Physical Fitness

(Yes, I realize the post below this one is a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and I stand by it.  It's all about moderation, people.)

I ran on my high school's cross-country team, and I loved it.  It was the only sport in which I was even close to showing anything resembling natural skill, and I have nothing but fond memories of the smell of freshly cut grass that filled our lungs every practice and the familiar fatigue in my muscles and taste of sweat on my lips.

When I went to college I read the average 5k time of my school's cross-country team's members and never mustered the courage to show up at a practice, which was probably a mistake.  Luckily, George Mason also had a brand-spankin' new fitness center on campus, and the summer before my senior year I took classes and also took my butt in to work out 5 days a week.  I taught myself how to lift weights, diversify my exercise, and combine lifting and cardio activity to maximize my return.  My senior year was a very productive one for me in the gym.

For some stupid reason the summer after my senior year in college I started smoking.  Even more inexplicable is that I started by smoking Marlboro Lights, which shows a lack of both intellect and taste.  I ended up smoking a pack a day of the toastier Camel Lights for the next 9 1/2 years. Amazingly, I actually did have a gym membership for part of this time and did work out for about a year, but as soon as I moved further than a block from the gym the habit quickly died.

I do have smoking to thank for meeting my husband, as we first introduced ourselves over Camel Lights outside our jobs on Connecticut Avenue in Washington.  And it was Brett and I that tackled and conquered the mighty tobacco together 8 years later, in January 2009, married and living in Chicago, where a pack of Camel Lights now topped $9.

We were having a cigarette in the bathroom one night, as was our custom.  Hey, this was January in Chicago, and anyway at least we weren't just smoking in the living room like our parents did.  We were discussing how nasty smoking made us smell, and how much money we were spending, and how much we needed to quit, which was actually rare for us to be talking about.  And something made it just snap in my brain.  I don't even think I said it to Brett right then, but sitting in that bathroom sucking on that cancer stick, I made up my mind.

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What I decided to do, actually, was to buy a pack of Nicorette the next morning.  My first time, and I'm not sure why it was my weapon of choice, but I think I've always had a tendency toward minimalist medicine and this seemed like the most easily self-moderated form of nicotine replacement, which is the only thing I knew I would need in the short term.  

I had my normal first-thing cig in the bathroom that next day, Tuesday, January 13, 2009, and then carried out my plan by hitting the Walgreens before getting on the bus to work.  The box said to chew "9 pieces a day for 4-6 weeks".  This stuff is so disgusting, I had 4 pieces that entire first day, one the next morning, and threw out the rest.  How anyone would or could chew 9 pieces of that crap in one day, let alone every day for six weeks, and not lose their tongue, is beyond me.  Anyway that 7am cig was the very last Camel Light I ever had, no bullshit.

Brett took 3 more days to quit, and he had his last one on that Friday.  We never coud have done it without each other, but it was also easier than I ever thought it would be.  In fact, I think it's kind of a shame that the conventional wisdom on the subject is that it's SO IMPOSSIBLE.  If we tell smokers that, they'll never quit.  Once you've made your mind up, it's actually pretty easy.  That's the truth, and everyone should know it.

We knew that we'd gain weight when we quit, and at first we thought just managing our diets would be enough, but about 4 months later the exercise bug got us and we joined the gym down the street.  It felt good to be working out, and I tried my hardest to commit to getting there 2-3 times a week.  I never even bothered trying to go before work; I like sleeping way too much to get up before I absolutely have to.  So I found myself in the near-daily battle of staying motivated all day while my brain is endlessly reminding me the couch is also an option and the gym will always be there tomorrow and besides you didn't have that 3rd beer last night like you wanted so it's okay I don't have to go today.  See how easy that is?

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In December 2010 I lost my job and quickly got my realtor's license.  Working as an independent contractor allows me to largely create my own schedule and work from home, and no one looks at apartments in the morning, and so by spring I had become fond of getting to the gym at about 8:30 or 9am, just as the morning rush is leaving and it's nice and empty.

I found myself on the brink of another beautiful Chicago summer and I knew running twice a week just wouldn't cut it.  So by about the third week of April I started working out every day, including running about 3 miles daily.

I should back up a little bit.  When we first joined the gym in 2009 I didn't immediately start running again.  I would lift weights and then usually bike for 6-7 miles.  I don't know, I think I was needlessly scared for my knees.  The summer of 2010 I finally switched from the bike to the treadmill and I instantly felt like I was getting the workout I wanted.  The high school cross-country course in Maryland c. 1994 was a 5k, or 3.1 miles, and when I was 16 I averaged about 18:50-19.00, or a 5.58-6.07/mi pace.  Now, at 32, I run a 5k as the second-half of every workout, usually in about 28.40, or a 9.09 pace.

So a couple days a week I would lift for 30 and run for 30, always after working a full day, at like 7 or 8pm, before a late dinner.  That's a hard routine to maintain.  It would have been nice if I could have kept that up all winter, but winter in Chicago makes you just want to hibernate hardcore, and my 2-3x/week gym habit wasn't enough to hold my commitment, and so I don't think I stepped foot in the gym one time between October 2010 and March 2011.

As a result, instead of weighing 165 like I had since high school, in April 2011 I stepped onto the scale and just about died when I weighed 196.

And I'm sure I looked like it.  My problem was Stella Artois.  And cheese.  And mexican food.  And those two-bite brownies from Whole Foods.  And the couch, and cable, and the freedom to choose whether to go to the gym or not.  I had also always maintained, and was proud to repeat, the philosophy that "I work out so I can eat whatever I want".  I exercise so I have the right to refuse to eat correctly, for some stupid reason.

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So in April 2011 I made a change.  Instead of going to the gym 2 or 3 times a week, or, you know, never, I'm now going to only take 1 or 2 days OFF every week.  I'm going to do my workout- 30 minutes of lifting followed by 30 minutes of running- and I'm going to do it every day.  And I'm going to cut french fries and my dear, dear Stella out of my life completely.  I'm going to drastically turn the tables on my calories in/calories out, and become a runner again.

As I write this, it's been 6 weeks, and I feel good, and I have no intention of stopping.  Two weeks ago I had a weigh-in and a bodyfat-in.  On April 28th I weighed 196 and my bodyfat was 18.3%.  On May 28th I weighed 181 and my bodyfat was 11.7%, using the electromagnetic scale the trainer at the gym used.  It's a little box with a digital screen and two metal handles, and you hold it out in front of your heart, and it sends a little electromagnetic pulse through your body that can somehow tell fat from everything else, and it gives you a reading in 20 seconds.  I read online, and the trainer confirmed, that eating or drinking too much right before the test can skew it, but the trainer actually said it could be skewed either way, so who knows.

Anyway, I lost 6.5% of my body fat in a month!  I was floored.

During this visit the trainer also did the more extensive skin-pinch test.  It takes a while but I didn't mind cause he was cute.  The seven-point skin-pinch test uses the big scissory pincher-tool on 7 points on your body, where you'd expect- chest, belly, arm, leg, back, etc.  On this test I was more in the 12-15% range.  So again, who knows.  I obviously have made some progress, so I'm happy.  I'll do the quick test again on June 28th.

I believe my target body fat is about 10%, and my ideal weight is about 170.  So I have some more work to do, but I'm really looking forward to it.  Running and exercising daily is so much easier, feels so much better, and obviously gives much faster results than only working out once or twice a week.  I used to wonder why it was so hard to motivate myself to exercise even though I know it feels so good when I get my butt in there and do it.  I think the answer is that having 2-3 days off between workouts is too much time.  I need to sweat on purpose every day.

Luckily, I live 3 blocks from Lake Michigan.

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I have absolutely fallen in love with the lakefront path.  It's a winding path through a stunningly beautiful park that runs 18 miles down the heart of Chicago's lakefront, and which remains eternally reserved for all the city's bikers, skaters, runners, joggers, walkers, rollerbladers and people-watchers.  It's packed all summer long, but relatively empty during normal business hours, and I've become addicted to sweating for a couple miles in one direction before turning back and letting the sun and wind hit me from the other direction on my way home.  The scenery is unbeatable, endless blue on one side and gorgeous architecture on the other, and air so clean you would swear you're miles from the city.

In both directions from where the nearest tunnel under Lakeshore Drive puts me onto the path, running the next few miles takes me past soccer fields and tennis courts, dog beaches and stone shoreline steps, impressive marinas and stunning views of the lake.  Chicago really outdid itself with this one.

And there's a certain chivalry on the path; an air of focused recreation and determined separation from the hustle on the other side of the highway.  Everyone knows you stay to your right and the slower you are the more on the outside you go, but no one takes the time to yell or finds the offender deserving of a scolding when the rules are broken.  It's everyone's path and everyone knows it.

So running on the lake has become my new favorite pastime.  Our gym is also just a block off the lake path, so I'm lucky enough to be able to throw my stuff in a locker, use their equipment, and then have the choice to go out for a run on the path, or run on a treadmill.  

As I said I like to get there at about 8:30 or 9am, so it's very important to have a little breakfast before working out.  We've gotten into the habit of keeping bananas and apples in the house at all times, as well as instant oatmeal, cereal and milk, hardboiled eggs, and english muffins and jelly and peanut butter.  These are all great options for just a little power-packed breakfast before some early exercise.  When it comes to working out, there's a lot of wisdom in mom's old saying "You just need a little something in your stomach."

My warm up at the gym takes place on the stretching mat on the less-crowded 2nd floor, where I stretch and most days also do a 15-minute ab/core workout: a few sets of 12-15 push-ups, crunches, bicycle crunches and Russian twists, wherein you sit on the mat and hold the ball with both hands, balance on your butt, lift your feet off the floor, and throw the ball back and forth from one side to the other.  Not easy, but once you get it down it feels really good.

I think it's really important to diversify the activities you do on a daily basis, so some days I'll focus more on free weights, some days more on machines.  On free weights I always include a few sets of bench presses on either a declined, flat or inclined bench.  Butterfly presses and seated shoulder presses are also great activities with dumbbells.  There are a lot of great free-weight exercises to learn, and the more you learn and then throw into your mix, the more you're surprising your muscles and really maximizing your efficiency.  Check out videos online, fitness magazines, or just watch people at the gym to learn more free-weight exercises you can include in your workout.

I've also worked a lot recently to get more comfortable with squats.  Squats are an important activity because they work such a large area of your body all at once.  They require power primarily from the quads, hamstrings and glutes, but they force you to engage your core and use your entire body to lift the bar up.  Squats would be a lot harder to learn to do on your own if it weren't for the Smith Bar, the machine that allows a barbell to travel up and down a set track and to be stationed at any of numerous stops along the way, requiring less control and balance.  With the padded bar set square in the middle of your shoulders, feet set shoulder-width apart and far enough in front of you that the motion of sitting back onto a chair is a comfortable one, do 12-17 reps; keep your feet planted firmly, slowly sit back into a full squat, and then power back up.  As soon as you have the mechanics of the exercise down, it's easy to feel how much of your body goes in to doing it correctly, and how important the exercise is for full-body fitness.  The feeling doing squats puts into your legs is addictive.

When I'm focusing more on machines I always make sure to do a few sets on the lat pull-down, which is also an important exercise because it works such a large part of your body, the latissimus dorsi, the large muscles under your shoulder blades.  The shoulder press, seated chest press, bicep curl, butterfly press, seated leg press, and the low- and high-row machines are also always in my mix.

I've never considered myself a serious weightlifter.  I don't drink a protein shake, and I'm really not in it to be huge.  So I use weightlifting as another way to get my heart pumping, lose weight, a way to target parts of my body I want to be stronger or leaner.  I use it to complement my running, really.  The gym can be an intimidating place, and so getting comfortable with being there and using the different equipment and really feeling like you belong there are all very important to maintaining a long-term commitment.

When it comes to the second half of my workout, my run, again I can choose between the treadmill or the lake path.  Summer is short and warm days are hard to come by in Chicago, so I take advantage of just about every nice day we have by getting out on the path.  But the treadmill is not just the foul-weather option; it also makes it easier to execute and keep track of an interval-type workout, alternating bursts of speed and increased incline with short rest periods (like two minutes on/one minute off, or one on/one off) which really maximizes running's fat-burning ability.  Try to make the rest period a jog, not a walk.  And really push yourself, getting up to a sprint up a steep incline by your last few intervals.

Don't forget to stretch afterwards.

Also see my Top 10 Fitness Tips above.

Thanks for reading.
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