This is what 12.5 miles looks like...

This morning was our last "official" long training walk for the upcoming Weekend to End Women's Cancers charity walk, in that all the training walks from now until September 6 will be shorter than 12.5 miles.  Today was 12.5 miles and tomorrow will be 8.5 miles - - together they amount to pretty much what we will be walking in one day at the event.  Next week are a couple of 6 milers on the weekend, and then it's down to 1.5 mile walks and 3 mile walks as we taper down.  It will be back to the elliptical for sure. 

This morning we left at our customary ungodly hour (we were on the road before 5 am), and we headed east along Queen Street, but instead of following Queen until the Neville Park Loop and coming back by way of the waterfront trail like we did last weekend, we went up Kingston Road to Victoria Park avenue (the old border between Toronto/East York and Scarborough), and then headed up Victoria Park to the Danforth, which we took all the way back to our stomping ground. 

I must confess that I struggled more with this walk than I did with the walk last weekend, mainly because I was trying to push the pace more this week.  And it worked - - we shaved a whole 15 minutes off our walk time for the distance, going down from 3 hr 40 min to 3 hr 25 min this morning over the same distance.  That's a full 15 minutes we did not need to walk compared to last week, which is great.

But the pace was probably an issue, because I was much more tired and sore at the tail end of this walk than I was last week, and I am sure the fact that we were pushing the pace even on the long uphill stretch up Kingston Road had something to do with it.

Nevertheless, we were able to finish the 12.5 miles in much better form than the first time we tried that distance to be sure, and I am feeling pretty good about our chances on the day of the walk. 

All these steps are doing wonders for my Fitbit rankings.  Month to date August I am ranked #60 among 1,100 Redditors who Fitbit, which puts me in the top 5-10% of that group.  Yay!

And did I mention that all this walking is good for weight loss?  Even with rehydrating throughout the walk I was down another pound this morning, for a total of 15.6 pounds lost since I started the new job and recommitted myself to my workout and eating plan.  Sweet. 

I am still above my lowest previous weight, of course, but every additional pound lost puts some distance between me and the dreaded 200 pound mark.  I now have 33 pounds to go until my goal weight, which sounds like a much more reasonable number than it feels like some mornings. 

Today the Nerd and I are going to bake some "proof of concept" Share a Coke (R) gingerbread cookies for the charity bakesale my company is having on Tuesday.  After the cookies, perhaps a much deserved nap.  I love weekends since starting my new job.

Walking training update - 133.2 miles down

This week was a relatively easy week (!) in that we only had 16.5 miles on the schedule with a 5 miler on Monday, 4 miles on Wednesday, and 7.5 miles this morning.  Monday's walk was hellishly uncomfortable due to groin and foot pain combined with crowded sidewalks.  But Wednesday's walk and this morning's walk were both very nice now that I have tried to slow down a bit and take it a bit easier on the groin.  Yes, the irony of having a sports injury is not lost on me.

All this walking is having a couple of result.  First is that I am actually in the top 100 out of 921 Redditors who also Fitbit, at #71.    So far in July I have taken more than 160,000 steps, which is pretty neat considering how few steps I ever took before I started working out (less than 2,000 a day). 

The other fortunate side effect is that I am back to losing weight.  Although I am still (far) above my lowest from last summer, I have lost 8.6 pounds since I recommitted myself last month to working out and eating healthy and reducing snacking.  The food side of things is really the bigger key to success, but I have been diligently working out and trying to keep my activity levels up as well, much more so than I had been doing previously. 

If I can keep focused on taking things one day at a time and avoid seriously injuring myself in the next few months, I may even get back to where I had been.  The big picture is still too far away to really look at since I still have 40 pounds to lose, but  pretty soon I will be able to re-start that countdown to my final goal.

A death in the family and a walk in my future

At the beginning of the month a much beloved family member passed away quietly.  Yes, at long last, my long suffering Fitbit finally synced its last step and went to that great pedometer garden in the sky. 

I knew something was wrong when I couldn't get the little guy to sync.  The Fitbit kept counting my steps, but the steps weren't being recorded anywhere.  I tried all the fixes - - resetting the unit, re-installing the Fitbit connect, syncing through Linux...nothing worked.  Finally I broke down and reached out to Fitbit support, who were characteristically amazing.  Within 48 hours a new Fitbit was on its way to me, and the Nerd now has my old, non-syncing Fitbit for experimental purposes (this brings his total number of Fitbits to 5 - - 1 Zip, 2 Ultras and 2 Ones...not that he has a problem or anything). 

Anyhoo, all of my tracking numbers for June are off because it looks like I have been barely walking at all because I have no steps recorded at all for the entire first week and a half of June, when in fact I was walking a lot more than usual.  Grrrr....!

Which brings me to the walking more than usual.  I am training for the 32 km walk this September as part of the Weekend to End Women's Cancers.  Yes, I was somewhat peer-pressured into it by my new boss in that he invited all of our department to join him in the walk and I wanted to be part of the team.  But it's also a great opportunity to force myself to do some different things, especially since I haven't really incorporated long distance walking into my usual routine. 

I started training last week and walked 3 miles on Tuesday, 2 miles on Thursday, 6 miles on Saturday and 7 miles on Sunday.  Sadly, none of these workouts was captured on my Fitbit, so it looks like I was one giant couch potato last week from a step-counting point of view. 

This week I did another 3 mile walk on Tuesday and the Nerd and I just got back from a 3.5 mile walk tonight.  This weekend may kill me, however - - my training plan calls for a horrifying 12.5 mile walk on Saturday and an 8.5 mile walk on Sunday.  Next week will be easier, but I will be walking for 4 hours straight on Saturday, something I have seldom done (and by seldom, I mean that I have walked that distance precisely once).  I have to confess that I am not looking forward to it, but I am looking forward to the results and to seeing how my fitness increases over time.  It's that thought alone that keeps me pushing to do the training walks.  Well, the thought of my increasing fitness plus the desire not to look like a complete fool in front of 100 people from my new office.  See kids, peer pressure can be a good thing!

Tonight I voted in our provincial election, and I am somewhat distracted by my iPad flashing up to the minute results.  I won't tell you who I voted for, but this particular election was literally too close to call as late as yesterday, and the vote differential now, just after polls have closed, is still a statistical dead heat.  I much prefer a blowout in these kinds of situations, and watching the results trickling in when the numbers are so close is causing me anxiety.  Might be a good time to simply crawl into bed and wait for the election to be over.  I voted though, which is critical, because: i) it's important to exercise your right to vote; and ii) you can't complain if you don't vote. 

So, all in all it was a good week.  I am settling into my new job (which I lovelovelove).  I am two weeks into the new "suck it up and get back on the program" routine, which is gradually paying dividends.  I am two weeks into walking training for the September mega-walk.  And I have a brand new Fitbit, which is not a bad thing.  The little fella keeps me honest, anyways.

Review: Withings Pulse Activity Tracker / Health Mate app

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I am readily distracted by shiny things (Look!  A baby deer!), and that I have an almost unnatural love of fitness apps and gadgets.

It is in the spirit of the latter that I picked up the Withings Pulse activity tracker last year.  I am a long-time Fitbit user since my first Fitbit Ultra back in January 2012 (when I first started working out).  Along the way I have also tried the Fitbit Zip and now the Fitbit One (after my Ultra sadly gave up the ghost last year).

But that's not to say that I cannot be in a plural tracker relationship.  Just because I use and love my Fitbit One doesn't mean that I can't also love another activity tracker just as much.  Or so I thought. 

I already use and enjoy a couple of other Withings products, notably the Withings wireless scale and the Withings blood pressure monitor, both of which I picked up in July 2012.  I have not had any problems with either of these products (although I have heard from other people that the Withings scale is plagued by reliability issues), and I was eager to try the Withings Pulse activity tracker when it came out.  "Eager" is perhaps the wrong word. "On the waiting list" is more accurate.  I couldn't wait to try out this new fitness toy.

A few points of note.  First, the Withings scale and blood pressure monitor speak with the original Withings Wiscale app.  The interface is user friendly and clean, and provides me with both a snapshot in time and historical look at my weight, resting pulse, and blood pressure values in a convenient table.  I love this app and love how it works with the scale and blood pressure monitor.  And in a year and a half, I have had no issues with any of them - the app, the scale or the blood pressure monitor.  Perhaps I am an outlier, but so far, all my devices have functioned as advertised, and I love them to pieces. 

Last year Withings launched its new Health Mate app.  The new app is intended to give a snapshot of even more values, including exercise and sleep.  The Health Mate app, like the Wiscale app, talks to the Withings wireless scale and Withings blood pressure monitor and provides users with charts showing readings from each device.  The graphs are clear and easy to read.  They do not provide the same tabular historical view as the Wiscale app, although it is possible to click on past readings to see where you stood, say, last month.  I found the Health Mate interface less useful and certainly less user-friendly than the nice tables provided by the Wiscale app, but I could work with it. 

Where the Health Mate app falls down in my view, and falls down badly, is in its exercise tracking.

The Health Mate app will track your exercise and summarize it, just like it tracks your blood pressure and weight.  But it only tracks information from one of the partnered devices/apps, like Runkeeper or Bodymedia.  If, like me, you don't use one of those services regularly, you get no credit for your workouts.  In my case I work out using the elliptical and treadmill indoors 6 days a week.  There is nothing for Runkeeper to track, and I don't want to subscribe to Bodymedia.  An armband is not really a great device for me.  My primary complaint is that there is no way to manually add exercise into the Health Mate app - - it's either use the partner apps/devices, or nothing.  Other trackers, notably the TactioHealth app and even the DigiFit app permit users to manually add workouts.  Not so the Health Mate app.  No thanks. 

Where does the Withings Pulse fit into all this?  The Pulse is an activity tracker much like the Fitbit.  It tracks steps, elevation, distance and calories as well as hours slept.  What really caught my eye, though, was the heart rate sensor.  The way the sensor works is that you press one of your fingers up against a light on the back of the unit, and after a brief interval, your pulse will be displayed.  Except when it doesn't.  I spent many a frustrating morning trying over and over to get a pulse reading with this device - - often it would simply fail or it would return a garbage reading like 150 bpm resting pulse rate.  My normal resting pulse is between 40 bpm and 49 bpm, so 150 seems a tad high.  Ludicrously so, actually.  But mostly the device would simply not record a reading, and I would have to start the process over. 

As a result, battery performance on my Pulse was very poor.  It apparently takes a lot of juice to repeatedly not record my resting heart rate.  I was lucky to get 5 days' tracking out of a single charge, but depending on how often I tried to record my pulse each morning, this number could decrease significantly. 

When it tracked my pulse perfectly (which was seldom, in my experience), the pulse tracker was a really neat idea.  But the pulse tracker was simply too buggy and frustrating for me to keep using it.  After all, getting increasingly frustrated by my inability to record my resting heart rate tended to increase my heart rate. 

Another frustration was the Pulse's interface with the Health Mate app.  As I mentioned above, the Pulse only talked to the Health Mate app, not the Wiscale app.  No problem, I thought.  The tracker was advertised as automatically syncing with the app whenever it was in range of its bluetooth receiver.  Not in my experience, sadly.  My Pulse never automatically synced with the Health Mate app, never, not once.  In fact, when I first got the Pulse tracker, it wouldn't sync at all with the app, and Withings customer service was singularly unhelpful.

Eventually I could get the tracker to sync with the app, but only when I forced it to sync.  That's not the way the tracker was advertised, and it certainly is not convenient.  More significantly, it is not like the bug-free performance of the Fitbit, which has always synced with my computer without fail. 

On a head-to-head basis, in my experience the Fitbit is far superior to the Withings Pulse activity tracker.  While both devices track many of the same metrics, the Fitbit does so accurately, and with minimal intervention on my part.  The Fitbit app is easy to understand and works well, every time.  The Fitbit battery life is at least 7 days on a full charge.

The Pulse does offer features that the Fitbit does not, like the pulse tracker.  When it works.  Which is seldom (with my device).  The Health Mate app is less user-friendly than the Fitbit app, and certainly less flexible.  The Fitbit app imports my exercise from MFP, even the stuff I do at home (which is almost all of my daily exercise).  As far as the Health Mate app is concerned, I am a completely sedentary couch potato who magically achieves 10,000+ steps a day while simultaneously doing zero exercise. 

So my love affair with the Fitbit will continue to be a monogamous one, at least for the foreseeable future. 

It's Alive...!

So yesterday my little Fitbit went swimming.  Unintentionally.  It turns out that washing machines and Fitbits are not a good combination - - who knew?

As soon as I rescued the little guy and we dried it off as best we could with a dish towel we put the Fitbit into the "Fitbit Dry Dock", aka a container of basmati rice (lovingly labelled by the Nerd in a fit of whimsy).
 

The specific choice of basmati rice is not, I think, the important part - - it is the fact that it is rice, any rice, that is the point.  Rice is apparently a brilliant desiccant if the Fitbit message boards are to be believed. 

All my sources said that I should leave the Fitbit in the rice for 24 hours to let it properly dry out.  Which was a bummer, because the Nerd and I went on that 2.8 mile walk to and from the grocery store yesterday, and it would have been fun to track the steps.  Oh well. 

Well late last night I finally snapped after a mere 12 hours of "dry dock", and I tried the Fitbit.  Guess what?

It's alive!  Yes, the impromptu swim does not appear to have permanently taken my Fitbit out of commission, and although my step numbers for this week will be slightly lower than they might have been otherwise, it is a small price to pay for having the little guy back safe and sound and (apparently) none the worse for wear.  Yay!

Next time I will check my bra before flinging it into the wash, just in case I have forgotten the Fitbit.  I can't assume that I would be so lucky twice.  Whew!

Catastrophe! The Fitbit went swimming...unintentionally

I have been pretty good in the year that I have owned my little Fitbit.  I have remembered to wear it almost every day, and up until this morning, it never went swimming in the laundry.

You will note that I said "until this morning".  Well, consider my streak as a responsible Fitbit owner at an end.  This morning I did a quick 30 minutes on the elliptical just to give myself room for guacamole this evening (yum!), and I was wearing my Fitbit on my sports bra, as is my custom.  The Nerd started a load of laundry just as I was finishing up, and I rushed to give him my workout clothes, and tossed him everything so that I could catch the load that was just going into the washer.  Unbeknown to me, the Fitbit was included in that bundle, and into the wash it went.  I realized what I had done very quickly, but not before the cycle had begun and the Fitbit was swimming in a pool of gently agitating water. 

Initially it flashed the time when I pressed its button, suggesting that the little guy may not be entirely dead.  So right now it is safely nestled in a box of basmati rice, hopefully drying out from its trip to the washer. 

I checked the Fitbit community forums, and it looks like Fitbits often take trips through the washer, and many of them survive after drying out in rice for 24 hours or so.  I will just have to give the little guy some time to recover from his traumatic ordeal.  Yes, I anthropomorphize my Fitbit, what of it? 

I am a little resentful of the Fitbit's recovery time, because the Nerd and I plan to walk up to the big Loblaws store on Carlton to get spices, and now this trek will be unrecorded on the Fitbit.  But I will track it with Runkeeper so that I at least have some record of the walk.  Nature abhors an uncredited walk...!

Side effect of fitness: more fitness

I noticed something new a few days ago.  Suddenly, out of the blue, I was logging twice as many steps on my Fitbit.  (I am going to work on the assumption that this is due to a change in my workouts, and not a software glitch!). 

A few weeks ago, I was averaging around 5,000 steps per day.  I could usually get my 5,000 daily steps badge on weekdays, but I certainly wasn't stepping up a storm, even with my hourly trips to the washroom and to the kitchen to get more water.

I've recently noticed, however, that my step count has dramatically increased over the past week.  Instead of 5,000 steps a day, I am now averaging more than 10,000 steps per day - - a target I never thought I would achieve without incremental walks.

I think the source of this is my stepped-up (no pun intended!) stride rate on the elliptical machine.  I used to run between 100 strides per minute and 120 strides per minute, and a couple of weeks ago I tried to increase my stride rate to 120 - 130 strides per minute.  This morning I was able to keep my strides per minute above 130 for almost the entire 50 minutes that I was on the elliptical - - a huge improvement. 

Thinking back to a few months ago, I could not do 130 strides a minute and keep using the handles on the elliptical - - I would have to hold onto the sissy bar for anything over 100 strides per minute, for fear of falling off the machine. I also could not sustain anything over 120 strides a minute for more than a couple of minutes at a time.  Today I was able to sustain 130 strides per minute using the moving handles, and it felt if not comfortable, then perfectly sustainable. 

I love these little incremental changes that creep up on me.  The longer I work out and incorporate healthy things into my lifestyle, the more I realize that the path to fitness is not linear.  It takes twists and turns as my body adjusts to what I am doing, and becomes stronger and fitter.  It is almost like my body gets used to a certain level of activity or food intake, and then says "OK, then, let's see how you like being able to do this!". 

The simple fact is that I can do things now that not only could I not do before, I could not even imagine doing.  It's not a smooth road, but every now and then I notice a dramatic improvement.  Stephen Jay Gould had it right with evolutionary change being more expressed by "punctuated equilibrium" - - long periods of "same old, same old", and then WHAM! something dramatically new. 

For me, the WHAM was noticing that I have been able to increase my stride rate in a way that is making a noticeable impact on my Fitbit step counter.  My cardio and endurance has improved to the point where this is not only possible, it's the new baseline. 

Now that I am able to hit 10,000 steps in my day, I want to set up a regular pattern of hitting this target  - - can I do it every workout day?  I don't know, but I'm going to try.  Then what?  12,500 steps?  More weight training?  Longer boxing workouts?  I don't know what my body will be capable of with time, but I am really looking forward to finding out.

My Weight Loss So Far - from A to Z

[for those of you outside of the Commonwealth, that's "A to Zed"  ;-)]. 

A - Apps.  Lots of them.  I love using a whole slew of fitness apps to track my progress and to help keep me motivated.  Some of the apps that I use daily are MyFitnessPal (for food tracking and a fantastically supportive online community), DigiFit (for tracking my heart rate zones during workouts), Lolo Beatburn Elliptical (to jazz up the music during my daily elliptical workouts), and TactioHealth (for a health snapshot).  I also use the iFitness app for my free weight workouts every other day.  I love that so many aspects of my health and fitness are quantified, because it permits me to see progress and helps keep me on track.  And progress is motivating. 

Photo courtesy Kaudris, licensed CC-BY-SA

B - Back pain.  Something I rarely get any more, now that I have been exercising regularly and working out.  I used to be so physically compromised that I could not walk to the corner, and now I can walk for miles without even a twinge in my back.  My back still goes out occasionally (as it did last month), but on a day to day basis, my back gives me no problems at all.  This is a huge improvement in my quality of life, because a sore back limits you in so many ways.

Photo courtesy Madhero88, licensed CC-BY-SA

C - Cardio.  I started off my workout plan by doing nothing but cardio exercise, because I knew that endurance was my first and biggest problem.  After working out with the recumbent bike and rowing machine for 5 months, I had lost 36.5 pounds, and my stamina had greatly increased.  When I started, I could only manage to do 7 minutes on the recumbent bike 5 days a week and now I do 40 minutes on the elliptical machine 6 days a week.  Along with the stamina increases, my resting heart rate has decreased from 120-130 bpm to around 45-55 bpm.  Cardio is good for me. 

D - Diabetes.  I am not diabetic.  Yet.  But I have an absolutely terrible family history of diabetes, which means that I have an extremely elevated chance of becoming diabetic in the future if I do not take active steps now to prevent it.  I was terrified to check my fasting blood sugar at first in case I was already diabetic, and as it happens, I am pre-diabetic.  This means that although my sugars are elevated, they are not in the diabetic range.  The more weight I lose, and the better I control my carbs, the easier it will be to control my sugars, and the lower the risk that I will develop diabetes.  Still, it's something that I monitor every day, to make sure I am on top of things.  I hope to one day have every reading in the normal zone, with only the occasional blip.  It's the reverse right now (mostly elevated readings with the occasional normal reading).  But in time, this will improve.

E - Elliptical.  I love my elliptical machine.  A present from my parents, this monster has completely replaced the recumbent bike and rowing machine in my affections.  It's just such an effective way to work out - low impact on my joints, smooth action, arms for adding effort, and it's in my apartment.  It is almost impossible to avoid the elliptical machine, and I haven't missed a workout since I got it.  My results have accelerated since starting on the elliptical, as well.  It used to be that I was lucky to lose a pound a week, and sometimes I could go weeks without losing a thing.  Now I am no longer afraid to get on the scale, because I am seeing so much progress in any given week.  Plus, my monthly "water" gain has virtually disappeared since I began using the elliptical - - every week sees at least some loss, which is a huge improvement from B.E. (Before Elliptical).

F - Fitbit.  I love my Fitbit.  I picked up the Fitbit Ultra early this year as a way to track my activity levels, and boy, was I in for a rude shock!  It turns out that I was barely active.  Most days I was hardly walking at all, in large part due to the crippling back pain I suffered with even the shortest of walks.  Fast forward to now, and I am more than 60 pounds lighter, and I am habitually walking 5,000 steps a day, and even, when I add an incremental walk to my routine, walking 7,500 or even 10,000 steps a day.  My goal is to regularly walk 7,500 -10,000 steps every day.  We'll see if I can make it!

Photo courtesy Lar, licensed CC-BY-SA

G - Goals.  I have goals.  Lots of goals.  Short term goals, long term goals, fitness goals, weight goals, measurement goals, lifestyle goals ... you get the picture.  You don't know when you've arrived unless you have an idea of where you are going, and I personally find having goals to be very motivating.  Goals help me stay focused on what I need to do every day. I have so many interim goals in part because focusing on the single long term weight goal is too overwhelming - - after all, who thinks they can lose 168 pounds?  It doesn't even bear consideration.  But I could lose 20 pounds, then 33.9 pounds, then 50 pounds...and on it goes.  Now, having lost more than 60 pounds, I look at my next major goal (to lose 100 pounds) as completely doable, since I only need to lose around 35 pounds.  And I know I can do that, because I've already done that.  Whee!  Bring it on!

Photo courtesy Tax Credits, licensed CC-BY-SA

H - Health.  By any number of metrics, my health has improved since I first began working out at the end of January this year.  I have more energy, I am more mobile, my resting heart rate and fasting blood sugar levels have both decreased, and I have lost more than 60 pounds.  I haven't had problems with my asthma in months.  My body is no longer the limiting factor that it once was - - I am physically able to do things I haven't been able to do in a long time.  And over time, as I increase my workouts and continue to eat healthy foods, my health should continue to improve.

I - Injury.  Touch wood, but I have not been seriously injured since I began my workout regimen this year.  Sure, my back went out for a couple of weeks last month, but overall, I have been very lucky so far as injuries have gone.  My groin pull from my move two years ago is still a chronic nagging issue, but it is a low intensity problem for the most part.  I have not broken any bones recently, nor have I pulled any muscles that I need to work out.  This has not always been the case - - I have a history of overdoing things to the point of severely injuring myself.  So far, however, so good - - and I intend to keep it that way!  No more overdoing things!  Slow and steady are my new watchwords.

J - Junk food.  Since I have started tracking what I eat (about 3 months ago), my junk food consumption has dwindled to almost nothing.  I love me some fast food - - it's all brown and fried, after all - - but the calories, carbs, fat and sodium in these foods is astonishing.  I am no saint, but I am really reluctant to give up an entire week's worth of eating well and working out just to eat at McDonald's and gain it all back.  Most of the time I am eating home cooked meals (thanks to the Nerd), with plenty of vegetables and protein.  And I find that it makes a huge difference in the results that I am seeing.  Take prepared or fast food out of the equation, and the weight has just been falling off me. I am privileged to have someone at home cooking meals for me, which is a huge benefit.  Left to my own devices, and I am sure prepared foods would begin to creep back into my diet.  But for now, junk food is a thing of the past, and my body thanks me for it.

K - Knees.  Yes, my knees still sound like popcorn when I bend them.  Yes, my knees don't like to bend all that much.  Yes, they are a lot better than before I began working out.  No, I won't stop working out.  No, my knees do not hurt on the elliptical.  Squats, though - - boy are those frightening to listen to!  It's like a bowl of Rice Krispies cereal in there for all the noise my knees make when I do squats.  Although the noisy knees may be here to stay, I am hoping that with time, my mobility will improve as the weight continues to come off.  Eventually I would love to see what all is happening in my knees (via an x-ray or MRI), just to see if I have any cartilage left at all.  My guess: no.

L - Logging food.  I first began to keep a food diary when I signed up with MyFitnessPal almost three months ago, and it was an eye-opening experience.  To that point I had never considered the carbs or calories in beverages, and I never thought about eating too little in a day.  I could not understand why it was so difficult to lose weight, but I never correlated this fact with what I was eating.  Keeping a food diary has changed all of that.  I see now that what I was eating and drinking was unbalanced, and that I was eating too little and putting my body into starvation mode.  Logging my food has been the first step in learning to control what I eat, which is the first step in a true lifestyle change.  I do not have a natural grasp of all of the healthy options yet, but logging my food has gone a long way to helping me understand what healthy choices look like. 

M - Measurements.  Not only do I weigh myself every day, I also measure myself once a month with a tape measure.  In the past I have seen that sometimes the weight just doesn't come off, but I have lost inches from various parts of my body.  Measuring myself is concrete proof that my efforts are having an effect.  So far to date I have lost more than 24" across various parts of my body, and two full clothing sizes.  While my moods may change with the wind and the scale torment me, measurements are real.

N - NSV. Not every win along my path to fitness has come by way of the scale, although there have been many "scale victories" as well.  The non-scale victories include things like dropping two clothing sizes, having more energy to walk places, having people notice that I've lost weight, and fitting easier into seats.  It's the non-scale victories that keep me motivated between milestones on the scale. 

O - One day at a time.  "This is a marathon, not a sprint" is something I have heard over and over during this journey.  And you know what?  It's true.  If I think about the enormity of the task ahead of me, I will get depressed because it's clearly impossible.  No one can expect to lose 168 pounds and keep it off.  So I try not to think about the big picture.  I focus on hitting today's plan, and only today's plan.  I try and keep doing my workouts, keep eating right, and keep drinking enough water, every day.  If I do that, the weeks and months will take care of themselves, eventually.  But I can't push it or hope for shortcuts, because this is a long term play, and one day at a time is the only way that it's going to work.

Photo courtesy Bradley P. Johnson, licensed CC-BY-SA

P - Portion control.  This was something I never did until this year.  Not only is my concept of what is an acceptable portion completely skewed by the typical North American restaurant serving, I always ate until I was full.  Which could take some doing.  Since I started working out, and especially since I began logging my food, I have become increasingly aware of portion sizes and what they mean to my nutrition.  I am ever so slowly coming to terms with typical portion sizes so that I can think on my feet when it comes to ordering and consuming food, but I still depend heavily on measuring much of what goes into my mouth, and packing it ahead of time.  I am still eating everything I love, more or less (after all, last weekend was 'cupcakepalooza' at my house), but I am doing so in sensible portions.  Sometimes a portion is 1/2 of something, and that's ok.  Portion control has been one of the biggest contributors to my success so far, without a doubt.

Photo courtesy the Noodleator, licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

Q - Quitting is not an option.  It's hard to get up early in the morning to work out for 40 minutes on the elliptical.  It's harder still to walk up the stairs to do another 25 minutes of free weights.  It's hard to be constantly monitoring what goes into my mouth.  It's tough to walk places when I could just as easily take a streetcar.  But you know what, I don't have the option to quit.  With my family history of diabetes, and with my pre-diabetic state, if I stop working out and watching what I eat, the weight will come back on.  And if that happens, the health consequences do not even bear consideration.  And can I even consider going back to what my life was like before I began working out?  The constant back pain and asthmatic wheezing, the low energy and feelings of despair?  No thank you.  I can't go back to the life I had, now that I have peeked through the door of an active lifestyle.  I can't quit now, just when it's getting good.

Photo courtesy smartmindfuel, licensed CC-BY-SA

R -Routine.  Routine is my salvation.  I don't need to get all creative and funky for now, I just need to stick to my plan.  I pack my lunch and dinner and bring them to work, and I know what I am eating, in what portions.  I exercise every morning, rain or shine, and my workouts have become such a part of my routine that it's been weeks since I have even considered skipping a day.  And this consistency is paying off - - I am losing weight at a steady rate, and I am feeling good while I am doing it.  Some things break up the routine, but because I have the basic structure down, it's easy for me to make small adjustments to keep everything in the sweet spot.  Routine is the base on which I am building my new lifestyle. 

Photo by Stephan Ohlsen, licensed CC-BY-SA-ND

S - Sweat.  I'm a prodigious sweater.  It's true.  When I do my 40 minutes on the elliptical, I am dripping with sweat after only 10 minutes into things, so much so that I keep a washcloth handy to mop up.  Which I have to do every minute or so.  My sweating doesn't really interfere with my workouts, but it does get socially awkward at times if people see me out on one of my walks, because I am not the queen of glamour, all dripping and pink faced.  At least I know that my body is efficiently ridding itself of excess salts.  I have to say that with my propensity to sweat, I love the workout shirts I got from Go Figure, which have that nice moisture wicking fabric that doesn't cling to me like a wet hanky. 

T -Time.  Working out takes time.  Planning and preparing healthy meals takes time.  Getting enough sleep at night takes - you guessed it - time.  I find that my billable work time is getting compressed by all the demands on my time related to my new healthy lifestyle.  There are only so many hours in the day, and I am finding it a challenge to do the things I need to do to be healthy, and still bill a full day, without staying too late at the office.  Over time, I hope that I will be better able to balance things, but for now, the multiple competing demands on my time are very stressful. 

U - Upper arms.  One day I hope to have definition in my upper arms, which presently look like two giant bags of flour.  I hope also to have ankles, rather than cankles, and collarbones that are visible to the naked eye.  So many dreams of definition, it's why I have started doing weights.  No joy yet, but give it time, I just started last week.

Photo by cobalt123, licensed CC-BY-NC-SA

V - Visualize success.  You can't win if you can't visualize what success looks like.  After all, if you can't visualize success, how do you know when you have succeeded?  I have lots of photos from the last time I worked out and made it down to my goal weight of 165 pounds / size 14, and I keep thinking of those when I really need encouragement.  I know what I look like when I am at my goal weight, and I know I can get there again, with plenty of hard work and discipline.  I want to get there, and I will get there, eventually.

W - Weights.  You can't tone without weights.  I knew it last time I worked out, and I know it now, which is why I added free weights into my workout routine last week.  I am now doing 2 sets of 12 reps, with the baby 4 pound dumbbells as a start.  Eventually the reps and weight will increase, and so will the results.  For now, I can feel the impact of the weight routine in my muscles, so I know it's having an impact.  Eventually I will need to invest in still more equipment, but for now, I have a range of weights sufficient to enable me to see some results in the near term.  I have always loved how strong I feel after I work out with weights.

X - Xiphoid process.  This is the bit on the end of the sternum.  I don't have anything particular to say about my xiphoid process, other than to say that I look forward to seeing more of my sternum in general as I lose the subcutaneous fat over time.  For those of you who say "wow, what a lame word", you try and think of a workout related word that begins with the letter "X", I defy you.

Photo by Ged Carroll, licensed CC-BY-SA

Y - Yes I can.  I can do this.  I can change my lifestyle and become the healthy woman I know that I can be.  I can become an active person who is not afraid to do new things.  I can, and I will succeed at this challenge I have set for myself.  I need to consistently keep working my routine, and constantly challenge myself to meet my goals, and I will get to my target weight and size.  Yes. I. Can.

Photo by Chrisinplymouth, licensed CC-BY-NC-SA

Z - Zero.  As in "zero reasons to quit".  I have everything to gain, and nothing to lose by sticking to my current program.  Or everything to lose, depending on whether you consider the glass to be half full or half empty.  Nothing I could say to justify stopping now would overcome the multiplicity of reasons why I should keep going.  And so I will.  Keep going, that is.  Quitting is for suckers. 

I may not see it ... but my Fitbit does

As you know, I began officially working out at the end of January, 2012.  Before that, and in fact, as early as November, 2011, I was watching what I ate (although not, apparently, watching it very closely).  Trying to manage my food consumption alone led to some minor weight loss, but it took adding exercise to really see the pounds start to come off.

I, like most people, look at myself in the mirror every day.  Changes are happening to my body, but I don't really see them until I compare two photographs, side by side.  It's just that all the changes are so incredibly gradual, that I don't notice them from day to day.


But my little Fitbit sees the changes, too, and tells me so.  Let's look at my very first weekly report from Fitbit (at right).  I walked a whopping total of 13,209 steps that week, for an average of 1,887 steps per day, and a total of 5.94 miles for the entire week. 

Thinking back to this timeframe, at my heaviest, I simply couldn't walk more than a half a block without extreme discomfort in my back, and without my asthma kicking in to make me sound like a freight train.  Not to mention the ever-so-attractive bright pink face.  And that is from walking half a block.

I couldn't walk to the office (a 3 block trip) without stopping at least once to stretch out my back, and I would do whatever I could to avoid walking at all, it was so uncomfortable.  I spent $12 each week on transit to the office, and $50 per week on cabs home from the office.  All because I. Could. Not. Walk. 

Let's compare, shall we, to one of my recent tracking reports (not last week's because Fitbit decided not to track an entire day's worth of steps for some reason, but that's another story). 

A couple of weeks ago I walked more than 48 thousand steps, covering more than 23 miles.  Not only can I walk to the office without discomfort, but I recently went on a 4.4 mile walk, for "fun".  I would never have even thought that I could do such a thing, when I started this workout kick. 

Last week I walked to the office and home again every day (except for Friday evening, when I took a cab to meet a friend uptown for dinner).  I then had a long walk on Saturday afternoon, home from Yonge and Bloor, and I had the monster of all walks (for me) on Sunday, at Tommy Thompson Park. 

The Nerd has noticed that I walk faster, when I walk places, and that we do not need to stop when he walks me to the office in the morning.  He also notices that we go on walks together at least 2-3 times per week, where in the past I would have done everything in my power to avoid walking anywhere.  And there's also the money saved in transit and cabs - - a not immaterial thing in this economy, when times are tight.  And there's also the attitude shift.  Before (in the "dark times" before working out), my default was to take transit everywhere.  Toronto is blessed with a pretty good transit system downtown, and I am smack dab in the center of it.  Over time, however, I have noticed that I find waiting for the streetcar to be more of a pain than it is worth, especially when I know it will be packed and uncomfortable.  I am finding it just easier and nicer to walk to work, and many times I will arrive before the streetcar would have dropped me off.  That change in my mindset is a huge thing, and is the thing that will help me keep with these good walking habits more than anything else. 

I don't notice these differences, because they sneak up on me so gradually.  I can't tell you the first time I was able to walk to work without significant discomfort.  I can't tell you when my wheezing started to get better.  And I can't tell you when I first thought it was easier to walk to work than to wait for the streetcar.  But I can tell you that all of a sudden I am noticing that I can do things that I could never do before. 

And that's a good thing. 

I can't wait to see the story the numbers tell 6 months or a year from now. 

Let's Take it up a Notch...

Last week was the first full week of adding walks 3x/week into my workout routine, and I think it's time to increase the daily steps targets in my Fitbit.

When I first signed up for the Fitbit back in January, I was barely able to walk 2,000 steps each day.  Over time, as my endurance and energy increased with my overall fitness, that number crept up to 3,000 and then 4,000 average steps per day. 

Most recently, my target was set at 5,000 steps per day.  For the last two weeks, I have been blowing that target out of the water, because of the added walks in my routine.  I have also been walking to and from the office more regularly.  Although that walk to the office is so short (8 minutes or less) that it alone cannot account for the sudden uptick in steps taken, the 3 20-35 minute walks I have been taking in the evenings certainly can.

Last Friday my partner and I walked 2.7 miles to and from the post office.  Although that is a long walk for me right now, as time goes on this will be the norm.  Certainly it is my goal to be able to comfortably walk 3 miles in an outing, as this is what my partner's mom does on her daily walks.  If I can keep up with them, I will be doing well. 

The last time we went for one of her infamous walks (or as I like to call them, grim death marches), I spent much of the time just trying to make it to the next landmark, and praying for the walk to end.  I hindsight I don't think the walk was even that long, but it certainly felt long to me.  I barely made it, and was appalled at my lack of fitness.  And that was before I really let myself go and stopped moving almost entirely, a couple of years ago, so you can imagine what would have happened if I had tried to go on the same walk last December.  You don't have to imagine, I will tell you - - I would not have made it out of the parking lot to reach the walking path, as the lot was some distance from the entrance to the park, and in December I couldn't comfortably walk a block and a half without stopping for a break.

Now, however, after almost 8 months of working out steadily, I would be able to handle that walk.  First, I would be emotionally able to handle it, because I would be confident that I have handled similar walks at home.  The distance may be a bit more than I am used to (although it may not be once I have ramped up my walking plan), but I am not at all uncomfortable when I finish my walks now, so there's no reason to think that I could not walk further, if required.

I would also have a way of controlling uncertainty.  I know that my partner's mom likes to walk 2-3 miles on her daily walks.  I would simply turn on my DigiFit app and tell it I am going on a walk, and then it would track my heart rate, calories burned, and distance travelled.  I would even be able to see the path taken on the walk appear on a map in the app.  All of this helps me know how far we have walked, and where, which would help me gauge how long we have left to walk.  Knowing that the walk is almost over stops it from feeling like it is never going to end (which is what the last walk felt like). 

This is not to say that I would be jumping up to volunteer to take a walk, necessarily, but I would not try to avoid it.  And I would be better physically able to handle the walk, and thereby enjoy the company of my partner and his family. 

All of which is the long way of saying that I need to increase my Fitbit target steps, because I ain't going to be walking less anytime soon.

Finally, some progress!

Photo credit: Maggie Q. Magniloquent, Some Rights Reserved

It's the first full week of the new program, where I have worked out for 30 minutes on the elliptical, 6 days a week.  Technically, I did 6 days a week last week, too, but it feels like this is the first full week with the new routine, mainly because it was the first full week with the heart rate monitor and blood pressure readings. 

And the results?  Down 2.9 pounds from last week, and 1.6 pounds down from my previous lowest weight.  I weighted in at 295.3 pounds, with 48.8% body fat.  The body fat percentage varies by day, but hovers in this 48%-49% zone.  My objective is to bring it down to around 30%, eventually.  But for now, we can consider me to be "well marbled". 

For the last 3 days I have been trying out an elliptical workout app called BeatBurn Elliptical, by lolo.  The idea behind this app is that it uses your own music from your iPod to create a variety of interval based workouts, adjusting the speed of the beat to desired strides per minute, from 80 to 160.  I have been playing a little bit with the tension, but not to the extent required by the program, because I can't do the math on the fly to know when I am at 15% or 35% when my tension goes from 1-20.  For now, I have been counting each as a single unit, so when the app instructs me to put the tension at 20%, I choose '2' on the resistance scale.  Primitive, I know, but it does result in me changing up the tension from 1-5 during each workout, with the result that the heart rate goes up and down, with each interval period (as shown in the graph, above, showing my heart rate during today's workout).

I have used the BeatBurn app 3 full days, and the workout has been a little different each day.  Throughout each workout the app gives vocal instructions as well as encouragement and tips (like remembering to use good posture).  At the end of each workout the voiceover gives a little pat on the back for making the time to workout, and this is also surprisingly effective.  I would hate to be doing all of this for nothing!

So, now, 25 weeks into my exercise program, here's my thoughts on some of the machines and apps I have been using.

The Elliptical Machine
The Precor EFX 5.33 elliptical machine is a piece of work.  But a good piece of work.  I have found it consistently easier to complete a 30 minute workout on this machine than a 20 minute workout on the old recumbent bike, and the elliptical is more efficient at getting (and keeping) my heart rate in the training zone, too.  I am finding the machine easy on my knees and back, and I certainly feel like I have had a workout when I get off the machine.  This model is pricey, around CAD$4,000 - $5,000, but if you can find it in your budget, or pick one up secondhand, it is well worth it.  [whispers] I don't absolutely loathe exercising on the elliptical machine [/stops whispering]. 

The Fitbit Activity Tracker
 The Fitbit Ultra is a 3-D motion sensor that tracks your day down to details a pedometer can't catch, showing your exact steps taken, calories burned, and distance traveled. The altimeter tracks floors climbed, which encourages me to take the stairs at home or work, or walk to the office/home instead of taking the streetcar.  The Fitbit Ultra also has a sleep sensor that  lets you see how long it takes to get to sleep, and how often you are awakened.  I sleep like a log, so I do not often use this feature, but it is interesting to put it on occasionally to see what quality of sleep I am getting. 

What I love most about the Fitbit Ultra is that I can wear it all the time, and then see my activity levels on the convenient web-based dashboard.  The Fitbit Ultra works with an app for iPad and iPhone, so I can track the amount of water I drink, or the meals I eat each day, which are then compared to my fitness goals.  Fitbit Ultra also works with other apps such as LoseIt!, DigiFit, and MyFitnessPal. 

DigiFit
DigiFit is a multi-purpose app.  With the required upgrades (available at a nominal price), it will speak with other devices, such as a Garmin ANT+ heart rate monitor, a Fitbit Ultra tracker, a Withings blood pressure monitor and Withings scale. 

Put all that together and you have a real snapshot of your health and fitness.  Each day's workout can be tracked to show your heart rate, intensity, and duration.  Sleep cycles can be recorded, either with a partner sleep monitor (which I don't use), or manually.  I use the DigiFit app every morning during my workout, then synch the app with the Withings app for my weight and blood pressure measurements.  I find it instructive to see how the measurements change over time, permitting me to make more informed fitness decisions. 

LoseIt!
LoseIt! is another multi-purpose tracking app, which tracks weight, exercise, and food taken in.  I particularly like it for the food tracker, and for the fact that it synchs with my Fitbit Ultra and Withings scale.  Apparently studies have shown that people who keep track of what they eat are more successful at both losing weight and keeping the weight off, I suppose because they are more aware of what they are actually putting into their body.  I have only been tracking my food intake for a few days, but I am already much more sensitive to portion size and food type.  I have found it easy to find the foods I eat in the large database of foods, and I have found it just as easy to add new foods, when required. 

Gym-Pact
The premise behind Gym-Pact is simple: commit to working out a set number of times a week, and pay money for every missed workout.  For those paying for a gym membership, there is an easy way to calculate the cost of each workout - - it's the pro-rated value of each workout, based on the number of workouts you do and the cost of your gym membership.  For example, for me, it is worth $10 for each missed workout.  I have committed to do 5 workouts a week (I am giving myself a buffer in there, since I actually have 6 workouts each week in my plan).  At the end of each week, the number of workouts I miss (and therefore the amount of money I owe) is calculated.  For every workout I make, I get a pro-rated share of the pool of funds generated by peoples' missed workouts.  So far, since joining Gym-Pact, I have not missed a single workout (and have therefore paid nothing), and I have "earned" $14.50.  The total earnings usually work out to $3/week, on average.  I remain highly skeptical that I will ever see any money from this program, which feels a lot like a pyramid scheme to me (for now, all my "earnings" are electronic), but it's an incredible motivator, which is why I keep doing it. 

Withings
Withings produces a series of wireless tools, including a blood pressure monitor and digital scale.  I purchased both, because these are all metrics that I wanted to track.  The products have each delivered to my expectations - after a brief working in period - and now form an integral part of my daily monitoring program. 

Each morning I get up and take my blood pressure, along with my resting heart rate, and then I do my 30 minute workout on the elliptical.  After the workout, and after I hose myself off, I hop onto the digital scale, and I can see each figure appear on the Withings app on my iPad, as well as the DigiFit app, and LoseIt! app.  It has made record keeping much more streamlined and simple, and it has removed a lot of the anxiety about my Friday morning weigh ins. 

So, net net, I am slightly more tracked and monitored than a space shuttle launch.  But it all helps give me little wins along the way that keep me motivated.  It's week 25 of working out, and I have lost 38.6 pounds, or a little over 1.5 pounds per week.  I can't think about how long it will take me to reach 50 pounds lost, or 100 pounds lost, so I focus on the little wins.  This week was full of little wins, which is why I will be back on the elliptical on Sunday, right on schedule.