Another Life Lesson Learned: We Can't Exercise Our Way Out of a Sedentary Lifestyle

We all have beliefs that we do not want to examine because the truth of the matter would impose making some changes in the way we live.  For me, it was the belief that I could simply train my way out of a bad diet.  When I was younger, I thought I could eat and drink whatever I wanted and as much as I pleased, and, until I was thirty-something, I was able to without gaining weight, without getting fatter. 

Then, I became a father and started to work in a office full-time.  Slowly, I began to gain weight steadily, nothing drastic, three or four pounds a year, the amount of weight we pack on at Christmas.  Twenty years later, I was obese, and I could no longer fool myself by thinking I had a carte blanche with regard to my food choices.  So, having researched the subject, I went on to change my diet.  Now, I am eating six to seven servings of fruit and vegetables daily, very little high-glycemic-index carbohydrates, and I drastically reduced my consumption of alcohol.

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Sooner or Later We Discover that We Can't Train Our Way Out of a Poor Diet

Looking back, losing the first thirty pounds was relatively easy.  I cut back on calories and increased my amount of exercise and incidental activity.  Then, I hit the plateau and stayed there for about eight months.  Increasing the amount of exercise didn't work.  I couldn't cut back any further on food calories, but I could reduce liquid calories by going from 6-8 glasses of wine per week to just one or two.  So, I did.

That left one remaining big, fat elephant to deal with, the amount of time I spend sitting on my ass.

Think about.  On average, a person living the North American lifestyle sleeps seven hours, is behind the wheel for two, sits at his or her desk for seven, and then adds on another three hours of screen time in the evening.  That's 19 out of 24 hours a day.  Now, that's what I call a sedentary lifestyle.

Sleep is good, so we shouldn't cut back there. But what about the twelve hours sitting on our butts? 

Sitting, as we have been recently told, is the new smoking.  It is an easy way to take years off your life and put slabs of fat around your middle.  Watch this one minute explanation video of why sitting is bad for you.    

So what's to be done?

Simple.  Get off your ass and move.  Going to the gym three to four times a week doesn't do it because while you are sitting, your body stops burning fat as a fuel and starts stockpiling the glucose that your muscles or not using into your fat deposits.  In short, prolonged sitting negates the benefits of exercise.  In fact, in my case lifting weights combined with long bouts of sitting was a recipe for getting big and strong and fat! 

What good is it being big and strong if you develop Type II diabetes, or worse yet, get cancer or have a heart attack or a stroke, all of which have a greater likelihood if you lead a sedentary lifestyle, regardless whether you exercise regularly?

Fortunately, you can teach an old dog new tricks.  The first step for this Big Dog was to to increase his non-exercise physical activity, concentrating on the most natural movement known to man, walking.  That would explain the cross-Canada challenge of walking within one year the straight line distance from Halifax to Victoria.

The second step is to reduce the time sitting on my ass.  To that end, I now have a desk that rises and allows me to write while standing up.  No longer am I sitting seven hours a day at the office, and at home I simply place my laptop on top of a box that sits on a counter.  Indeed, this is my first blog that I have written while standing.

Like making any change in lifestyle, time will tell if the benefits pan out, and you know that I'll get back to you on that one.

One thing is for sure.  During the afternoon, my mind is more alert and I get more work done.

Hasta pronto.

Keeping Track Makes A Big Difference

In an earlier post, I encouraged people to get themselves a Fitbit.  Having just received my weekly progress report via email, I can see that wearing a pedometer can bring about very positive results.

For example, in 2007, Stanford researchers took the bird's-eye view, gathered up 26 different studies and summarized the results in a paper published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Their synopsis showed that, at least in studies, pedometer users walk more than 2,000 additional steps each day than nonusers, and their overall physical activity levels
increase by 27%.

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Get Yourself a Fitbit and Don't Leave Home Without It 

In my case, I just had my best week ever: 108,000 steps, 51 miles (80 km), and 25,000 calories burned over just one week.  In addition, I went to the gym for workout with weights three times.

I really feel that I am on track to lose the fat that I have accumulated over the years.  The challenge is to keep up this level of effort.  Certainly, receiving a weekly progress report lets me know how I am doing.

Push, Pull, Squat

I spend quite a bit of time reading articles on health and fitness.  From time to time, I run across something that strikes me to be such a great idea or suggestion that it makes its way into my exercise regime.

With all the contradictory information out there, I particularly care for something that simplifies what can otherwise be complicated into the basic fundamentals.

When it comes to resistance training, the notion of building your workout around three types of exercises: a push, a pull, and a squat is an extremely simple idea that is extremely effective.

Regardless if you are doing a body weight routine, using a suspension training device like a TRX, or working out with bar, dumb, and/or kettle bells, making sure that you include one exercise of each type cannot lead you wrong.

Just look at the hugely successful programs, Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and the 5-3-1 program by Jim Wendler.  Both programs break things down to the basics, a bench press (push), a dead lift (pull), and a back squat (squat).

Over the last two years, I have followed both programs and I definitely got stronger and gained muscle mass.  Unfortunately, I also became fatter, which was largely a result of my diet, so I decided that it was time to go on a fat loss program.

I decided to purchase, Eric Cressey's, High Performance Handbook, and followed the fat loss program.  In about 12 weeks, I lost 28 pounds.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about the High Performance workouts is that there is a lot of variation of these three basic exercises.  As I discovered, there are many pushes, pulls, and squats to choose from.  Over the four stages of the program, Cressey varies the exercises, thereby increasing a lifter's weight training repertoire.  Moreover, he includes and extensive video library of the various exercises that instructs the viewer upon how to use the proper technique when performing each exercise.  It's almost like having a personal trainer there to coach you.

As a result, I have now started a new workout regime in which I vary the three main exercises over the course of three workouts per week.  For example, on Monday, I did 3x5 reps of a close grip bench press, a Sumo dead lift, and a back squat.  Today, I will do 3x5 reps of wide grip pull up and an overhead squat, and 3x8 reps of a landmine press.  Before the workout, I do about 10-15 minutes of dynamic stretching and afterwards, I finish with about 10-15 minutes on the rowing machine, interspersed with 4x 30 second sprints.

Not very complicated.  Warm up, do some pushes, pulls and, squats and end with a finisher that gets the heart rate up.

Now, I am on the lookout for new exercises that I can integrate into my routine while hanging onto the tried and true exercises that I know that I can count on.  As well, I know can add even more variety by simply varying whether the exercises are unilateral or bilateral, for example, choosing to a bench press with two dumbbells instead of a single barbell.

Not only am I excited by creating my own personal program as I go, I also think that I am in the process of reducing my risk of injury that arises when you do the same exercise and continue to increase the load.  Eventually, something has to give.  In my case, it was my rotator cuff from doing too many push presses.

But now, having picked up some pre-hab shoulder and thoracic movements from Cressey's program, I am pain free and looking forward to do a much wider range of exercises that are waiting for me to discover. 

Get Yourself a Fitbit and Don't Leave Home Without It

When I think back to the periods of my life when I was slimmer, I remember that those were the periods when I didn't have a car.  Without the luxury of being simply able to hop in my car and drive where ever I wanted to go, I of course walked a lot more, which means that my daily activity level, the number of calories I burn while going about my daily business, was much higher.

Once you make the decision to live in suburbs and raise a family, however, you are pretty much forced into buying a car since public transportation is just too time consuming in order to do all the things you have to do in a day: get to work, pick up the kids, grocery shopping, etc.

Even though you may have a membership to a gym, the loss of the walking habit may mean that despite your best intentions, watching what you eat and burning calories during a workout, the calories burnt at the gym might not be enough to put you into a calorie deficit.  Worse yet, the workouts might actually stimulate your appetite so that you eat more, over and above the what you worked off.  So, much to your dismay, you continue to pack on the pounds despite your best efforts.  I know this was certainly my situation.

To really reap the benefits of working out, you need to make sure that your workouts are indeed going to cause a calorie deficit, but in order to make this happen, you need to know how many calories you are burning throughout the day and then, for most people, increase your daily activity to ensure that your workouts are not simply burning off the excess brought about by eating within the norms, which turns out to be a calorie surplus due to your lack of movement on the job and at home.

The easiest way to do this is to simply count the steps you take over the course of each day, and the best way to do this and track your results is to get yourself a Fitbit.  This simple device straps to your wrist and syncs to a smart phone or tablet by way of an application so that you can visualize the number of steps, distance covered, and calories burned during a day, week, month, and year.  Moreover, the people at Fitbit will send you a weekly summary of your results.

If you so desire, it will also monitor your sleep patterns.  Even better, it is water resistant.  You won't need to take it off before taking a shower.

As it turns out, last week was my best week with regard to the total steps (100,901), distance covered (47.59 miles), and calories burned (24,455 cal.).  This breaks down to a daily average of 14,414 steps, 6.8 miles, and 3,494 cal.

What I found extremely interesting is that when I decided to take a day off, my results dropped off considerably, only 3985 steps, 1.88 miles, and 2,645 calories.

From the perspective of fat loss, deciding not to go for a walk meant that I burned approximately 850 calories less than my daily average.  That's a lot.  For most people that would be more than they would burn off at the gym during a workout.  Extend that sedentary lifestyle for a week and it adds up to about the equivalent of 1.5 lbs of fat.

As well, it appears that I could maintain a weight loss program simply by continuing my walking regime: 15 min in the morning and afternoon, 40 min at lunch, and the easy extras I get by parking my car the furthest I can at work and by taking the stairs to get my workspace on the third floor.

Doing so, however, without resistance training would probably mean that I would lose muscle mass along with the fat loss.  As a result, I still go to the gym to lift weights two or three times a week,  In the next post, I 'll share with you the program that I have adopted.

Ciao.

The Official Weigh In: So Far So Good

Saturday morning is my official weigh in.  I prefer to weigh myself just once per week because I know that my weight varies over the course of a week, and that if I weighed myself every day, I would become obsessive.  Scale weight is simply one indicator of fitness and in subsequent posts, I will explore the use of other indicators that can give us a better portrait of our level of fitness.

This morning, I weighed in at 257.8 lbs.  Down 28.2 lbs. from the 286 lbs. I weighed 12 weeks ago, but only 0.2 lbs from last Saturday.  After experiencing rapid weight lost when I first started my new program, my weight loss has slowed significantly.  That was to be expected.

I should point out that I put together my program for fat loss in consultation with my family physician and a professional kinesiologist.  For anyone setting out on a fitness quest I highly recommend doing so.  First, it is very helpful to get professional advice along the way concerning nutrition and exercise. Second, your test results give you an empirical measure of your progress.  Presently, I am being monitored through blood tests and standard fitness measures.  Since I have already established my baseline measures, I am looking forward to my first verification of my progress, and I also look forward to sharing them with you.

In a nutshell, my program is focused on three variables: increasing my daily activity level, following an exercise program, and sticking to a diet that severely restricts my consumption of fast carbs.  More precisely, I try to walk at least 10,000 steps a day, I follow a workout regime from The High Performance Handbook by Eric Cressey, and I make a point of not eating anything high in starch (bread, pastries, potatoes, and rice) or that contains added sugar.  I'll have more to say about each component.

So far, so good.  I have gotten off to a very good start.  Pyschologically, a fast start increases my motivation to stick with the program, knowing full well that I'm in this for the long haul.

The other thing that I find very important is to recognize that when we have accomplished something important, we need to give ourselves credit for the accomplishment.  Too often, it is our inner critic that rains on our parade.  The effects of positive thinking are cumulative, and I think that regardless of whether the impact of the act is large or small, making the habit of giving ourselves credit when credit is due creates a positive attitude from which we can draw strength later on when anticipated results don't appear as quickly as we would want them too.

In closing, I just want to say that I rocked my world over the last twelve weeks and I know I can do it again.

Yah Baby!!!

Sooner or Later We Discover that We Can't Train Our Way Out of a Poor Diet

Ah, the joys of being a young athlete.  Your whole life is set up to pursue your sport. Everything revolves around practice, competition, and training.  As a result, a young athlete maintains an incredibly high level of activity, and in order to maintain the required energy level, the athlete can eat food rich in carbohydrates, both simple and complex, without showing many ill effects unless, of course, he or she is gluten intolerant.

As for me, one of the joys of my younger years is that I could pretty eat as much as I wanted to without thinking about what I was eating.  I simply worked off what for others would have been too many calories.

I remember saying to people that escaping food restrictions was the primary reason to explain why I continued to work out after I no longer competed.

As a strategy, it worked pretty well -- for a while.

Eventually, the aging process caught up to me.  First, it was a calf injury that made it too painful to run.  Then work and family commitments meant that I had less time to workout in the gym.

Moreover, I experienced the triple whammy of becoming more sedentary at work and at home, having my base metabolism slow down, and having a drop in my fat burning hormones.

What happened is that I started to put on more and more weight, even though I was still working out regularly.

In short, I developed metabolic syndrome.  My insulin resistance increased the amount of insulin my poor old pancreas had to pump out, and I think that for every pound of muscle I put on, I took on another two pounds of fat.

I deluded myself into thinking that I wasn't spiking my insulin levels because I was eating whole grain cereal products.

To avoid facing the reality that my addiction to carbs was endangering my life, I thought I could get around it by fasting intermittently three days a week.  After my evening meal, I would wait sixteen to eighteen hours before having another meal.

But that didn't work.  Neither did cycling more than 30 kilometers every single day for a month  -- I didn't lose even a single pound.

Finally, after finding a general practitioner who would take me on as a patient, I was told that my problem was metabolic and that I would have to severely restrict how many and what type of carbs I ate.

I was pissed off.  I tried to rationalize that it was genetic, that I had a thrifty metabolism because of my Scottish heritage.  To my friends, I would repeat my doctor's observation that if there was a famine, I would be the last to die.

Thanks doc, but I don't live in eastern Africa, and whole hell of a lot of good having this metabolic condition does me here in the land of plenty.

I more or less continued with the same lifestyle, gaining another 10 pounds between annual check ups, as a result of keeping to the same diet and training like a power lifter.

I had to say that it came as a great shock to me when I weighed in at 290 lbs during my last visit.  At that point, I could no longer deny that I had become a fat ass.

That day, I decided to look my demon straight in the eye.  If there had been such an organization, I would have gone to their evening meeting and say, "my name is Brian Gibb, and I am a carboholic."

But there is a life after carb addiction.  I can and will attest to that.

Now, I tell people that it took me only 55 years to learn how to eat a healthy diet. 

Better late than never.

Tomorrow, I'll share with you the progress that I've made.

Welcome to My New Blog

I used to be super fit.  In high school, I ran track and was a starter on the varsity boys basketball team.  While in university, I rowed competitively, competing and placing in the finals of Canada's national rowing championships.  After leaving university, I completed a marathon, half-marathon, and ran road races.  Over the years, I have cycled thousands of miles and worked out regularly in the weight room, but late last year I finally had to face the facts that I was strong as hell but way over what would be considered a healthy weight.

My wake up call came when I went to see my doctor for an annual check up.  I tipped the scales at 290 lbs.  WTF, for someone a little over six feet tall, that's morbidly obese.  Sure, I had spent the last year doing power lifting workouts, but that was no excuse for putting on that much weight.

Sure enough, when the results of my blood tests came back, my doctor told me that I was at risk for a heart attack and that I had to make some major changes if I wanted to spend time with my future grand children.

So, I took the bull by the horns and went to go see a kinesiologist to get my base rate measurements taken: weight, VO2 max, grip strength, waist circumference, flexibility, etc.

I then decided to change my workout regime and make changes to my diet.  In other words, I have set out to regain the fitness that has escaped me.

Being a bit of information omnivore, I have scoured the Internet to get the best information that would help me in my quest.  There is a lot of contradictory information out there.  As a result, I have chosen to be guided by Bruce Lee's maxim: "adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own."

I am now in the process of testing what works for me and would like to share with you my experience, and of course I would like to hear from you concerning your own quests for fitness.

In my opinion, fitness is a lot like happiness, meaning that it is never a static state but requires constant work and adaptation over time.

So, I bid you welcome to my blog and look forward to sharing with you many postings over the course of the new year.

Ciao.