My Health Journey

I wrote about the importance of planning new and different routes to break the monotony of outdoor exercise. Especially when following a running program that assigns runs of certain distances, it's useful to know the length of each possible route. There are a number of ways to do that. First is past experience. If you travel this path once, with the aid of a pedometer, gps watch, fitbit, or smartphone you can tell or estimate its length. When I first started walking, I only had my Omron pedometer. It was nice because it counted my steps all the time, not only when I worked out. To estimate distance, I measured how many steps it took for me to walk or run a known distance. After repeating on several occasions, I'd have an idea of how many steps it took me to cover a mile, and use that to measure future walks / runs. It's not so accurate, but it works and is relatively inexpensive. After losing my pedometer, my girlfriend got me a Fitbit. The Fitbit has the featu...

Boredom is probably the single greatest enemy to persistence in a workout plan. Within weeks, my daily walks helped get me physically and mentally healthier. Just as quickly, however, I realized I needed to vary the route I walked or would sooner quit. The same applied to my runs, bike rides, hikes, and everything else I did outdoors. I needed new trails, new terrain, different scenery, and trails of varying lengths as well. Route created on Google Maps Google Maps quickly became my friend in that regard. I used it to survey the area around me and find routes, and also to measure distances. It is indispensable when it comes to travel. I study my destination for routes and print out maps ahead of time. With that and my running or hiking gear packed, I have no excuses to skip a workout because of travel. Furthermore, running or walking is a fun way to explore and sight-see. You see a lot more than from a moving car. Google Maps  is also indispensable for planning long ...

To help me start my weight training, I got several books on using dumbbells. The one I ended up using most is Dumbbell Training for Strength and Fitness, by Brzycki and Fornicola. It is aimed at the beginner starting with a home gym. The exercises in there are basic but cover all the muscle groups. I like the clear description of each exercise, and the indications on whether to skip it or how to adapt it in case of injury. The last part of the book is a collection of dumbbell workouts submitted by different coaches. It was fun to work through some of them and helps break monotony. The book has a good introductory section about safety practices and general advice. I still refer to it for reminders of the proper form for each exercise, and occasionally for new exercises to do. Overall, if you're a beginner to dumbbells, this is the book! The other popular book, Dumbbell Training, by Allen Hendrick, was useful for finding additional exercises. However, and I attac...

Tofu Kebab, one of my culinary creations After starting exercise with weights, I worried about the adequacy of my nutrition. I am a lifelong vegetarian, and though I have lived healthy for decades on a vegetarian diet, I wasn't sure I was getting enough protein to build muscles. I got a few books on vegetarian nutrition. One was too technical and tedious, another a marketing ploy for nutritional products. Ultimately, however, one book really changed my life. No Meat Athlete by Matt Frazier was a curious but interesting and most practically useful guide. Half the book was about down to earth vegetarian nutritional advice, the other half about running. This is the book that got me started running, at age 41. I learned that my biggest concern with a vegetarian diet was not protein, but the dependence on processed food. I followed the book's advice and switched my diet nearly completely to whole foods, while eliminating much junk food. I ended up cooking more myse...

My old cumbersome dumbbells A few years ago, I reached a point in my walking where I was no longer making progress. I was walking at least an hour each day on outdoor trails. My weight loss reached a plateau. I realized that all the walking strengthened me to the point where an hour walk is no breeze, and my recent weight loss meant it was taking less effort to walk. I tried extending my walks, or taking two daily hour walks. It was nice to spend all that time outdoors, but with work, my daughter, housework, and other things, it became difficult to find that kind of time. My PowerBlock Dumbbells To boost my development, I decided to go back to weight training, something I had done briefly as a teenager, and then again in college. However I did not like gyms. The thought of getting into the car to go to a gym, to exercise in front of other people no less, robs me of half the motivation to work out. If only I had a set of weights at home, I thought, then I'd have no e...

my jogging stroller One of the earliest challenges I faced was integrating my exercise with my single-parent life. I had separated from my marriage when my daughter was only three years old, retaining shared custody. On my custody days, the child demanded much attention. She could not be left alone, so I was unable to do any early morning outdoor activities. Enter the jogging stroller. Upon a friend's advice, I purchased it a month after my separation. For less than $100, I bought my freedom to exercise outdoors anytime I wanted. The Baby Trend Expedition stroller I got was fairly sturdy. It supported my child until she was five years of age, and weighed 50 lb., as advertised. It also has two cup-holders for each of us and a phone / wipes compartment, along with storage at bottom. We kept it in good shape, so I sold it on Craigslist after for $35.                             I started with walking. I...

My bedroom workout setup. Injuries are a fact of an active life. Whether from accidents, poor posture, repetitive use, or exerting oneself too much, injuries get in the way of further exercise, leaving muscles weaker and withering away. Most of the last two years I have spent battling injuries. This led me to re-evaluate my approach. Rather than focus on running speed or weights lifted, I need to understand my body better and build around it. Something I am just realizing is that the workouts and routines you find in books are usually aimed at neutral people who are in reasonable shape and mechanically balanced. The same routines may not necessarily work for you if you are starting from a baseline of injury and imbalance. Instead, they need to be customized to fit your needs and your body, which requires first knowing your body. Last week I did a tour of my body with fairly light 15 lb. dumbbells. I felt much soreness in my neck, upper left arm, left hip and lower back, and right...

Had a nice one hour walk today around the lake. Under the towering trees shading the trail, I saw a caterpillar climbing a silk thread. Every day that I walk, run, hike, or bike outdoors, I see a small wonder of nature, be it a great blue heron wading in the pond, turtles sunning on a log, or deer almost perfectly camouflaged in the thickets. Last week, I saw a hummingbird hovering near a treetop, and a rainbow patch next to the setting sun. Over the years, I have seen red foxes and beavers. Caterpillar climbing on a silk thread. Every exercise session outdoors is an adventure. Even walking the same trail over and over, you see different things at different times of day, and as the seasons change. It is a refreshing way of breaking the monotony of exercise . For me, it wins hands-down over working out in a gym or a treadmill. Fresh air and Vitamin D are a welcome bonus, and being closer to nature is refreshing and healing. The outdoors often pose a challenge. Trail conditions a...

Sooner or later, every exercise plan stumbles upon obstacles, such as work demands, travel, weather, or injury. Following are the ones I encountered over the past five years. I will address each in turn in later posts, along with my response to each challenge. Finding the time to exercise. Schedule disruptions such as illness, travel or extended work commitments. Monotony: Boredom from doing the same routines and running over the same trails. Being a single-parent: I have shared custody of my daughter, which imposes the added challenge of integrating my exercise with my parenting.   Weather: a significant factor for exercising outdoors. Trail conditions: ice, rain, mud, potholes, construction closures, etc., can interfere with our planned activities. Injuries. Specific adaptations because of lifestyle. For example, I live in a townhouse, so end up doing stairs twice as often as usual, while my work involves sitting in front of the computer for long hours. These ha...

The heat wave halted my running to a standstill, so I resurrected the set of weights I have at home to resume weight training. Turns out the last time I had done any weights was last summer, when I decided to take it easy on my heels to alleviate the plantar fasciitis that had developed. Following the recommendation of my chiropractor, I decided to start with especially low weights the first few sessions and see how it goes.  Today was the third session. My first two sessions, starting with 15 lb. dumbbells, identified weak area of my body. Currently at the top of my list is my left shoulder / upper arm, which appears to have suffered an injury. For the last two weeks, I've been feeling pain there when I do dishes. Now I feel it with any type of press, flys, especially pullovers, and lateral raises, but surprisingly not front raises. My chiropractor adjusted it yesterday, but the pain was still there when I exercised today, suggesting it was ...

Though I have exercised sporadically throughout my life, I have largely neglected my health in between. By early 2013, I didn't like the way I look and wanted to change. The five years hence have been my most concerted effort to stay on a healthy path. I got into the habit of a daily walk first thing in the morning, which helped keep me calm through my divorce, and started me losing weight. Feeling the need for cardio work, and with no prior experience, I took up running at the eve of my 42nd birthday, and went on to complete three half-marathons and many shorter races. Nowadays, I augment my running with yoga, weights, hiking, biking, swimming, housework, …, whatever I can do to stay active. I lost 50 lbs. in the last five years, and am enjoying the financial pangs of downsizing my wardrobe twice.  What made this stretch so resilient is my realization that any health program I follow has to uniquely work for me, for my own strengths and weaknesses, taking into account my...