I've got friends in high places

I think I mentioned in the post about walking, pedometers and 10,000 steps that 12,500 is considered "very active," according to some "they" out there (I linked to a medical journal article, so that's who "they" are. I'm just too lazy to look).

So, with the fitbit, there's a whole "community" section, with message boards and people making "friends." You can compete with them on your personal page; it displays a leaderboard to show you how you're stacking up with the people you've "friended." So after having the thing for a month, I decided to give it a go. I added a few people who were new and seeking friends. No matter how many people I added, though, I still was #1 on my leaderboard.

I decided I needed a little competition, so I made a special request in the forums for "very active" people. People who get at least 10k steps a day. And the friend requests started to trickle in. At first it was still people who weren't beating me on the leaderboards, and then the heavy hitters started to show up. Some of these people AVERAGE 20k a day (10 miles!!!) Two of them AVERAGE 25-30k per day. Ummmm......

Wow. And what's more, some of these people are older than me. By more than just a little. So last night that got me on the trampoline--oh! I forgot to mention I got a mini trampoline and it's awesome. I can now jump around like a rabid hyena for hours while watching trashy television and not feel too guilty! Okay, where was I? Yes, that got me on the trampoline and putting in more than just my usual 12.5k steps. Last night I cleared 20k, and tonight, I cranked out a total of 25k for the day. Which is beyond awesome.

So, I'd like to thank all the awesomely fit strangers who are now my friends and competitors on fitbit. I'd also like to acknowledge that the fitbit has tapped into some kind of OCD, and made it so I'm constantly thinking about how I can fit (hehe) more walking (or leaping majestically, like a unicorn on my trampoline!) into my life.

Hooray for OCD! Hooray for psychotically athletic old people!

Helicopter!

Oh, I forgot this one:

Achievements!

I think I mentioned before that Fitbit gives you badges for different achievements. Previously, my best ones were 50 flights of stairs and 20,000 steps.

So, yesterday I'm out walking. My favorite local parks is hilly and has a ton of trails. The longest trail takes more than 2 hours, but you can stay in there forever, by looping around, or picking up new trails. When I first started out, I got to around 4000 steps, and was like, "This sucks. I don't feel so great. I want to go home!" I think I ate breakfast too late and just felt weak and crappy. I noticed that I had also done the equivalent of 11 flights of stairs. 

I figured if I got to 10k steps, I'd leave. By the time I got to 10k, I felt better, and kept going. When I got closer to 20k, I was ready to cash it in, but then I noticed that I had logged 77 flights of stairs. So of course I had to keep going until 100. When I had 100 flights, I also had 25k steps. Woo hoo! Click below to see my fabulous badges!

Injuries and willpower

I did something to my neck while lifting weights yesterday. I aggravated an old injury and gave myself a painful reminder that more is not always better. When I first hurt my back/neck in 2005, I was out of commission for months. I couldn't drive, couldn't work, and it was a really terrible time in my life. I was being considered for spinal surgery. Even my chiropractor thought that's where it was headed, and chiropractors don't like to tell you to consider surgery. By the time I recovered, I was 216 pounds. I ended up losing almost 50 of it pretty quickly, but in the last few years, it's been creeping back up to the 194 I found myself at in January.

I got to the chiropractor today--it really couldn't wait; the pain was crazy--and hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow, but it was eye opening. I really want to get to this awesome place, where I'm in great shape and I can run a race if I want and climb a thing and do cool stuff. But given that I've seriously injured myself once before, and so far this month caused myself a few more less-serious injuries, it's time to reassess what's really important. I actually got panicky today, thinking about the pain and running through a whole bunch of "What ifs."

Basically, what I've come up with, is that, I think I need to tone down the strength training (less weight, not less often). And then I'll just make up the different with more walking. If I injure myself with more walking, I'm giving up and getting a Hoveround. (I'm not sure where that picture is from, but anytime unicorns and rainbows are involved is a good time.)

Being less sedentary

Fitbit gives you lovely pie charts (mmmm, pie!) that describe how much of your day was spent being sedentary and how much was spent being active. I think this is one of the more useful metrics that fitbit provides. Someone on one of the message boards said they like to keep their chart at less than half sedentary. I think this is an awesome goal. I don't think it's so unrealistic to say that for half of my waking hours, I should be doing something other than sitting.

I do have my days (last Thursday and Friday!) where I am sedentary for more than half of my waking hours. But most of my weekdays look like this:

And I try to have my weekend days look a little more like this: 

To be fair, if you count up the hours on the weekend one, you'll see that I was only awake for like 12 hours. That's because I slept a ton! But when I was awake, I was mostly doing stuff. Hooray for doing stuff! Yesterday (which is where that chart's from) had a lot of walking in it and a trip to the gym for an upper body workout. Today had hiking and later will have bowling. Tomorrow will have the gym, walking and a trip to the driving range. So hopefully that will go a long way toward keeping the gray out of that pie!

The science is working - 179

So, for the past 12 days or so, I've been sort of yo-yo-ing. I got down to 179 (yes!) and then back up to 180, then 181, then back down to 180 and finally today back to 179! It is a little disturbing though, when you see you're putting in the work and it's not always reflected in the scale.

Stepgeek

Today when I picked my fitbit up off the table, it called me a "stepgeek." Ha! I thought that was cute.

Also, yesterday's report informs me that I climbed 40 floors, which is equal to the World's Tallest Sequoia. Ha! I'm going to try for 50 today.

Whoops!

I stayed away for longer than I intended! Usually that's what I do when I'm falling off the wagon, but that's not the case. I've been steadily going to the gym, walking and eating right (with an exception here and there).

I got a fitbit, and that's really helping a lot. Previously I had been logging all my working out/walking and eating in a paper journal. This worked great for me, being able to see everything in one place, but the fitbit keeps track of most of the fitness stuff, and it's very easy to log food. (My biggest concern was that it was going to take a while, but it keeps track of food you eat regularly, and it's easy to just pick that thing out of that list.)

I mentioned last time that I started back with the running. That was actually the last time I ran, because that hip thing still hasn't resolved. No fun. I actually stopped doing leg workouts, too (although, I might resume these soon), because I'm thinking I overdid it with them, and the the running just made something worse.

So for now, the modified plan is to use the fitbit to log the walking. Anything over 12,500 gives me a free pass on the cardio for the day, and I'll alternate days at the gym, doing arms and legs. Hopefully soon, I'll be able to fold the running back into the mix. Also, the fitbit tracks flights of stairs, so I was up to 35 flights yesterday. Technically, I was tricked...I thought I would get a new badge for 35 flights, and as it turns out, I did not.

I'm hoping to take a super-extended walk this weekend (10 miles) to kind of push myself some, but that may or may not happen.

Oh! I almost forgot...down another 4 pounds for a total of 13. So that's 181. That's pretty exciting. I had actually seen the scale dip down to 178 before Super Bowl Sunday and the cake debacle! (I had two pieces of cake, and about a quarter pound of cheese. Scandalous!)

Monthly check-in

It's been a month since I embarked on this journey, and as of this morning, I am down 9 pounds. I didn't think to do a waist measurement, and after dinner, popcorn and 3 glasses of water, I'm not so sure I'd post an impressive number!

9 pounds is good, and it would be fine if I lost 9 pounds every month. But we know that it doesn't work that way. Usually you start out strong, and your body starts adapting, conserving more calories and making it harder to burn them. 

This is part of the reason I take in 1600 calories a day. I know I could go lower. I think I've read that it's safe to go as low as 1200 a day. But if anything has to give, I'd like it to be the exercise. Basically, I'd rather do more exercise to burn more calories, than to eat less, but have less energy for more exercise. I know that at 1200 a day, I'm not going to be able to work out at the intensity that I want to, and as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather put my focus into building a body that's a fuel burning machine. And if, as expected, I plateau, I'd rather have some leeway to lower the calories down the road. Whereas, if I start at 1200, there's nowhere else to go, except to start starving myself (which I can assure you, ain't happening anytime soon). 

Oh! Today I started back on the couch-to-5k program. Week 1, day 1! This was infinitely easier than the first time I started this program, which was around September of 2010. When I started it back then, I thought I was going to die. I also wasn't doing much in the way of exercise at all at the time. I think I made it through like 3 of the intervals and then walked the rest of the way. I eventually "finished" the program in February of 2011, and ran/walked a 5k. (I had forgotten until 2 weeks before the race that I neglected to take a few things into account. One was the fact that I had done the last 2/3 of the program indoors on a treadmill, and the other was that it was much colder than I had ever run in by the time race day rolled around. So, even though I would have liked to have run the whole thing, I walked a good part of it, and my time was something like 42 minutes.)

Today's set of intervals was great, until about the 5th one, when I began feeling a twinge in my hip. By the last interval, it was feeling really bad. When I got home, I took some Advil and bumped up the glucosamine (yeah, I'm getting old!) I'm hoping it's something temporary, otherwise I'll shelve the running for another time. Ideally, I'd like to be able to run this entire race in May. I mean, come on, running, dogs and wine. What could be better?