Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

This question came up on the comments section of my entry:

Starling Fitness » What You Need To Know About Weight Watchers

This is a great help. Is there a maximum of exercise points you can reduce your total by in a day? I exercise for 45 minutes everyday and get my heartrate up to 144 bpm which qualifies me for the heavy category, but 9 extra points sounds like it’s too many for me to get just for an intense 45 minute workout. I know there is a 4 point bank cap, but is there a cap if you eat the points that day? Thank you for your response.

Andy Marris
West Allis, WI, USA

Andrew,

There are some mixed answers on this question. If you ask some Weight Watcher leaders, they will say that you should not exercise more than four Points a day. The logic behind that is they want to avoid exercise bulimia. Other leaders will say you should eat all your exercise Points so that your body doesn’t go into shock and stop losing weight.

The real answer here is that you should listen to your body. Each one of us is different and some people can exercise a lot, eat a lot and still lose weight. Others need to exercise a lot and keep their eating level low so that they will lose weight. Since we’re all different, the best advice is to experiment and see how your body reacts. If you eat all your Points and still lose weight, then you’ve found your answer. If not, then you may have to cut back on eating those extra exercise Points.

Good Luck,
Laura Moncur

This article is about a school district that has introduced snowshoes as a fun way to keep their students active during the winter.

• Happy News – Schools hope snowshoes get kids moving – by Associated Press

They seem to be an economical option for schools:

“Snowshoes certainly aren’t the only winter option, but for many schools they may be the most practical. Skis can cost a fortune and require regular upkeep. Learning to ski can be tricky and time-consuming _ tough to do when the typical gym class lasts 45 minutes. Meanwhile, outfitting a class of 30 with snowshoes runs around $1,200. Maintenance mostly is a matter of keeping them clean.”

They look like a fun option for adults also. I wondered what the cost would be for me to get a pair of snowshoes to play with and after looking at Amazon, they range between $40 and $250. REI had a selection of much more expensive and complicated snowshoes.

This website is a basic introduction to snowshoeing:

• Snowshoes & Snowshoeing Page – A Snowshoe Primer

Next time you look at the snow and think that there is no way for you to exercise, remember that there are always options. I have run in the snow, rode my mountain bike in the snow and even taken leisurely walks in the snow. All you need is determination and you will be able to keep fit all winter long.

Videogame Workout has a great article about two arcade gyms that are opening up: one in New Jersey and the other in California.

• Videogame Workout: Arcade gyms – XRtainment and Energy Factory

I have been fussing with videogame workouts for a while and I think I’ve spent more time trying to get things working than exercising with them. In the end, it would be really nice to find a place that has all the equipment working and ready for me to exercise with.

The Road Runners Clubs of America is a way to connect with other runners in your area. I don’t know how all the clubs conduct themselves, but I was involved with the Salt Lake City Track Club, which is an RRCA member and I can tell you it’s worth your while to check out the clubs in your area.

• Road Running Clubs – Find a club in your area

When I decided that I was going to run to keep in shape, I thought that it might help me to run with other runners, so I started attending the Salt Lake City Track Club’s Fun Runs. At the time, one of my clients was the president of this club, which is how I found them. Joining the fun runs was inspiring and shocking to me.

I was running about two miles a day at about 3.5 to 4.0 mph. I weighed 235 pounds. When I showed up to the fun runs, I was surprised. These “fun” runs were 5-8 miles at speeds of about 5.0-8.0 mph. That wasn’t fun to me. That would have been torture.

The president of the club suggested two-mile routes for me to take while they did what I considered a long run. I ended up running alone almost every week unless there was someone who was recovering from a marathon who wanted to take it easy with me.

In some respects, it was humiliating. I was this fat girl, running all alone, instead of with the club. The only time I had company is when one of them was taking it easy. I very quickly realized that I could run alone without going to the fun runs.

In other respects, however, running with the SLC Track Club was truly inspiring to me. I saw Utah’s best runners every week. The dinners after the run, we talked about upcoming races. I learned about qualifying for marathons and about running form. I had role models to look up to and I actually enjoyed my time spent with them.

Whether you are a beginner or have been running for a while, you owe it to yourself to try out your local running club. It will give you people to look up to, events to look forward to and even a little humility about your progress. Plus, there are weekly runs in place with people to exercise with. It’s like having a whole club of running partners waiting for you every week.

My friend Karen Rosenlund had a problem with her knees. Her doctor told her that she needed to take a weight training class in school so that she could get her knees stronger, and he showed her the exact exercises she needed to do. I took Weight Training because my friend Karen did. I needed to choose SOMETHING for gym, and this class had a friend in it.

Every day, we would dress for weight training and Karen would do the exercises that she needed to do for her knees. After that, we told the teacher that we were going to run a few laps around the auditorium for the rest of the class. He had suggested that as an alternative to working with weights every day. We would stretch, start running around the auditorium and keep running to the Photography Lab to see our other friend, Matt Sheffield.

I spent that entire semester in the Photography Lab, developing pictures I had taken with my 110 camera.

Weight Training had something called Maxs. They tested our Maxs at the first of the term. If we could beat them at the end of the term, we got an A. Just one more rep on each exercise and I could get an A. I didn’t know that at the first of the term, if I did, I wouldn’t have had to work as little as I did. For one day of the term, I pushed myself hard. The rest of the time, I developed grainy black and white pictures. Quite literally, the class was “No Sweat” for me.

Now, I wish I had paid more attention. I also wish the teacher had cared a little more. It would have only taken one checkup to see if we were actually running around the auditorium instead of sloughing. We were always back in time to change out of our gym clothes, but we never looked like we had been running for 30 minutes straight. He didn’t care. As long as we beat our Maxs, he was happy.

I have been doing the circuit training at 24 Hour Fitness for the last month or so and I’m enjoying the progress. It feels so good to be able to lift more weight than I did a couple of weeks ago. Sure, there is pain, but it’s not as bad now as it was the first two weeks. If I had known the sense of accomplishment that I would get from weight training, I might not have been so quick to run off to the Photography Lab.

I guess it wasn’t my time to learn that lesson…

The title for this post has been sitting in my queue for months. The truth of the matter is that it was pretty difficult for me to find an exercise that I enjoy. The only real advice I have for anyone who hates exercise is this:

Try something different.

That’s it. If you hate your workout, then try something different. For YEARS, I thought that I had to do aerobics to get thin. I think it’s because I watched so much Richard Simmons when I was a kid and then I was a teen during the Jane Fonda era of physical fitness. Every second that I did aerobics, I HATED it. The teachers rarely explained the moves well enough so that I would know what I was doing, so I ended up just fumbling around. I can’t clarify enough how much I despised aerobics.

Even Denise Austin, wasn’t enough to make me like aerobics. She is so clear when she explains what she wants me to do. She is good enough not to be too repetitious, so her videos don’t irritate me with the same phrases over and over again. I was able to do Denise Austin workouts for a summer in 1992, and she will always hold a soft place in my heart, but I just don’t like to do aerobics.

About six years ago, I knew that I wanted to start exercising because I wanted to improve my cardiovascular health. It wasn’t about losing weight. I knew that the studies had only proven that exercise helps heart health, not necessarily weight loss. I thought back to all the different exercises that I did in gym classes over the years. The only one where I enjoyed it enough to actually EARN an A in the class was a jogging class I took the first semester of high school. I decided that I would run.

Luckily, it worked out for me. It was painful. It wasn’t easy, but there were no teammates to complain about my performance. There were no competitors to pass me by. It was just me, running around my suburban neighborhood or on my treadmill. Running worked out for me and strangely, it led to other exercises that I enjoyed like bike riding and even weight training.

So many of my friends stay in shape with aerobics. There was a kickboxing class at the community center that my sister just loved. When I attended it, I wanted to punch the teacher in the face for assuming that all her students knew what she was doing. Halfway through the class, I stopped trying to follow along and just stepped up and down on the step over and over until it was over. If I had insisted on using aerobics as my way of getting fit, I wouldn’t have a story to tell you today.

If you hate exercise, STOP DOING IT! I don’t think any other health and fitness person will tell you that, but I’m here right now to tell you that it’s okay to stop doing whatever it is you hate. The only thing I ask is that you try something different. I don’t care what it is, but try something else and stick with it for a month or two until you know whether you like it or HATE it.

I promise you. If you keep looking and trying new things, you will find an exercise that you love.

I have thought about electricity generation while I’m exercising a lot. I talked about it on The Gadgets Page:

• The Gadgets Page » Bicycle Powered Generator

I work out every day, whether on the treadmill, my indoor bike trainer or at the gym. Some of the workout machines at the gym power themselves with my sweat, but most of them plug into the wall and I use more electricity than I generate. What if there was a gym designed to create electricity instead of use it? That is the idea behind Notions of Expenditure.

• Notions of Expenditure

There were many drawings and ideas submitted for Notions of Expenditure, but my favorite was an anonymous posting:

It compares the electricity work performed by the inmates at the Bellevue Prison in 1822 to the energy requirements of a typical household.

It would take five and a half people working out 24 hours a day to power one house, and that doesn’t include heating or hot water. Every time Mike tells me that hooking up a generator to my exercise bike is useless, I don’t want to believe him. I need to look at this demonstration. Mike is right. I would save more energy if I just turned off the lights when I’m not using them.

Via: Videogame Workout: Harness the Energy of Exercise?

I’m usually watching a movie while I’m running on the treadmill, so I rarely notice what is flashing on the dashboard of the treadmill. The other day, I was listening to music while running, so there was nothing for my eyes to do but stare at the screen. I was surprised at what I saw.

My usual workout is a warm up and a constant run at 5 mph with 0 incline. It’s a run I’ve been doing for the last few months because it reliably gets my heart rate in the high intensity zone. It’s also a goal that I set for myself a long time ago.

I didn’t realize that I had achieved this goal when I achieved it. It was logged in my head as, “Hmm, if I keep the speed at 5 mph, my heart rate stays in the high intensity zone… cool…” That’s about all I thought about it when I first achieved my goal, because long ago, I had decided I wanted to be able to run 12 minute miles, not 5 mph.

The only gym class I ever got an A that I deserved was Jogging. All we had to do was run around the auditorium 12 times (2 miles) every class. At the end of each quarter, the teacher timed us. If we could run a mile in 12 minutes, we got an A. It was that simple and I got my first A in gym without using feminine wiles (getting an A in Dance counts as feminine wiles, by the way).

Before I ever conceived of joining Weight Watchers, I decided that I was going to start exercising every day. We had a treadmill and my goal was to get to the point where I could easily run 12 minute miles, just like in my Jogging class. I weighed 235 pounds. It was 1998.

I wore out that first treadmill, which was very nicely replaced by another treadmill under the warranty, which was also worn out and replaced last year with my Nordictrack. Three treadmills, eight years and 75 pounds later, I finally reached my goal and I didn’t even notice it when it happened. It wasn’t until weeks later when I watched the dashboard on the treadmill flash between the workout time and the pace. I noticed the green numbers reading:

Pace 12:00

I had set the goal so clearly in my mind that it didn’t even surprise me when I FINALLY made it. It was as if I had already made it when I set the goal. Back then, I thought that the only class I had ever deserved an A in was Jogging, so I’m going to learn how to run again and I’m going to earn an A again. I know I can do it because I did it once before.

What have you achieved in your life that you are proud of? I know there must be at least one thing in your life that you deserved as much as I deserved that A in my Jogging class. Remember that time and use it as an inspiration. If you were able to do that, just think about what else you can do. If, after three treadmills, eight years and 75 pounds, I can finally achieve my goal that I set back in 1998, I can get to goal. The same goes for you. If you were able to make yourself proud so long ago, then you can do it now.

Am I the only person that finds it strange that the Tour de France is starting in London?

• Happy News – 2007 Tour De France to start in London – by Associated Press

Of course, that’s in 2007. We have have this year’s Tour de France to look forward to in July.

• The Official Tour de France Website (English Version)

When I started exercising on my indoor bike trainer, I got the videos for the 2005 Tour de France. It was such an inspiring thing to watch and I very quickly got pulled into watching for my favorite players.

I borrowed these DVDs from Netflix, but you can just as easily purchase the set from Amazon or check them out at your local library. When they show one rider overtaking another, I almost feel like I’m in the race and instinctively pedal faster. My heart rate easily gets into the high range just by watching these DVDs while I exercise.

I am looking forward to watching the live coverage of the Tour de France this summer, especially since this year, the yellow jersey is up for grabs. I’m cheering for Zabriski!

I love this exhibit at the Scripps Aquarium near San Diego. Here is a review from someone who has been there:

• Dance Dance DNA Revolution – by Mathowie

“At the scripps aquarium near San Diego, they devote half the space to teaching kids about science. In a wing devoted to explaining gene expression they had some stuff about DNA and the coolest thing was this video game that taught you about building blocks of life, then proceeded to a real DDR game where you have to step to the DNA parts being shown on screen.”

“The best part was when one of the 20 amino acids were built, it would say the name. So you’d see A T T G C and so on… and then it would shout ‘Cysteine!'”

“It was mostly lost on the kids, who just wanted to play some DDR, but it was a very clever idea. My hat’s off to the scientists that came up with this idea.”

This isn’t the kind of thing that can promote very much learning or regular physical activity, but it does look fun. I love it when museum designers come up with inventive ways to teach concepts.