The Evolution of Running

So once upon a time, not that long ago, getting ready to go running meant putting on some old tee-shirt and elastic shorts, grabbing my walkmen, finding a mixed tape I wanted to listen to (pre-2006), and then heading out the door. These were much simpler times.

Fast forward to about six years ago when I began running with even greater frequency. It suddenly seemed like a good idea to wear shirts that were specifically designed for running. Considering that at my peak I was running 7-10 miles in the late afternoon on hot July days in the malarial swamp known as DC (and right next to the river), this was a good idea. I also got some fancy new running shorts and some socks specifically geared for running, and I was all set.

Then, after coming dehydrated after every run because all I had to drink were a few quick gulps at the water fountain, it made sense to start carrying a water bottle, and to have a fannypack (or something like it) in order to carry it. I can thank my wife for this wise investment, which did help improve my running performance.

Ah, but now in this advanced age I really want to be able to track my runs. Sure the trails I run on have mile markers, but not every step of the way is marked. I really want to know exactly how far I run, and it would also be nice to have each run recorded for posterity, tracking not only the miles but average pace and estimated calorie burn. So I downloaded the RunKeeper app, and have it set to go just as I walk out the door for my run. This does require me to have my smart thing (I've got a Galaxy Note, so calling it a phone just seems inappropriate) with me when I run now.

Ah, but this is only an estimate. Wanting a more accurate gauge of my calorie burn I decided to go out and get this. Compared to similar devices it's pretty cheap, but so far it seems to do a pretty good job of providing me an even more accurate of my calories burned not just during exercise, but throughout the day.

So I'm not really sure what's next. Perhaps having myself fully wired to measure the full metabolic impact of my runs? Maybe purchasing a drone to follow me and film my runs? The sky's the limit.

Now, does any of this crap actually help? Well, having some Gatorade on those longer runs is a good idea, or else I'd be losing 2-3 pounds of fluids per run. The shirts and socks are perhaps slightly more comfortable than what I used to wear. After that, it does all seem a bit absurd. Then again, the idea of just running miles and miles "for fun" is a bit absurd itself, isn't it?

Now Everything Hurts

I know I've linked to these guys so much that my blog should just be called "The Best of Fitness Blender." However, this workout was so grueling and intense that I just had to spread the love.

It's a pretty basic workout: ten reps of five different exercises, all done for ten rounds - so 500 reps total. It starts with burpees, followed by squat jacks, mountain climbers, agility dots, and then finally squat jumps.

I was basically exhausted after round two, but somehow found the will to complete the entire ten rounds. Granted, I didn't do this in quite the same time as Daniel here, but I did get it done. Barely.



And now that I have completed it, I see they have a video that has TEN exercises, only it's five rounds of 10 reps each instead. Hmmmm, a challenge.

And the Results are In

I mentioned previously that I had used the My Fitness Pal app to keep track of my daily caloric consumption/burn, and that it had helped me tremendously in slimming down. About a month ago I went off the app, though I haven't stopped trying to eat in relative moderation.

I used the app for 11 weeks, writing down every single bit of food and drink that I consumed, as well as all of my exercise calories burned. I lost 20 pounds in those 11 weeks, or just under 2 pounds per week. In the four weeks I have been off the app, I have lost 8 pounds, or exactly 2 pounds per week. So at least thus far I haven't derailed my progress by going by feel.

As has been my constant refrain, it really is a matter of listening to one's body. Eat when hungry, but don't stuff your face. And I also still mentally try to keep general track of roughly how many calories I've eaten, even if I am not writing down every single thing. So if I have had a breakfast or lunch high in calories, I know to eat a bit less at dinner. Or if my earlier meals have been relatively light, I might indulge a bit more at dinner time. Again, though, it's all about eating until full, but no further. Long story short, I rarely let myself get very hungry, and I have only eaten to the point where I have felt over-stuffed a few times.

And through it all, I still eat plenty of bacon. Sorry, no kale smoothies for me.

Drink the Real Stuff

I don't drink milk, but my kids sure do, and despite our pediatrician's protestations, we let them drink whole milk (delivered, by the way, straight from the farm to our doorstep). Now we have less reason to fear that we're putting our children's lives at risk because it might just turn out that whole milk helps keep us leaner.

In one paper, published by Swedish researchers in the Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care, middle-aged men who consumed high-fat milk, butter and cream were significantly less likely to become obese over a period of 12 years compared to men who never or rarely ate high-fat dairy. 

 Yep, that's right. The butter and whole-milk eaters did better at keeping the pounds off.
"I would say it's counter-intuitive," says Greg Miller, executive vice president of the National Dairy Council.

The second study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, is a meta-analysis of 16 observational studies. There has been a hypothesis that high-fat dairy foods contribute to obesity and heart disease risk, but the reviewers concluded that the evidence does not support this hypothesis. In fact, the reviewers found that in most of the studies, high-fat dairy was associated with a lower risk of obesity. "We continue to see more and more data coming out [finding that] consumption of whole-milk dairy products is associated with reduced body fat," Miller says.

Time ran with a similar study, noting that the leaner milk perhaps leaves drinkers less satiated.

There's more and more evidence that "low fat" stuff is just pointless, if not outright bad for your dieting purposes. It's increasingly frustrating trying to find yogurt that isn't fat free. Give me fat - it's actually a necessary part of our diet and proper amounts of the stuff are going to fill us up a lot more than the sugar that goes into replacing the lost fat content.

Reaching for that alarm clock

Even though half of my weekday workout routines are done in my basement - two days a week of at-home cardio - and thus could presumably be done at any time, I generally prefer to do them in the morning before work. The other two weekday routines are at the gym. Considering that both times I've worked out at the gym in the evening the place was crammed like a subway station at rush hour, I've similarly preferred to get my workouts done in the morning as well.

I need to be out the door at 7:25 each morning in order to get to work, so that requires me backtracking through my morning routine in order to determine the optimal time to get up in order to either trudge downstairs with my laptop and do an hour of cardio, or get dressed and hop in the car for the ride to the gym*. In most cases I have to be up by about 5:15. Now as someone whose wife had to get up at 5:00 in the morning every day for a year in order to get to work, I probably don't earn much sympathy points, but this is kind of a pain in the ass. And yet, so far, I haven't missed a beat.

And that really strikes me as the fundamental difference between being engaged in a serious workout routine where I either lose weight or stay relatively in shape, and my normal course of business where I'm packing on the pounds. There have been numerous times over the past four years where my alarm has gone off at 6 or earlier for a potential run and I've simply decided to ignore my late-night wishes by pushing the alarm time back another hour. When you're not really serious about staying in shape, the snooze button isn't even sufficient.

I don't know if these musings have any point other than acknowledging that will power is a huge aspect of dieting, and it's not just about declining the second helping of ice cream cake (one's okay - that's pretty much my motto). If you're serious about fitness, then you just gotta answer the sound of the bell, even if it comes at the price of an extra hour sleep. It also implicitly means that the days of checking Facebook at 11:00 in the evening are over.

*For the record, it should also be noted that getting out the door this early means I don't really have time to warm up the car. Unless you happen to live in a ten square mile section of California, you've noticed that it's been pretty freaking cold this winter. So there's a nice added bonus of a freezing cold car ride where the car finally gets nice and warm just as I arrive at the gym.

Hard Truths About Obesity

This blog is a politics-free zone, but some issues might come up that have a controversial bent. So with that mini-preamble out of the way, I link to this Matt Walsh blog post titled "Obesity is not a disease and you do have free will."

As Matt wrties,

Obesity might cause diseases, and there might be illnesses that make it easier to become obese, but obesity itself — the condition of having excessive amounts of body fat — is not a disease. Calling obesity a disease is like if I stab myself in the arm and then claim my bicep wound is an “illness.” Sure, the wound might become infected and cause a disease, and there might have been some psychological disorders at work which prompted me to knife myself in the first place, but the wound itself is simply a result of my actions.

Obesity, likewise, is a result.

It’s also a cause, but first it is a result. We eat and the body converts that food into fat. That’s how it works. To call that process “diseased” is to fundamentally rewrite the laws of physics. Some people have slower metabolisms and some people have thyroid issues, and those can be diseases, or symptoms of diseases, or the results of diseases,  but ALL people gain weight by eating. This is a fact. It is not a disease.

As I wrote in the comments, it is insulting to people with real diseases to claim that my propensity to overeat is also a disease. Yes, I understand that there are rare cases involving people with disorders that make it almost impossible to lose weight (and for some, to gain it), and some people truly do have slow metabolisms. But for the overwhelming majority of us, we did this to ourselves.

Another thing that bothers me is our cultural efforts to overcompensate against anti-fat discrimination. Absolutely overweight individuals should not be made to feel embarrassed for being overweight, nor should they be insulted. And the stick-figure, size-2 model of what a "beautiful" woman is supposed to look like does not help women deal with potential weight issues (nor appeal to most men, quite frankly).

But in promoting a healthy body image I sometimes fear we go too far. I'll just use me as an example to avoid offending anyone as best as I can. It's one thing for me to be comfortable with who I am, and to have a sense of self-confidence even when I am at my fattest. But it is not okay to accept being 60 pounds overweight and to do nothing to try and lose that weight. Being that overweight puts me at increased risk of heart attack and other diseases, and I owe it to my family to shed the weight and do what I can to live longer.

Now just a few days ago I linked to a Cracked article that chastised people for making it sound like losing weight was a walk in the park, and that is still very much true. At the same time, we also have to confront harsh realities and not minimize the risks associated with being severely overweight.

Burpee Madness!

I've alluded to Fitness Blender before, and they've been a great resource for all those days where I can't run outside and when I don't have time for the gym.



This video is actually the last part in a more comprehensive workout, and is frankly quite painful. Burpees are the scourge of exercisers everywhere. I find it heartening that I can even approach doing all of the burpees in this video when not even a month ago I struggled to do about five in one workout.



Long story short, it's a double ladder exercise. You start out doing ten burpees, then one sumo squat, followed by nine burpees and two sumo squats, and so on and so forth until you finish with one burpee and ten sumo squats. When I did this I started out with ten, then did eight, then six, and then a bunch of fours until I was actually on pace with the instructor. It's exhausting, but also very rewarding when you can finish up having done about 40 or so.