Matt Starts Running April 6, 2006
Matt over at PhysicsDiet.com has recently started running for exercise. He’s posted a bit of info about how he’s going so far – Running – Getting Started.
Matt is using a similar approach to how I started – alternate periods of running and walking, going for about 30 minutes at a time. He started about a week ago with run 30 seconds/walk 60 seconds (or sometimes a little longer), and has already built it up to run 45 seconds/walk 60 seconds.
It’s a little concerning to read about Matt’s trouble with his Achilles Tendon, although it sounds like it’s responding to rest/ice/elevation and the soreness is reducing with each run. Hopefully it’s just a matter of strengthening it up over time.
Although I can now run all the way around my 3 km course, I find that it’s pretty heavy going and pushes me well out of my aerobic heartbeat range. I now run 4 minutes/walk 1 minute most days, and run the complete course only once per week to see how well I’m improving.
The interval training method does seem to increase my fitness faster than just running to exhaustion, and it only adds about 1 minute or so to my total time for the course. Those little walking rests allow my body to recover a bit, and I make up most of the walking time by being able to run faster afterwards. Besides, it’s easier than running to exhaustion 
.
It’ll be interesting to follow Matt’s progress and see how he improves in the coming weeks.
The Physics Diet April 5, 2006
Here’s an interesting story from physicist Richard A. Muller about how he lost weight using the first law of thermodynamics: The Physics Diet.
Exercise is a very difficult way to lose weight. Here’s a rule of thumb: exercise very hard for one hour (swimming, running, or racquetball) and you’ll lose about one ounce of fat. Light exercise for an hour (gardening, baseball, or golf) will lose you a third of an ounce. That number is small because fat is a very energy-dense substance: it packs about 4,000 food calories per pound, the same as gasoline, and 15 times as much as in TNT.
His solution? Eat less.
It reminds me of a ‘miracle diet’ skit I once saw on the satirical lifestyle show Life Support. Dr Rudi had come up with an amazing new concept for weight loss – “eat less”. Everyone is so caught up in fad diets, cleansing programs, miracle weight loss cures, exercise programs, drugs, metabolic stimulation, therapy and even surgery, that it’s actually funny to hear someone suggest that eating less is an effective way to lose weight!
Of course, if you eat less you’ll need to learn how to deal with hunger. What does Muller recommend? He suggests that you think of hunger as an itch, and you should stop scratching it. He draws inspiration from Lawrence of Arabia, who said, “The trick is not minding that it hurts”.
I told myself that the mild ache was only the sensation of evaporating fat.
Remember, being fat is just as much of a choice as choosing to lose weight. You may not have consciously chosen to put on weight, but once you notice the extra pounds and do nothing about it, you’re choosing to be fat.
Anybody can lose weight. Energy is conserved. Just stop scratching that itch. Of course, you’ll have to sacrifice instant gratification. Is it worth it? You decide. Food is delicious and cheap. You might reasonably choose to take advantage of this unique historical circumstance, and decide to be fat.
Everybody already knows how to lose weight – eat right, eat less, exercise more. You don’t need a doctor or a physicist to tell you that.
Funky Image Display April 3, 2006
Hey, what do you guys think of the funky image displaying script I’m using? You can see it when you click on one of the weight loss graphs in my Weekly Weigh-In posts. Pretty cool, eh?
It’s called Lightbox JS 2.0. It’s really easy to install, and you can group multiple images into ‘sets’ so users can click through them using Next and Previous arrows. You can see this set behaviour in action on the Lightbox page (I haven’t used it anywhere here yet). The script even pre-loads the next image in the set, giving faster apparent speed for dialup visitors.
Let me know what you think in the comments below!
[Update:] I’m now using sets to display the graphs in my weekly weigh-ins, to show charts of both my weight loss for the past 5 weeks, and since I started exercising. You can see it in action on the April 9 Weigh-In.
Weekly Weigh-In 2006-04-02 April 2, 2006
- Current Weight: 98.5 (217.2 lbs)
- Lost this week: 0.8 kg (1.8 lbs)
- Total lost to date: 11.5 kg (25.4 lbs)
- Number of days exercised: 4
I’m a little disappointed with the number of days I’m currently getting out and exercising. As winter approaches here in the southern hemisphere, the mornings are getting colder and the weather is getting worse. Twice this week the weather stopped me going out for a run – once because of rain, and once because of very high wind. I can only see this problem getting worse over the next few months.
Does anybody have any ideas for indoor exercise? I need something relatively low cost and fairly quiet (so I don’t wake up the rest of the family). Maybe I should get a cheap used exercise bike and set it up in the garage or something.
Anyway, despite the lack of exercise I’m very happy with my weight loss this week. I’m managing to push above my current average of 0.7 kg (1.5 lbs) per week by being fairly careful about what I eat, and especially avoiding unnecessary snacks, biscuits, dessert, etc.
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