August 9, 2012: Day 8 of 30

I had a very interesting conversation with the CEO of the bank today.  I'll talk more about the job transition and that conversation tomorrow (Saturday) morning when I have more time.  For now, here's my recap of day 8 of my 30 day plan:

8/9/2012: Day 8 of 30
Morning weight: 181.8
Today's calorie count: 1488
Morning exercise: Cardio day at the gym which consisted of 1500 meters on the rowing machine (heart rate mid 130s), 20 minutes on the bike at level 11 (HR mid 120s), and 100 floors (24 minutes) on the stair master at level 7 (HR mid 140s).  HR recovery, finished at 152 after 1 minute HR was 122. 
Evening exercise: 30 walk jog - 8 minute walk, 15 minute jog, 7 minute walk.  HR walking was 105-112, jogging HR was 135-145
Alcohol consumption: None
Younger Next Year pages read: 36

Notes from book:  (Quotes and very near quotes in italics)
Chris starts out this chapter talking about long term goals.  One of those goals is to be able to do light aerobics (60-65% of max) for 3 hours without getting exhausted.  That is a long bike ride, a hike, or something like that.  A good personal goal is to do some sort of activity like that once a month.  Last summer I did a lot of long, slow training as Carla and I were preparing for our 500 mile bike ride.  I have not done any of that this year.  I'll blame it a little bit on the heat.  In the spring, Jack and I were taking fairly regular hikes that would take several hours, but since the 100 degree heat has settled in, we haven't been doing any of that.  Reading this chapter reminded me how much I enjoy my outdoor time and that I needed to make sure to schedule at least one event like this every month.  Chris recommends making these monthly outings a focus of your training.

A second endurance goal is to be able to do hard aerobics (70-85% of max) for an hour.  This is the equivalent of one of my jog or cardio days at the gym.  Another goal is to be able to do what he calls real hell-for-leather sprints or some other flat-out activity at anaerobic levels (that's everything you've got until you have to stop) for a minute or two.  This last one is the least important of all the goals, but Chris says it's worth considering.

The book discusses the importance of getting a heart monitor so that you can know your exercise level and you can optimize your workouts.  I recommend getting a simple monitor, the fancy ones are just too complicated and you'll probably never use 90% of their features.  The book discusses the difference between your theoretcial max (220 minus your age) and your actual maximum heart rate.  My theoretical max is 170, my light aerobic target is 102 - 110 and my hard aerobic target is 119 - 145.

Yesterday evening when I was walking fast my heart rate fluctuated around 108, so I was in that light aerobic range pretty easily by walking and swinging my arms.  I did notice that if I did not swing my arms or if I got lazy and just sort of strolled, my heart rate would drop to about 102.  During my brief jog last night and during my cardio workout yesterday morning my heart rate was between 125 and 145, except for a few times when it would go up into the low 150s.  I don't think it ever dropped below 119.  So I was in my hard aerobic zone for the entire time. 

This weekend I plan on doing sprints half-way through my jog, as fast as I can for as long as I can, to test my maximum heart rate.  I think 170 sounds about right, though.  When I am jogging at a heart rate of 135 - 140 I know I can keep it up for about an hour.  When I feel like I need to stop and take a break and then glance at my HR monitor I am almost invariable up in the 150s, which is too fast.  So I feel pretty good about using the theoretical max as described in the book, but I still want to test my max, just for shits and grins, I guess.

Chris talks a little bit about recovery rate; how quickly your heart rate recovers from exercise is a good measure of your aerobic fitness level.  To find out your recovery rate, look at your heart rate monitor at the very end of a hard aerobic session, then slow down to an easy walk or slow cadence on the bike.  Watch your heart rate monitor and the instant it drops one beat (be sure to wait for it to go down one tick before you start timing; it often goes up when you first slow down), start timing.  See how many beats per minute your heart rate drops in sixty seconds.  Anything over 20 is satisfactory.  More is better.  If it is less than 20 than you have more work to do to build your aerobic base.  Chris says if your recovery goes to 30 or 40 to tell absolutely everyone you know.  And if it hits 50, tell him and Harry.  I calculated my recovery rate yesterdy morning.  I ended the stair machine at 152, after one minute my heart rate was 122, that's a recovery of 30 beats per minute.  Well there you go, I'm writing about it in my blog.  I guess that is telling everyone I know!

There are several pages in this chapter about how to get started on an aerobic exercie routine and it contains inspirational stories to help you keep at it once you start...read the book...that's all I've got to say about that.  It's definitly worth the $8 and the time invest in reading it.  I am reading it for the second time, now, and I'm getting a lot out of it that I missed the first time around.  The first time I read it, last summer, I knew, finally, in my heart or hearts, that there was no excuse good enough to keep me from exercising every day for the rest of my life.  I've read countless books on exercise, I've always (it seems) understood that exercising is good and not exercising is bad.  I've always known that if I exercise I can control my weight and if I don't I can't, but this book inspired me like nothing I've ever read before.  This book informed me like nothing I've read or heard before.  This book gave me a picture of my body at a cellular level that made sense to me.  Now, when I don't exercise, I imagine my body hiss-bumping it's way into decay...and I feel sick and queezy inside.  And when I do exercise I imagine a bunch of little engineers in their fixing things, making cells stronger, burning fat for fuel, improving my circulatory and nervous systems.  It boggles the mind when you finally understand what you are not doing for yourself when you don't exercise.  As I've said before, if you read this book you will never look at not exercising every day for the rest of your life the same way again.  You may go through periods when you don't exercise, but they can't last long.  Because your body starts to hurt again, you start to gain weight again, your muscles get soft, your brain doesn't work as well, you start to trip more, your joints are more achey and you know why.  You know it's because you're not exercising and your body thinks times are bad.  It's conserving its energy, allowing non-essential functions to decay, so it can keep you alive until the next spring time.  That thought, visuallizing your body hiss-bumping to decay, visuallizing yourself at 75 or 80 using a walker to get to the fridge, that thought that you can prevent that by getting up and going for a good stiff walk for an hour a day every day, will get you going.  At least it gets me going!!  Try it.  Read the book.  Tell me what you think.

The next chapter is about strength training.  When I read this chapter for the first time I couldn't believe how much I didn't know about the benefits of strength training.  I knew some things.  I knew that women start to lose both muscle mass and bone density at about the age of 30.  The loss of bone density leads to crippling oesteoprosis and the loss of muscle mass leads to loss of strength and weight gain, among other things.  The only way to prevent the loss of muscle mass and a good way to slow down the loss of bone density is regular strength training.  I've been an advocate for 40+ year old women to do strength training for years.  Most women just don't do it.  If you are a woman over 40 and you don't do strength training, in my opinion, you are just plain nuts.  I've thought that for a long time.  I have a pretty decent set of free weights and a bench at home.  If I did nothing else, I'd hit those weights fairly regularly.  And that was before I read this book.

The chapter about weight lifting (strength training) opened my eyes to so many more benefits than I ever imagined.  I'm going to quickly name a few.  Weight lifting is the single most important thing you can do to improve and retain you skeleton funtion.  It offsets the loss of muscle mass as you age.  Weight lifting stops the weakening of tendons and restores the "goopy pads" in your joints. Weight lifting helps prevent falls because it improves balance, by improving your neurotransmitters.  There is a hidden increase in coordination caused by strength training that changes your physical life - tremendously - for the better.  We're not talking about your typical hand-eye coordination, what we're talking about is the coordination of fine muscle detail through the elaborate networks of nerves that link your body and your brain. (OK, we've switched from Chris' chapter to Harry's.  Can you tell?)

This improvement in neurotransmitters happens quickly, I know that from experience.  I have noticed it myself, but I always thought it was just increased strength that made simple tasks easier.  Now I get it and it makes so much more sense than it did before; not only am I stronger, so every day tasks are easier, but my body is smarter and communicating better with itself.  My brain is doing a better job telling my body what to do.  I can illustrate this concept by talking about a very common every day task, putting on my pants.  Before starting strength training, I would sit on the edge of the bed to put on my pants.  If I tried to stand up and put on my pants, I would stumble and fall.  OK...I'm getting old...I get it.  Sit on the bed, silly, so you don't fall while you are getting dressed in the mornings.  About a month or two into strength training I was getting dressed in the morning, putting on my pants like I do every morning, and as I am sticking my second leg into my pants leg I realize I am doing it standing up.  Without even thinking about it, without stumbling, without having to balance myself, I am slipping on my pants while I am standing up.  That may sound a little silly to you, but to me it was a real "Wow" moment.  There's something about being able to put your pants on while standing up that just makes you feel all young and vibrant inside.  Now, I practically get dressed on the fly, while I'm moving on to whatever I need to do next.  My body just works better than it has in years.  I'm loving it. 

I just started Harry's chapter on strength training which I remember to be absolutely fascinating.  I am looking forward to sharing it with you, tomorrow.  Until then, have a wonderful day!!