to myfitnesspal.com but MFP hasn't built that feature in (yet). 

Hardware

The hardware itself is lightweight and comfortable and works very well. As is mentioned above, It is really just a chest strap with the snap-on transmitting module.  The module is rechargeable with the included USB adapter and holds a charge for at least a week's worth of workouts.  There is no on/off switch, it is activated when the sensors are against your skin. 

The HxM provides information beyond just heart rate like cadence so you can get an approximate speed even if you are working out indoors on a stationary machine like a treadmill or elliptical.  Like most better HRMs, these devices are primarily for outdoor exercises but its nice to have some additional features for those of us who do are cardio in the gym.

Most importantly for a device like this, it pairs easily with an Android phone (I use a Droid Charge running Gingerbread 2.3 Update: I've moved on to the Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.0) and the connection remained steady even when using a bluetooth headset during the workouts.  Most lost connections I had were due to software issues, not hardware (see below). 

Software

Despite the benefits above, the HxM is held back by the quality of the software.  Zephyr does not provide a specific app but recommends several on their website. I've tried the pro version of two, Endomondo and SportsTracker, to try to get the most out of hardware and they both have a few shortcomings.   Both apps also have free versions on the Android Market but with some limited functionality.

Endomondo ($3.99) has an extensive library of activities, tracks and maps routes via GPS, and the app maintains a steady connection with the HxM with good heart rate tracking.  It even has a support community on its website.  I really like this app except for one major shortcoming: it doesn't take heart into consideration for its calories calculations, only an estimate based on activity, age, weight, and speed.   The developers have acknowledged the shortcoming and are working to rectify the issue but, until then, the calorie burn calculator isn't much better than the estimates on MFP. 

So, I decided to try SportsTracker Pro app ($4.99) from sportstracklive.com because it does use heart rate in the calorie burn calculations.  The app has many tracking features similar to Endomondo but its list of activities is much smaller and focused mostly on outdoor workouts.  For example, there are no options for strength training or cross training so you have pick a surrogate for those  types of activities.  This app did, however, do a better job at tracking cadence/speed for indoor activities and has a nice web interface for reviewing workouts.  The major problem that I had with SportsTracker was that it kept losing the bluetooth connection with the HxM, which kinda defeated the whole purpose of using it. Update: with my new Galaxy Nexus, I have no dropped connection issues.  This app is working great now.

My hope is that Endomondo updates their app and website soon, but until then, I'll keep looking for the software that will make the Zephyr HxM as useful as it can be.  Next up: SportyPal (no indoor tracking currently). 

Conclusion

The Zephyr HxM itself is a good piece of hardware with a lot of potential but it needs some help from software developers to help it reach its optimal functionality.  

Confessions of a Scale-aholic

Yesterday (Saturday) was my official weigh-in day; the day to document my weight and body fat % and evaluate my progress.  It's a big week because I think I'll break a barrier than I haven't seen in 20 or more years.  I'm not excited or anxious or fretting, though, because I pretty much know what the readings are going to be.  Why? Because I'm a scale-aholic.  There, I admitted it.  Despite all admonitions,  I hop on the scale more than just the once-a-week check-in.  And I'm not just talking about maybe a peek here and there either;  I check at least daily and sometimes more.  I even break my own rules and check on more than one scale; including the one at the gym.  Yes, I'm a scale addict.  Some of the rest of you might be this same way too.  It may be what drew you to the title of the blog.

This behavior doesn't surprise me.  It's just an extension of my commitment to fitness right now (sic: symptom of my obsessive compulsive tendencies).  But most importantly, though, is that I'm perfectly okay with this practice, at least for myself.  I recognize that it could be destructive for some and I'm not advocating this for anyone, but I've come to terms with it (acceptance is the first step) based on the following:

1.       I take the readings more out of scientific curiosity than determination of progress - you can call BS on me if you'd like, and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some small component of measuring progress, but I started these multiple readings early on in my weight loss journey out of curiosity of the factors that influenced the fluctuations in weight throughout the day and week.  As a scientist and health care professional, I'm fascinated by human physiology and wanted to observe how my weight varied under different conditions.  At one point, I even contemplated tracking every weigh-in with notes on the variables (time of day, proximity to meals and exercise, weight vs. BF%, etc.) and sharing my findings here in what would have been the dullest blog ever.  In the end, I decided my OCD wasn't quite that intense. Right now, I continue the frequent readings to get a handle on variations in BF%.  That curiosity led me to observation number 2:

2.       Taking multiple readings throughout the week does nothing to help track progress - if you take nothing else away from this blog, remember that statement.  The fluctuations in my weight from day to day and throughout any given day were so unpredictable that they lacked any real meaning regarding my path to fitness.  My lowest weight for the week could be the day after my highest, and my final weigh-in would be somewhere in the middle, and the next week everything would flip.  Also, exercise and meals had little to do with weigh-ins, except, of course, that I weighed more immediately following a meal.  I had one of my biggest losses a day and half after a Cheesecake Factory dinner and a blow out the top of my daily calorie allowance.  This is why I still only track progress with the one official weigh-in a week.  And tracking body fat percentage is even worse, those readings are all over the place.  Fortunately, through all the fluctuations, the trend is still steadily downward.  This observation, thought, has also allowed me to:

3.       Stay emotionally unattached to the frequent weigh-ins - I have successfully removed any (OK, most) emotional connection with the results of these frequent hops on the scale.  If I got upset by a high reading or too excited by a low one, I'd be a wreck after just a few days.  Likewise, I try to remove any emotions with the weekly measurements as well because I know this is a long term commitment to fitness, not a weekly dash, and it’s the sustained progress over months and years that's truly important.  I also don't let it change my behavior.  I've had great success with my food and fitness plan and I'm not going to make any changes in my daily routine because of a few midweek measurements. 

Please note, I'm not advocating this behavior for anyone.  The professional recommendations to weigh yourself only once a week under similar conditions are very sound and will give you the best indication of progress.  Maybe soon I'll be bored with observing fluctuations and variables, but until then, I'm perfectly happy replacing the batteries in the scale a little more often. 

Stay healthy and happy!  

                                                                                                                                 

Is there a dark side to NSVs?

We all love NSVs (non-scale victories) in whatever form they show up, whether comments from the people around us, getting into that old pair of pants or running in a 5K.  They validate the hard work we're doing, boost our egos, and provide some additional support and motivation when the scale may not be as kind.  My recent experiences, however, have me thinking there may be a dark side to NSVs too.

About two weeks ago, I posted a blog on MFP about how the many NSVs I received recently helped me break through a fitness plateau (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/shivaslives/view/of-plateaus-and-nsvs-163870).  But as my weight loss has continued to slow down, I have been evaluating my behavior and realized that I have not been as resolute in my dietary habits as I was in previous months.  While I still keep a balanced diet and stay below or close to my calorie goal, I find that I am not eating as "clean" as I had been and I'm eating at times that I had been avoiding.  I'm also now consuming almost all my exercise calories where before it was closer to 50% to 75%.  And these new practices are definitely slowing down my progress. 

So, why now, after being so diligent for 5 months?  One of my theories is that all the positive feedback in its various forms may be eroding my resolve.  I could be getting complacent about making further progress because everyone is commenting on my current level of achievement.  And, beyond that, some comments like "You don't need to lose any more weight", "you're going to waste away ", or "don't go crazy on us" are actively discouraging advancement.  While I try not to let comments like these have impact, somewhere in the back of my mind I'm thinking "you're at a good place" or asking "will that new suit fit if I lose any more weight?" as I reach for a croissant that I wouldn't have touched a month ago.   

For me, awareness of this situation is a good first step to getting past it.  Just writing it down in this blog is helping me sort through it in my mind.  The second step will be to reevaluate my dietary goals. While I am in line with "consuming a balanced diet 1000 kcal below my daily burn", I definitely need to do more; perhaps strict compliance with "fit for life" eating, keeping my food consumption "clean" or only eating back 75% of my exercise calories.  I'll have to contemplate this a little more because it's too critical to take lightly.  The final step is the mental realization that I have not reached my health and fitness goals yet, despite what others' comments may be, and recommitting to them.  While NSVs are nice, the only person I have to satisfy is myself, and I won't let others dictate how success is defined for me on this journey or whether I'm going to have that croissant or not.