My Focus Has Been Elsewhere Lately

As I mentioned a few days ago, I'm in for some big transition this year, and one of the things I must do to prepare for it is to get in shape. 'Cuz I'm fairly well out of shape. It sucks because I've had a pretty good "fitness" track record. I know how to eat and exercise to get into great shape, and I've "been there". But once I started slipping a couple of years back, the slide was gradual but significant. Yeah we know, you "used to be", blah-blah-blah.

Anyway, I'm back on it. The biggest difficulty for me has been putting everything together into a cohesive plan and TRACKING PROGRESS without it taking up my whole damned day. Writing in printed workout journals, making up spreadsheets to record and generate workouts and track nutrition, it just took up too much freakin' time. Of course, that was before I found out there is a social network that helps you track all that stuff in a fraction of the time.

I found out about it when I was poking around my good friend and cousin's blog and clicked on one of his friends' blogs while going through his blogroll.

I won't go through the technical aspects of it - if you're interested in a good review, go to the link above - but I guess I should try to say something about what I think of it...

The nutrition portion of the site is telling me to eat about 300 - 700 more calories per day than I am normally used to when "on my usual program". I don't think I am going to force them down. I work on a "grazing" scheme - that is, 6 small meals a day - that gives me around 2400 calories a day, and I am comfortable with that. Also, the nutrition recommends a 40/30/30 carb/protein/fat ratio, but I run closer to a 40/40/20. Like 40/30/30, 40/40/20 works well - you end up being a little tighter on fat and more liberal with protein, and I've seen the split recommended more for a muscle-gaining diet. However you chop it up, it makes it easy to see how you're doing. Also, as long as I'm feeding regularly (every 3 hours) my body will be able to sustain a slightly greater rate of fat loss with the greater deficit.

My favorite part of the workout portion is not only that I can actually take a printout of my weight training workout to the gym, but that each printout is in effect a 3-workout record, unlike other journals I've seen where one page is one day. It's good to have several at a glance.

Okay, there. I've managed to NOT go three days without posting, and even said what I thought about something. After two days I'm feeling great. Of course that's the easy part - I'm motivated and I know my first weigh-in will be a lot less than what I weighed Monday because of the excess water and bloat that flushes out when you start regular exercise and up your water intake (I'm probably drinking about a gallon a day).

Seriously, if you're like me - you like to (and CAN) work out effectively, but haven't been able to get motivated in large part by not having the right tracking tool, give this a gander. Look for huzzah70; that'll be me.

Wii Fit, Part the Second - Fountain of Youth!!!

Okay, so with images of my doughy, slouching and depressed Mii in my head, I've finally got my shiznit together and have embarked on something of a fitness program. This time, not so much hell-bent on modifying my life to fit a plan, but rather integrating a plan into my life. Okay, so maybe I won't get a washboard stomach...but I can at least get rid of some of the laundry piled up on it!

A week later, after a shift in nutrition and water intake and a moderate training session or two in the gym, I fire up the game and take another test. Lost about a pound, and did much better on the balance test. Somehow that makes my Mii 8 years younger...my "Wii Fit Age" is now 41, which is close enough to my real age to make Chunky Mii do a little victory dance. Amazing what a slight shift in water weight and a little focus can do...I feel younger already. It's very dependent upon how you perform that particular day. The balance tests get progressively harder; so there is no doubt that the next time I'm on it, I'll stumble all over the freakin' place, and be back up pushing 50 again.

After recording my "progress" on graphs and charts it was on to the exercises. There are four categories - Strength, Flexibility, Balance, and Aerobic exercise.

Strength consists of various bodyweight exercises. The best one in there that I see (at the beginner level) is the push up with side plank which is a bona-fide ball-buster of an exercise. But I am an avid fan of weight training, and as I had done a fairly intense upper body workout the day before, I skipped strength training.

So I worked on flexibility - this is a pretty cool computer tutorial that takes you through various yoga postures. I've never even attempted yoga (in a fitness vein - no desire to pursue it as a spiritual path) before; I can confidently say that I can now breathe, bend to the left/right, and do a couple of other fancy-schmansy poses while keeping myself fairly centered on the board. I'll be "keeping" this routine.

Next aerobics - there are some fun exercises here, and one or two duds. First the fun. "Hula-hooping" on the balance board is more work than I thought it would be. Try keeping evenly paced, (moderately) precise hip rotations up for 90 seconds each way as you accumulate more and more hula hoops around your waist. Next is jogging - no balance board, you run in place with the remote in your pocket (or hand) to keep "pace" with another character while running around an island. Fun for a few minutes - it's fun to watch the scenery change as the rest of your family's Mii's pass you, meet you coming the other way, and trip over themselves. Seems okay for a warm up, and I found out that running in place without running shoes on sucks. Honestly, if I want to run any longer than a few minutes, I'll run. It is fun watching your kids do it, though. They tend to get carried away and slowly merge with the TV armoir. The main "dud" is step aerobics on the balance board - slow paced, low step, unless you're very, VERY sedentary (again...that's a lot of gamers out there!) you'll just get bored.

The balance games are REALLY FUN. My particular favorites right now are downhill slalom skiing and ski jumping. They also use the balance board. No explanations needed...they just look fun!


The Wii does a great job of "bringing you into" the game. And apparently, as you advance, you can unlock snowboarding. Which is so much more awesome...skiers are so "yuppie".

So, all said and done, I'll say the "entire Wii Fit package" is good as a "starting point" for getting into shape if you're a very sedentary person who likes video games and has little to no fitness experience or coming back after an overly prolonged layoff. It's a GREAT way to have fun with your kids while doing some light to moderate exercise. But if you already have a background in moderate to heavy strength training and aerobic exercise, I think you'll get more benefit out of the yoga and balance training as an adjunct to your established routine.

I look forward to bringing my BMI and "age" down for the next few months. Once I've got those general indicators under control, and only if I feel like it, will I go back to the more "obsessive" ways of measuring progress that I used to do when I was younger.

Wii Fit, Part the First - Oh Noes! I's Tubby!!!

The biggest battle in my life for the last year-plus has been staying in shape. So much so that the problem is now getting back into shape. Bleh. Back in May I blathered about this and my "usual" cardio workout. Well, I haven't sat down and "de-conflicted and prioritized" family, work and fitness yet (hey, I said I was going to procrastinate).

But we did open and start up the Wii Fit last night! It's almost like sleeping at a Holiday Inn Express, except I didn't wake up to free cinnamon rolls. Which is good, cuz I've been supporting the industrial corn-based food chain by eating way too much crap like that lately.

Set up was fun and embarrassing at the same time. It involves updating your "Mii" with some vital data (height and DOB) and then standing on the whiz-bang "balance board" so it can judge your "level of fitness". It does this by determining your center of balance (as a test of posture) and then weighing you and spitting out your Body Mass Index (BMI).

After this, you get what I like to call "the first slap in the face". The program adjusts your "Mii" to conform with your BMI. In my case, my balding, moustached Mii's body grew to resemble a keg of beer. How appropriate. I've never been a fan of BMI. It's always told me I was almost or actually obese, even when I've been in great shape. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and as "great shape" (or even good shape for that matter) doesn't describe me well right now, BMI (and my keg-bodied little Mii) were enough to tell what I need to (okay...already) know.

But one slap is never enough. Then you go through a "balance test" - a series of exercises involving shifting your weight from one leg to the other in varying proportions and holding it for three seconds. Using this, your BMI and center of balance, the program gives you your "fitness age". When it's less than your actual age your Mii does the patented "thrill of victory" thingy. When it's over, it does the little "agony of defeat" thingy. I call the fitness age "the second slap in the face". Which means I have a 48 year-old, bald, moustached beer keg Mii that hangs it's head in sorrow.

Of note my two skinny daughters, aged 4.5 and 3, were given ages of 23 and 22 respectively. This was largely due to their not understanding the balance board/balance test, so I can't rejoice at them getting through adolescence in one piece just yet!

So overall, it told me what I already know...I'm overweight, my posture is bad and I'm out of shape. It was fun doing it though - it explains what it's doing every step of the way, which is good, especially if you're not familiar with fitness concepts (like an increasing number of gamers are). And not to be judgmental, but given the overwhelmingly sedentary nature of the country these days, BMI is probably all most people need to know when "starting out".

It was also the first time I'd ever really seen where my center of balance is, and was able to use a visual aid to determine my correct posture to even it out. (It feels weird...I really need to practice).

The exercises we did were fun as well, but more about that later...

Integrating Fitness

I went on my treadmill today for the first time since last weekend, after doing my "usual run". It was a rough one, primarily due to the fact that I hadn't run since last weekend, and last night involved one rum drink (literally - Mount Gay on ice), two beers and a huge steakburger, with little hydration between then and the run.

Which is a by-product of using my increasingly hectic spring/summer public schedule as an excuse to skip workouts. And when I don't workout, I feel less inclined to eat the way I should. If I could stop staying up and watching the Sox game, post game, and all the ensuing BS it would be easier for me to commit to waking up at 5 am to work out.

It's been difficult lately to integrate the kind of fitness program I am used to into my life. In the past, getting into and maintaining shape had always been a major endeavor. I mean serious weight training and cardio, planned and recorded workouts, six meals a day, really rigid stuff. Which works well when you are single, or at most married with one child, or on easy shore duty, or anything but "in charge at at work and a large family of small children at home".

Not that it doesn't work with the super-full life; it just requires a lot more internal commitment and external deconfliction, which I need to work on.

My "usual run" is a 32 minute affair with three phases.

1. 20 minutes of interval training (1 min intervals) in the 50-100% exertion range. Level of exertion is determined by "feel". At 50% is basically a warm up, and 100% (next to final minute of the phase) is definitely in the anaerobic zone, as I am breathing hard (without gasping for air) and definitely unable to do anything but keep the legs moving and listen to the iPod.

2. 10 minutes of slow jogging, focused on getting my heartrate down into the low aerobic zone, and burning some extra calories.

3. 2 minutes of cool down with the intent of getting my heart rate below 120 bpm.

When my "100% level" becomes just a shade too easy, I bump my intervals up by about 0.1 mph. Across a 20 minute run, that can be a huge leap.

Not incredibly scientific, but I find it keeps my heart rates about "equal" across each phase. I finish phase 1 at about 155 - 165, phase 2 in the mid-130's and by the end of my cool-down I'm around 110.

I love this run - because I HATE running. I've always been better at strength training. Even outside, I hate the monotony of running. So having interval targets ramping up and down by minute, pushing to a new level, it keeps it interesting. I'm usually half way through the run before I know it. Which is good...it's like half-off suckitude.

With my condition coming into today, my phase one heart rate was slightly elevated - around 171 at completion. I was right about where I should have been for the remainder.

I'm not completely happy with the heart monitor on my treadmill, so I'll probably get a personal one. Not that I don't trust the "by feel" method (it's certainly a lot easier than trying to figure out your Max VO2). I just want to get a more accurate idea of where my heart rate is at. And I want a new toy.

So what I really need to do is sit down, think about how I really need to tailor my "usual program" to meet my life, set aside what is not important, and move ahead.

Like, tomorrow.

By the way, I find this to be a very good fitness page.