Getting into shape

[Richie Allen]

If you want to simplify it (or you forgot your heart monitor) they say you should just barely be able to carry on a conversation while exercising. In other words, deep breath every second or two. If you're panting non-stop, slow down. If you're barely breathing deeply at all, pick it up.

[jim]

If you want to simplify it (or you forgot your heart monitor) they say you should just barely be able to carry on a conversation while exercising. In other words, deep breath every second or two. If you're panting non-stop, slow down. If you're barely breathing deeply at all, pick it up.

That's a good rule of thumb. A really brisk hip swinging arm swinging walk will do that. Or you could have some personal pride and get on a bike.

[jim]

Oh [expletive]. I just got my new member card this morning and I've already lost the [expletive] thing. You have to stick it in the back of the lock to pull the key out and I left mine in. Damn it.

[IMADreamer]

I've been kind of wondering how long to walk. I've been trying to get my mile time down right now. I'm kind of embarrassed to say what it is so I won't. I can't believe I used to be able to run a mile in just over five minutes now.....well I'm embarrassed to say.

I'm really trying to set a lot of goals for myself for the coming days, weeks, month, year. It keeps me from sitting on the couch and crying myself to sleep. So I set a goal to hike up Mount Washington in NH in the spring of 2014. I know it's not a real hard hike, but I need to start with something that seems obtainable. I'll move on from there of course. As for now I just want to walk a mile in 15 minutes. Then I'll figure out another goal from there. Probably walking the mile faster.

[docellis]

Setting math goals helps me. At first it was just I want to walk or run 5 miles. Then it was I want to mostly run 5 miles. Then it was run 5 miles. Then it was run 10 miles.

I think setting moving goals is the only way to get better.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Whoa. Why is 3 hours too long? During the summer in the hundred degree heat, I'll play soccer nonstop for 2 hours with some friends. And, year round we play basketball usually 1-2 hours once a week. I would say those are the exact opposite of LSD training and they consists of sprints and rest of various forms over the extended time. But, shoot, over the winter I had been replacing soccer with interval training. Both running and various machines. You know, get the heart rate up above 160 for 4-5 minutes and then back off for a minute, then another 4-5 minutes of running/strenuous activity. My favorite, well, my go-to had always been to go this public quarter mile track close to the house and run at about a 2 minute/quarter mile pace two laps then walk half of one, sprint 4 sets of stairs (2 up and 2 down) and walk the remaining half of the track. Then repeat (2 running, 1/2 walk, stairs, 1/2 walk). I honestly feel like I could do that all day without breaking down.

Anyway, I think the main problem yesterday was, and this might be too complicated - hell I barely understand it and I live with it - to make sense, the amount of long acting insulin I took. Just a bit of background...because I love to type [expletive] out. Insulin delivers sugar in the blood stream into the blood cells. Type I diabetics are forced to take a basal rate of insulin (aka long acting for most people unless they have a pump) to deliver the sugars the body constantly produces into the blood cells. Yes, the body is continuously producing sugar or glucose (from what I understand). The basal insulin takes care of that. So, no matter what, at all times, type 1 diabetics need a basal insulin...even if they aren't ingesting any sugar/carbohydrates. Then, there is food consumed which also must be dealt with. That's what short acting insulin does. So, if one wants to eat a piece of cake, well, better take some short acting insulin to get the sugar into the cells.

Okay...so there is this basal insulin that I take once a day in the morning to cover the glucose the body produces, simple right. Well, yes. Except the amount of basal insulin needed is dependent on many things. The more efficient the body is, the less insulin it needs. I think of efficiency in terms of metabolic rate. It's not exact, but it is close enough for this explanation. When you work out, your metabolic rate increases. When you lie around and watch tv and drink beer, it decreases. There's also the idea (maybe now proven) that after you work out, you continue to burn calories hours later and your metabolism is increased for periods of time...sometimes days.

With differing metabolic rates occuring at different times of the day, and only being able to take the basal insulin once (it lasts 24 hours), I kind of have to just average it out. Make it such that excess sugars won't build up during the night and when I'm watching movies, but also one that won't kill me when I'm working out. Turns out, I think I did a bad job at guesstimating how much to take. (There's only like a 2-3 unit swing from complete lazy ass haven't worked out in 3 days and am going to sit on a couch to running a 10K then playing soccer. And the overall dose is about 40 units...so doesn't exactly take a major swing to make huge differences).

ANyway, yeah, I thnk next time, just decrease the basal dose of insulin and I won't have the problem of running out of sugar. As it was, the basal insulin started processing more than the sugar the body made which is why I kept running low. Not a big deal, but did kind of screw up the last part of the exercise. OH well. Live and learn.

I do enjoy talking about this stuff with you all. And, Richie! I'm not swinging my arms. I don't take much stock in how I look, but I can't bring myself to mimic an 80 year old lady walking in the mall!!

Also, jim and anyone with acl/knee surgery/issues, I've been meaning to tell you. If your son has any issues with his knee still, I imagine he does, let him know these things are extremely helpful at working stuff out. I have had everything happen to my knee post surgery from thinking that I re-tore the ligament to waking up with a stiff knee for no reason. 30 minutes on this thing, for me at least, does a lot of good. It's like a cure all.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Jesus Pete, Dreamer! A 5 minute mile. That's 12 mph for the duration; or to put it another way, it's like sprinting for the entire mile!! Good luck getting back to that, but I wouldn't be too upset if you never do Not many people can.

[Richie Allen]

If you have the time, patience and endurance to put in three hours of vigorous exercise a day, you don't need anyone's advice on here and I don't think I'd worry too much about heart rate or fat burning.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Dude, I love talking about this stuff. And I have so much to learn. Obviously didn't know ab lsd training and now kind of am figuring it out. How the body functions and what you can do to influence that is so interesting.

I wish I had 3 hours a day to work out! Yesterday was not common.

[jim]

I said 3 hours was too long because you hit a wall. I didn't realize you were diabetic, you can hit that wall and not be diabetic and that's usually because you haven't trained your body yet and it doesn't want to kick over and start burning fat, so when the sugars are gone you just hit a wall.

dreamer, when you say you used to run a mile in just over 5 minutes do you mean like 7? Because if you are talking about low 5's that's pretty impressive. My son broke 5 his Soph. year and that was a pretty big deal on the team. They had these sub-5 t-shirts they gave away to motivate kids, that was kind of the magic time (although the really good runners were in the 4:30's.) When I was younger the fastest I ever did for a long run was a 2:35 1/2 mile. Had I continued to run another 1/2 mile that day, my mile time would have been around 22:35 because I spent the next 20 minutes throwing up. And I'm not kidding, we had to break 2:35 for some fitness test in football in HS and I barely got it and I really did vomit within 10 seconds of crossing the line. Had I missed that time I was supposed to have to run it again the next morning at 6am, and I'm pretty sure I just would have quit because that was awful.