8 mile

Okay.. Technically "8 mile" is the  title of a semi-autobiographical movie starring Eminem. "8 miles," however, is how far I ran on the treadmill today.

"RAN" you say? Why yes, I maintained a speed of 6mph.

So much progress you say?

Well, only kinda. I was crunched for time so to get to 8 miles I had to pick up the speed. How did I do that without dying... I put the treadmill on a 2-3% decline. That gave me more speed. Semi-cheating but I still got a long workout. It will help.

This is a new distance high. I'll get to 10 eventually.

1/23 Highlights

Fatty pulled another 7.5 mile jog yesterday. This one was just out on the road and in the neighborhoods around my house. Included in this was a 1-mile pace check on a school track near my house. I was right around 10:30 or so. Still jogging then. I've decided that my Saturday goal is to get to 10 miles.

Also, today was the end of week 1 for our church's biggest loser contest. I lost just about 1 pound. That's not bad considering I ate out three times this week for social engagements and I didn't hold back on any of those.

Now, there were people who dropped 5, 8, 12, 13 pounds. That seems pretty impressive. But, if you take a look under the surface, you see some inconvienient truths. You may recall that I made my goal the loss of 35 pounds OF FAT. Total weight is really only half of the equation. Body fat % is the other. Anyone out there want to drop 10 pounds if they knew that 2 was fat, 5 was water, 1.5 was muscle, and 0.5 was bone? YIKES!

Keep in mind that there are 3500 kilocalories in a pound of fat. When someone drops 10 pounds in a week, that would be 35000 calories if it were all fat. For the record, an entire weekly recommended caloric intake for a man of 200+ pounds ls going to be at least 17,500. Anyone seeing a problem here? You would have to eat a big scoop of NOTHING for a week and you would still have to burn ANOTHER 17,500 through exercise that week... To burn 17,500 calories through exercise, you would have to do 20+ hours of aerobic workouts that week. Try doing that while eating nothing... You'd probably be dead by day 5.. And I don't mean tired.

In other words, it's not possible. Whenever people are losing that kind of weight, it is primarily water. But, you are also losing muscle tissue too. Not good. Every reputable source will tell you that it's a bad idea to lose more than about 2 pounds a week. If you do, it's likely that the weight is not just fat loss. In fact, it's almost certainly not. 

A couple more facts: 

Initial excess water weight from a diet/exercise program is normal. But, if your high weight loss lasts more than about 2 weeks, you probably are in an unhealthy way. 

Burning muscle tissue is generally BAD news. Muscles are the furnace that burn calories. Lose that and you burn fewer during those 22+ hours a day you are not exercising. 

SOME muscle loss can be considered somewhat acceptable when someone loses a lot of weight over time. Your body packed on more muscle as you gained that weight anyway. It needed extra muscle to support/move that weight. 

On the show "The Biggest Loser", contestants work out hours upon hours a day. In those unnatural circumstances, one could theoretically do better than 2 pounds a week and still be burning fat. For the other 99% of us out there, 1-2 pounds a week is where you wanna be on average. Which, as it happens, is right where Fatty has been. Oh yeah baby.

Study about bone loss with dieters

1/16 & 1/17 highlights

Fatty reached a new milestone. I did a 7.5 mile jog on those trails by Sandy High School. The watch says 1235 calories (not including cool down). Now this is a distance I haven't gone since like the year 2000 or something. I thought I probably could have done an extra mile.. But I'll save that for next week. If the trail distance is correct, I did it at an average of 10.53 minutes a mile. That's getting CLOSE to running speed.

Secondly, today I signed up with like 30+ other people for a biggest loser competition we're having at church. That should be pretty sweet. I don't expect to win. But it will help me stay motivated. My goal for the 12-week deal is to drop 24 pounds. I've been shooting for 2 pounds a week. More weight than that usually means you're burning muscle. I'll pass on that if possible.

My next official weigh-in/body fat test will be February 1st.

It's time to talk about Jogger's Nipple

Sure, it felt a little uncomfortable. But, I was a little suprised when I looked down at my shirt and saw reddish streaks on my sweat-soaked shirt right around the nipple areas. Yeah, it was blood. It turns out that "Jogger's Nipple" is the official name for it. That means that I'm not the only one that gets this. This isn't the first time it's happened to me. In fact, I take preventative measures every time I jog.

This is a guy thing usually. Girls wear sports bras etc. which prevent this problem. Sorry ladies. You're really missing out...

What is it? Irritated or bloody nipples. How do you get it? Friction from a shirt or clothing item. Distance jogging with a sweaty shirt will do it just fine. Cotton is the worst.

What can you do about it? The two things I do are avoid cotton when possible and put on a coat of vaseline. These help but are not fool-proof. In fact, I did both of these today. What is the next step? Barriers. Tape, band-aids, underclothing, etc.

I seriously considered posting pictures of my red-tinged shirt. But, I thought it might be a bit much. For now, you'll just have to take my word for it.

So remember, when you're jogging and your nipples feel like they're on fire, you might have jogger's nipple. Or, your nipples are really on fire. You should probably check to be sure.

Colon Blow

Now, this is only kinda related to the blog. But, I had to post it. I've been trying to eat less crap and just eat less in general. My secrets for not feeling like I want to stab a passerby and eat them because I'm so hungry- protein and fiber. In the morning, I like to have cereal that has a lot of fiber in it. Most cereals don't. In fact, most cereals are absolute garbage, highly processed grains with scoops of sugar and multi-vitamin powder thrown in. In other words, my wife's favorite. Corn Chex anyone? Blah!

Now, Natalie likes coupons and shopping on the cheap. It's almost impossible to purchase healthy, fiber-rich cereal for a decent price. Since my favorite cereal runs about $5.29 regularly, I don't get to have it very often. But here's what happens when it goes on sale for $1.88.

 
Let's just say there are two Albertson's in the area that are now out of stock... Oh, Natalie wanted me to say that with coupons she actually averaged $1.65 a box. Fair enough. As long as I have my precious fiber. 51% of the RDA in each cup. Yeah baby. AND it tastes good. Bonus.

This all makes me think of a classic SNL skit.Worth a look for a quick laugh.

Official Post-Holidays Weigh-In and More

Success! My goal was to weigh LESS starting the new year than I did before. The results are in. As soon as I woke up, I did a couple of things.

First, I took a resting heart rate: 50 beats per minute. Next, I got up and drank a full-to-the-brim glass of water. Then I went to the gym to weigh in. It's important to use the same scale to see your results. Now, when I arrived, I decided to weigh in without shoes. It's closer to my real weight. I figure I'll do that on the official weigh-ins. I also weighed the shoes separately (2 lbs even combined). The weight came out to 277.2 lbs. In mid-December, I was at about 283.

So, I did drop 4-5 pounds through the holidays. The trick: exercise and a lot of skipped desserts. 

Finally, I did a body fat test. I got 30.12%. This is a drop of about 0.59% Since mid-December. I would not call that PHE-nominal. But, it's the right direction. 

The next official stat check will be the first Monday in February. 

Short Term Goals: Get the cardio sessions up to 60 minutes (Not including warm-up and cool-down). The trouble is that means almost 80 minutes on a machine. But, I need to get used to that duration. Do this about 3 times a week. Do once a week HIIT intervals to boost speed and drop the duration to 45 or 50 min not including WU/CD. Finally, a once a week cross training (stair master revolving staircase machine) for an hour.

Fatty's hittin' the New Year with a JOGGING start

I hit 5.43 miles today on the treadmill. Gotta start the year off right.

In other news, I will be doing a weigh-in and body fat check on Monday to see how I came through the holidays. I'm gonna do it first thing in the morning after only one glass of water. I'll try to make that a 2-week or monthly practice as an official check-up.