Diet/Exercise/Health/Wellness Support Thread

Parent Cafe
34101

<p>D works out pretty intensely with a trainer who guesstimates their workouts to be around 400 - 500 calories for an hour. I think the important thing is just doing something that gets the heart rate up! </p>

<p>To the gym today - 3.6 miles. 5 minutes at 5.3, 10 minutes at 5.8, then bumped it up to 6 and increased the speed every tenth of a mile up to 7.0. Don’t ask me why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. </p>

<p>Costco now has the best pulled pork. If you don’t want to be iDad and open your own smokehouse, I highly recommend it. It’s really good and has no sauce - so you can add your own if you so desire or consume it plain. Good stuff.</p>

34102

<p>PT exercises (which are taking me over 30 minutes each time), 20 minutes walking on the track and 20 minutes on the NuStep today. </p>

<p>Motivating song: Trusted - (Ben Folds) performed by D2’s a cappella group</p>

<p>The biggest news yet may be that I haven’t taken a Celebrex since Tuesday morning, and I’m not hobbling around.</p>

34103

<p>I usually do intervals my last 5-10 minutes on the treadmill - before I die of boredom!!! I usually go a minute and then increase one or two tenths of a mile - I’ve gone over 6 but not to 7! Bravo!</p>

34104

<p>True, if you do a half hour or hour of a DVD and give it your all, that’s a good workout - no matter how many calories.</p>

34105

<p>Basement workout. 65 minutes. These are pretty leisurely paced workouts with the focus really more on strength than panting, do in these workouts I want a full heart rate recovery between exercises. The Garmin has some pseudo-scientific algorithm for estimating calories based on time, heart rate, body weight, and maybe age/gender. I don’t know how it works. It estimates I burned 240 calories. I have no idea if that’s even in the ball park.</p>

<p>To me, the benefits are:</p>

<p>1) Getting stronger and/or not getting weaker with age.</p>

<p>2) Moving better and/or not moving worse with age.</p>

<p>3) Cycling my heart rate up and down. This really seems to be a factor in low cardiac risk for older guys.</p>

<p>4) improving the efficiency of muscle utilization of oxygen, which I beiieve somehow contributes to higher sensitivity to insulin. Metabolism at the cellular level.</p>

<p>I have no idea what a P90X workout burns in terms of calories, but I know it would be significantly more than my workouts burn, because I would be bent over panting like a dog the entire time!</p>

34106

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<p>This is great news.</p>

<p>~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~</p>

<p>Just out of curiosity I’ve been looking at various articles about steps per day, step equivalents for different activities, etc. Typical breakdown is the same on a lot of sites with categories of <5000, 5000-7499, 7500-9999, 10000, and 12500 with 10000 being the number that gets bandied about a lot. </p>

<p>I happened upon this article and wondered if iDad, KMC, NRE, or anyone else might want to comment on the research.
[How</a> Many Steps Does it Take to Avoid a Heart Attack? Researchers Find Out | TIME.com](<a href=“http://healthland.time.com/2013/12/19/how-many-steps-does-it-take-to-avoid-a-heart-attack-researchers-find-out/]How”>How Many Steps Does it Take to Avoid a Heart Attack? Researchers Find Out | TIME.com)</p>

34107

<p>Back in the saddle again. 5:49 treadmill mile tonight.</p>

<p>Second the MyFitnessPal App. It helped me drop 40 + 2 years ago. Really makes you aware of calorie killers especially when you are at restaurants and counting the late night snacks.</p>

34108

<p>Workout today was: TRX (squats and lunges), stair climbing 2 flights x 3 between sets, leg press (300 pounds–this is the most of done 12x2), chest press (70 pounds), crunches on stability ball. Finished with 40 minutes on the elliptical. </p>

<p>I’m not smart enough to comment on the article you posted Deb T. But I’ve found the gizmo that counts steps helpful. I’ve got a Zipbit–it’s cheaper than the Fitbit because it doesn’t measure stairs climbed or track sleep. I have a good idea how many stairs I’ve climbed and (knock on wood) I sleep really well, so I don’t care about my sleep patterns. </p>

<p>My goal is 12,000 steps a day. To get that, I have to walk at least 3 miles in addition to my regular daily activities. If I don’t get to walk, I don’t meet the goal. There are some days that I can get close (without walking) because I’m really busy around the house and I’ve done lots of errands outside of the house but the way that I know I’ll reach my goal is to pound the pavement.</p>

34109

<p>Math questions please:</p>

<p>If N = usual treadmill speed and (N+X) (Y) = interval. Then how much added speed does X need to be and for how long does Y need to be to qualify as an interval?</p>

<p>Are you figuring max heart using 220-age?</p>

<p>What % of max should we be striving for during regular workout and during an interval?</p>

<p>Thx</p>

34110

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<p>These studies drive me bonkers, trying to pin some percentage improvement from some fixed number of steps per day. It’s just so misguided. That level of precision is simply misleading. And, it gets in the way of advice that would really be meaningful. </p>

<p>Behind the headlines: The 10% improvement in risk sounds impressive, but it’s meaningless because the risk, even for this group of 9600 people with diabetes, is so low. During the study 531 of these people had a cardiac event. That’s 5.7% risk. So the cited 10% improvement means the walkers has a risk of 5.1%. Not much difference.</p>

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<p>Is walking good exercise? I sure think so. It was a major part of my exercise losing 90 pounds. In fact, one of the three goals I wrote down the day I started was:</p>

<p>Walk a Mile without getting winded.</p>

<p>Is 20 minutes the right number? It completely depends on the individual. If they haven’t exercised in years, yes. If they’ve been hiking for decades, probably not. It all depends on what you are acclimated/conditioned to.</p>

<p>Here’s a perfect example. I’m not a runner. Running half a mile for me is a hardcore intense workout. I would expect to be panting like a dog and my heart rate would be somewhere between 95% and 100% of my max. I would get a substantial “training effect”. But, running half mile for some of the marathoners here like MOWC or Bunsen Burner? Bupkis. They would get exactly zero training effect from a half mile run.</p>

<p>Conversely, I suspect that MOWC would get a significant training effect from doing 3pt rows with a 15 pound DB. I would get nothing.</p>

<p>It’s all in the context of the individual. Doing something new and different will always give more training effect. Doing the same thing you’ve been doing for a while means that you’ve got to increase the time or, probably better, the intensity to bump the training effect. So, walk 20 minutes a day for a few months and you better go find some steep hills if you want walking to continue to improve your fitness.</p>

<p>Better advice. Do something for 20 minutes a day that results in getting you breathing hard or even panting a few times…</p>

34111

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<p>Could be anything. There are millions of variations on intervals. I think the general goal is to go as hard as you can so you can barely finish the intervals. So, a 20 second interval would mean going harder than a 2 minute interval. Short and long intervals are both worthwhile from a fitness standpoint. I don’t think any sports trainers do intervals longer than maybe 3 to 4 minutes. That seems to be the number for professional soccer.</p>

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<p>I started with the formula and then raised it every time I saw a heart rate above 100% while exercising. When I started, the formula predicted a max of 164. I have actually seen 172 on my heart rate monitor. To get that high, I’ve got to reach the point of burning legs and then keep going for another 30 to 60 seconds. That’s pretty much maxed out.</p>

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<p>It depends a little bit on the individual and the activity. For example, it would be very difficult for me to get my heart rate above 90% doing weight lifting. Easy to get there, for me, running. In general, I don’t think I’m getting much fitness benefit below 70% of my max heart rate. If I’m trying to do conditioning intervals, I would like to be at or above 90% of max, at least on the later intervals. 90% of max on the first interval is pretty miserable, so maybe 85% on the first couple of intervals.</p>

<p>95% of my max is about as much as I can make myself do. Going up to 100% is really, really miserable (basically feels like I can’t get a breath of air). I just can’t make myself go that hard these days.</p>

<p>What % of max should we be striving for during regular workout and during an interval?</p>

34112

<p>Burning 1,000 calories per hour is not easy:</p>

<p>[Calories</a> burned in 30 minutes of leisure and routine activities - Harvard Health Publications](<a href=“http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities.htm]Calories”>http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities.htm)</p>

<p>But I suppose it is doable. I burn about 100 calories per mile at my weight and speed, so if I run about 7 miles an hour, that is about a 700 calorie burn. A bigger person would burn more.</p>

34113

<p>For most people, working out at the 1,000 calorie/hour rate is doable…for about 15 minutes. ;)</p>

34114

<p>When I was being coached, we did different types of intervals. We would do 400s with 200 meter recovery (half a lap). You went at a pace where you could finish the 12-16 400s without having to walk during the recoveries (we ran pretty slow in the recovery though). How fast you did them depended on your goal marathon pace. If you are training for a mile race or shorter, you do your intervals faster but you take more recovery. You might be working more on speed than endurance. Really, you do some of both.<br>
You can also run your heart rate up really high, hold it for maybe 10 to 30 seconds and then run it back down to aerobic pace (low end) then repeat. I believe the HR formula is extremely inaccurate, and you would be better figuring your max with an all-out effort on the dreadmill or bike after a warm up to figure out your real max.</p>

34115

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<p>Yes, the apps give you 100 cals/mile. I’m no expert, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that faster is more calories–a mile is a mile–but it’s the afterburn after sprinting that gives you a higher caloric burn. </p>

<p>I’m saying this as a life-long jogger. My husband and I jogged 5-6 miles a day for 20 years, but we gave it up two years ago. Too many injuries etc. We loved it so it was hard for us, but giving up long, slow jogs changed our lives because it changed our metabolisms.</p>

<p>We started doing yoga and weights and P90X and plyometrics (jumping) and I just found that I could eat more because my daily sitting around caloric burn was higher because I had more muscle.</p>

<p>I wear tank tops now. Something I’ve never done since I was a teen.</p>

34116

<p>Thanks, BusyParent. Maintenance was especially hard over the holidays. I gained 5 lbs, but I’m working it off now.</p>

<p>The following is a list of exercise DVD caloric burns that my H and I obsessively recorded with a HR monitor thingie for over a year. This is mostly in answer to KSPKAKR who also likes exercise DVDs, but I offer these numbers with the caveat that I am no expert and welcome everyone’s thoughts on these readings.</p>

<p>I believe these are different depending on male/female/age/weight, so these readings were taken by my H (50 yrs old, 155 lbs). As you will see, sometimes the reading vary for the same workout:</p>

<p>P90X Plyometrics 58 mins = 816-1050 cals</p>

<p>P90X Shoulder and Arms 59 mins = 434-700 cals (but remember, you’re building muscle)</p>

<p>P90X Chest Shoulders Triceps 20 mins only because it was hard = 357 cals</p>

<p>P90X Core Synergistics 57 mins = 681-724 cals</p>

<p>P90X Legs and Back 59 mins = 565-726 cals</p>

<p>P90X Yoga 66 mins = 520 cals </p>

<p>P90X2 PAP Upper 51 mins = 708 cals</p>

<p>P90X2 PAP Lower 45 (of 61 mins) = 652 cals</p>

<p>P90X2 Plyocide 55 mins = 710-802 cals</p>

<p>P90X2 Total Body = 817 cals</p>

<p>P90X2 Balance and Power 62 mins = 750 cals</p>

<p>Bob Harper’s Cardio Conditioning 61 mins = 875 cals</p>

<p>Bob’s Totally Ripped Core 48 mins = 626 cals</p>

<p>Bob’s Pure Burn 59 mins (off 66 mins) = 765 cals</p>

<p>Insanity Pure Cardio 30 mins (of 40 mins) = 500 cals</p>

<p>Flow yoga with a class for 1 hour = 401 cals</p>

<p>Treadmill, me (late 40s, 130 lbs), 30 mins at 7.5 = 412 cals</p>

34117

<p>BTW, please don’t think I’m a fitness freak.</p>

<p>Food is my life so I’ve become obsessed with caloric burn to counter balance wine and mexican food and see’s candy (yes!)</p>

34118

<p>While I’m not a big fan of formulas to calculate max hr and personally rely on lab and field tested measured max’s (which can be different), I have found the formula of 210 - 1/2 age to be surprisingly close to the mark. In concept, it is the suggested formula for aerobic ally fit individuals age 40 and up. When I was 48, my lab measured max was 190 and the formula yielded 186. At 60, my actual max is 185 and the formula yields 180. More important, I think, than that variance is the formula used to calculate target zones if you are relying solely on heart rate based training. Using the Heart Rate Reserve formula of (max hr - resting hr) x % + resting hr = target hr produces much different targets below the 90% mark than simply max hr x %. </p>

<p>The type of intervals you do can varying significantly based on your sport and your training objectives. Are you trying to achieve muscular endurance, explosive power, raise your LT or AT, increase your VO2 max. Are you trying to become more efficient in using particular energy systems to produce ATP to power your activity level. On the bike, I may do 30 second, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes or even 20 minute intervals based on training put together for me by a very experienced coach.</p>

34119

<p>Mrscollege, a wide range of folks have just started reading this thread recently, so would you say P90X, Bob Harper, and Insanity are all faster pace, more intense workouts – a better fit for somebody who has already been working out for a while or is still, say, maybe college age? Any comments on eFit30 – a more gentle place to start, would you say, for someone who wanted to start doing some exercise at home? Other thoughts on where various programs fall on the intensity or difficulty range? Thanks.</p>

34120

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<p>If you go faster, you cover more miles in a given amount of time, resulting in more calories burned even if the calories per mile is the same.</p>