Simple Exercise

This post was written by Mylifeswork on February 22, 2009
Posted Under: fitness, weight management

This is a continuation of my previous post as promised. It is a description of the second part of my personal weight loss journey; that most dreaded of words, exercise!

Well, what did I do? I picked up a hobby, cycling. It is of utmost importance that you engage in physical activity that you enjoy otherwise, what is the point? In the past I had found it extremely difficult to maintain a physical fitness routine with boring repetitive workouts in the local health club; it just didn’t work. I could not remain motivated if I wasn’t having any fun! Hours upon hours on treadmills, elliptical machines, rowing machines, stationary bikes etc. I found it mind numbing and could not drag my butt to the gym frequently enough, nor workout with enough intensity, for it to be truly effective. Many of you likely know exactly what I am talking about. If you can do it and make it work for you, congratulations, and by all means continue. I’m just saying it didn’t work for me. I could find any excuse under the sun not to go and work out. Sadly, the real motivator for me to go was financial; I was paying for it so I had better get my money’s worth! That’s not much of an incentive.
A friend of mine at work was an avid mountain biker. He had asked me to go along with him on many occasions but I had always turned him down citing any excuse I could think of; “got to take my daughters to dance lessons and I’m tired…I don’t think I could keep up to you.” His answer to this was, “of course you can’t keep up with me, but that’s not the point, lets just go out for fun.” This was difficult to swallow. I had been somewhat competitive in high school and throughout my twenties and knowing full well that someone who was no elite athlete could kick my butt was irksome to say the least. I felt ashamed of myself for getting so far out of shape; that was the real reason I didn’t want to go, I was embarrassed. During this time I had been slowly and successfully losing weight through the methods I had talked about in my previous post, intelligent eating habits. I was beginning to see some weight loss results and was feeling better about myself. So after months of prompting from my pesky yet well meaning cycling friend I finally agreed to go for a short ride along one of the local trails through a forest. I went home one day after work, dragged the rusty old bike out of the basement, swept off the cobwebs, pumped up the tires, oiled the chain and went for a ride.
My first ride was down the street. It was easy, just like riding a bike! It felt good. It sent me back in time 30 years. The warm sun, the wind on my face, the excruciating burn in my thighs! Wait a minute, I don’t remember that part. My seat was too low. I got some tools out and tweaked the seat position and the angle of the handle bars; that was better. My thighs still hurt though, and that little seat was mighty hard on the ass bone! My buddy showed up at the door and away we went. I live near the escarpment in Ontario, Canada. My house is near the base of the cliff, and the trails are at the top. This was unfortunate. A five minute warm-up ride found us at the bottom of a long gravel switchback trail that snaked its way up to the top; about a one kilometer climb. Holy crap did that hurt! Every muscle screaming and burning, lungs ready to explode, heart trying to burst out of my rib cage, sweating like a chunk of rancid pork; and I didn’t even ride the whole thing, I walked half of it! At the top, my buddy got a sick laugh from the whole situation and muttered something sarcastic; I couldn’t hear him over the throbbing heartbeat in my ears. That gravity thing; sometimes you just hate it! I recovered at the top and away we went. It was actually very nice riding through the bush, cool and relaxing. I found it challenging but not too difficult. My heart rate was up, I was breathing heavily, I was burning a lot of calories and I was having a really good time! We stopped every now-and-then for a drink of water or for a rest at the top of a small climb, chatted a bit and continued on our way. The whole trip took about an hour, and I burned about 750 calories for my efforts. The ride down the switchback was much more fun than the ride up of course; that gravity thing, sometimes you just love it! From then on we went out every Tuesday and Thursday after work, and even sometimes on the weekends. I got better each time out. I got faster and faster, and after that summer I was able to climb the entire switchback without stopping; although the pain of the climb never went away. And the pain of the climb is still there every time I climb that hill today, six years later!
Those two weekly bike rides became group rides as more of our friends became interested. We all got better together. We met other like minded people on the trails, which let to joining the local cycling club and participating in many events, from time-trial races to potluck dinners. I was having fun and getting into the best condition I had been in since high school. The second summer I decided to participate in the Ontario Cup mountain bike race series. This made me ramp up my training considerably; I wanted to succeed, at least not come in dead last. I made it into the top ten in the sport category which made me quite happy. It gave me a sense of accomplishment and pride. I felt good about myself again, something that had been lost for a long time. Below I will share with you the cycling/exercising routine that dropped me down to 172 lbs from 215 lbs, lowered my resting heart rate to 43 bpm, and boosted my maximum heart rate to 190 bpm. This is not just for cycling; you can substitute any aerobic exercise where I say cycling. Walking, jogging, swimming, rowing, cross country skiing, dancing; anything that gets your heart rate up will do. One hour of intense aerobic exercise will take care of 1000 calories
I have to say a few words about “perceived exertion”. This is an objective feeling of effort based on a percentage. 100% exertion would be as hard as you can go. If you are cycling it is as fast as you can go on a flat trail or road, if you are jogging it is an all out run, if you are walking it is a speed walk (almost a run).

Monday (after work):
Eat a snack ( Clif Bar Builders Protein Bars are really good. I have not tried Nestle Triple Threat Bars but I’m sure they’re good too!) I found if I didn’t eat a snack before my ride after a long afternoon at work I felt weak.
5 minute stretch (any stretching routine you want will do
5 min light warm-up (usually my ride to the trails
1 hr cycling at 80% perceived exertion (approx. 15km trail ride)
5 min cool down (usually the ride back to my house
Eat a good high protein meal within 30 minutes of exercise completion (vigorous workouts decrease your appetite, you won’t eat as much after 1.25hrs of 80% effort exercise
At about 9:00 in the evening I would have another snack; usually a bowl of honey nut cheerios while I watched some TV. I would log all my food intake and try to stay around 2000-2500 calories.

Tuesday: Easy Group Ride, 50%-70% exertion (or other light exercise).

Wednesday: Repeat Monday.

Thursday: Easy Group Ride, 50%-70% exertion (or other light exercise).

Friday: OFF

Saturday: Repeat Monday

Sunday: OFF

This weekly routine give you five days of exercise; three hard, two easy. It amounts to 6.25hrs of exercise and approximately 3500 calories burned which equals one pound. So as long as your food intake stays optimal, it is reasonable to expect that you will lose at least one pound per week! Probably more!

I have found that if I don’t keep some nutrients in my system, especially if I’m tired or its really hot out, I will ‘Bonk’ and that does not feel good! ‘Bonking’ happens when your body has essentially run out of nutrients to maintain the pace you are attempting to keep through your work out. The body draws on three sources of energy and uses them in the following order.

Glycogen (glycogen in the muscle fiber - first to be used - produced by the liver from carbohydrates);
Blood Sugar (glycogen in the blood - second to be used - produced by the liver and available in the blood stream)
Fat (the last to be utilized since it is slow burning and cannot provide the nutrients for high-power workouts).

So if you burn through all of your available resource nutrients and are running on fat stores alone you are going to ‘Bonk’ or ‘Hit the Wall’.

Here’s a couple of suggestions for some nutritious products to use to keep your energy levels up while you workout.