Category: Exercise Page 1 of 3

Lorena had her annual medical check-up yesterday and it came out great. She continues to work out HARD four days per week and that was manifested in her results. The doctor told her that she only needs to come in every other year for the time being and that the best thing she can do to say healthy is to maintain her rigorous exercise schedule. Now, with her new Garmin watch, she can track everything she does quite nicely. Again, this is a lesson to me, I have completely fallen off the health wagon again and need to get back on and start exercising. Maintaining the same kind of schedule Lorena maintains would be optimal–two days per week on the rowing machine and two days per week running on the treadmill. I like to do as much as I can outside, but that really is not very practical in the summer in our part of Texas.

Lorena’s new Garmin Vívoactive 5 GPS (31st anniversary) watch arrived just in time for her trip to visit Christian in Cambridge for the next week and a half. I get to stay home here in Texas in my office and work. It is an AMAZING watch. I got my Garmin Instinct several years back with a black and white screen. Her watch has a longer battery life, more features, cost just a little bit less. I have to say I am envious, but I also have to say she deserves it way more than me. She still runs four and a half miles two times per week and 8k+ meters on the Concept 2 rower two times per week. She definitely will benefit from the fitness watch. It connects to her phone, keeps track of everything and is really quite fashionable, too.

My latest health kick started a month ago on Christian’s birthday. Today I weighed in at a little over twenty pounds less than when I started. My Body Mass Index has dropped from 36.6 (obese level 2) to 33.6 which is obese level 1, a little less than half way just overweight. My eating is significantly decreased in quantity and increased in quality. My exercise is still a pain in the neck, but not painful. I am walking 2.5-3 miles, four days per week, but hope/plan to increase that. My velocities are up from when I began so that is good. The short term goal is to get to under 200 lbs. before my graduation on December 15 after having navigated the Thanksgiving holiday without gaining it all back.

Month 1 WEIGHT: 214.7 lbs. BMI: 33.6

I decided to walk around the neighborhood this morning because the weather has cooled down from over 100° during the day. I got dressed, put on my Monterrey sun hat (given to me by my beloved Mexican mother-in-law) to protect my bald head from the sun. It was 86° when I left the house, but the temperature recorded by my Garmin watch showed that it got up to 95° while I was walking with an average of 94.2°. That is still a good bit too hot for my Anglo/Finnish bloods so I think I will wait a couple of weeks before I try it again.

All that said, I have confirmed, again, my preference for walking around the neighborhood over walking on a treadmill. It is more fun (or at least, less boring), I walk faster and my heart-rate stays in the 50-85% optimal training zone for longer with less discomfort. I am not sure why that is, but that is they way it seems for me.

My old guy weight-lifting book arrived today. I ordered it as soon as Christian recommended. As soon as I got the email that said it arrived and was in our (snail) mailbox, I got all excited with the idea of reading it while I am on the treadmill today. After I saw it, I realized is was WAY bigger than a trade paperback and I might not have too much luck holding it while I walk. We will see. I checked to see if they had a section in the book for guys approaching seventy. The DID! Also a section (the last one) for guys in their seventies, so I think I am all set. Now I need to the book, determine what weights and other material I need to start the program, then make the decision about whether we want to buy weights or head down to a local gym.

Lorena and I bought a treadmill to replace the one our good friends, Bob and Gena, lent us when we lived in Centralia. Lorena has been using it regularly and I have been using it only sporadically for about a year now. Now that I have finished the Ph.D., I no longer have an excuse for being so fat and out of shape. I need to lose fifty pounds (probably more). So, I decided to get on a program again and deal with it. I have always walked pretty fast, between 3.5-4 mph, but I could not do that this time so I am starting to put a program together where I can take it slower and build back up to where I was before. About the maximum rate I can maintain and read a book is about 2.5 miles per hour. I am just going to try to maintain that for a month or so and enjoy the books I have been buying. I am trying to get my speed back up to at least 3.5 mph by the time the weather cools off so I can walk outside. In the meantime, I am going to try to read my book on weightlifting for old guys so I can figure out whether we want to buy some weights or join a gym. We might even see if we can go to a seminar on weightlifting by the company that offers they book–the company is only a couple of hours from where we live.