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.
PhysicsDiet.com Weight Tracking Graphs March 30, 2006
You might have noticed from my weekly weigh-in graphs that I’ve been using PhysicsDiet.com to track my weight. It’s free, it’s very easy to enter your daily data, and it produces pretty graphs that you can copy into your own web site. Sign up now!
Oh, and if you’re worried about entering all your data into a web site that might disappear one day, don’t. You can download all your data as a .csv file and load it into a spreadsheet program like Excel. Nice.
While you’re there, have a browse through the PhysicsDiet.com Forums. It’s a little bit quiet there at the moment, but I posted an introduction to me and am hoping to stir some more people out of the woodwork. It’d be great to share tips and resources with other people who are also trying to lose weight, and maybe provide a bit of moral support for each other as well.
Tightening The Belt February 3, 2006
I noticed a cool thing this morning – I need to tighten my belt up to the next hole! That means I’ve lost about an inch from my waist, which feels great. I can see by the wear marks on the belt that the two holes above the one I’m now on are quite well-worn, whereas the one I’m on now probably hasn’t been used before.
As I said a few days ago, these little things are great to keep track of, and really help you notice the progress you’re making.
There are only two tighter holes left on my belt, so I’ve now set myself the goal of needing to buy a new belt in April. That’s about an inch off my waist per month, which is probably fairly achievable.
30 Days January 11, 2006
Today marks 30 days since December 12, the day I started getting up early to exercise. I made a deal with myself then that I was going to stick with this for 30 days, and then I could make a decision to either continue for another 30 days or quit.
I’m going to continue.
30 days is a good time frame to judge this kind of change in your habits. A week or two is too short – the routine hasn’t had a chance to take hold yet, and you can’t really judge what effect it’ll have on your life. Longer than 30 days seems like an eternity, and it’s harder to commit yourself.
I think that’s why so many New Years Resolutions fail – people ‘commit’ to making a change with no timeframe in mind, so it doesn’t feel like they’re working towards an achievable goal. Within a week or two, the change starts to feel like a drag, with no end in sight, and they don’t seem to be getting any benefit from it. They miss a day or two, and then never seem to really get back on the horse. Within a month, the resolution is broken and they’ve reverted back to their old ways.
I know I’ve done that!
If you commit to a change for 30 days, it’s going to feel achievable. It’s only a month out of your life, so if it doesn’t bring you the benefits you want you haven’t really lost anything. You can put other stuff on hold for 30 days while you work on this one change, without feeling like your whole life is being turned upside down. If the change is uncomfortable, you have an end in sight so you’re more likely to be able to stick it out instead of just quitting.
Steve Pavlina has written a great article on this idea of committing to change for just 30 days at a time: 30 Days To Success.
Now seems like a good time to review what’s happened over the last 30 days for me.
Weight
My weight this morning was 106 kg (234 lbs), so I’ve lost about 3 kg (6.6 lbs) since starting to walk in the mornings. It’s a little bit noticeable – I’ve gone down to the next hole on my belt, and someone at work asked if I was losing weight because my face looked thinner – but not huge. I think maybe part of the weight loss has been offset by muscles putting on weight and getting into shape. So this month has probably been more one of weight redistrubtion, rather than one of weight loss. If that’s true, hopefully I’ll lose even more weight next month.
Still, 3 kg lost over the Christmas gorging period is not bad! Many more people put weight on than lose weight during this time of year.
Fitness
This is the area I’m most pleased with over the past 30 days. I used to sometimes be slightly out of breath just climbing the stairs at work or walking up my driveway, but now those things are no problem at all. For the first 2 or 3 weeks of walking, I’d come home with quite sore and tired legs. Now my muscles seem to be accustomed to the exercise, and they can handle it fine. I can run much further than I could at the start of all this, and I have more energy during the rest of the day as well.
Sleep
Despite getting up half an hour earlier than I used to, I feel more alert during the day. I sleep better during the night, too.
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