Don't Waste Your Time On The Treadmill!

I enjoy the treadmill. Its not that I don't enjoy running outside, but I find I get a good workout off of a machine as well. The key is to make the machine work for you, not just get on it.

I've heard people talk about getting on a treadmill for a workout. When I ask them about the details I sometimes find out the person just walked or jogged lightly and didn't even work up a decent heart rate. Basically, they wasted their time.

Others will champion the advantages of using different machines: air bikes or elliptical machines. But the same mistake can be made on those machines: if you expect to be any different just because you got on an exercise machine for a half hour, but you don't push yourself, you wasted your time.

Generally speaking, it is not the machine, but the intensity and effort you bring to it that will make the difference. If you are not challenging your body to do something harder, you are not changing your body to be harder.

My choice is the treadmill. I enjoy the run and I enjoy using the machine to push me forward. Other machines may be preferable to you. It doesn't matter which one you like to use and switching up from time to time is a definite advantage. But given a choice, I'm climbing on the treadmill.

Here's what I do. I start out with a 5-minute walk. On the treadmill that I use (Life Fitness), for me that starts at a speed setting of  2.8 and I gradually work it up to 4.2 or 4.3. After five minutes I go to 5.2, a slow jog. After 30 seconds I speed up to 6.2 or higher. Then every 30 seconds I speed up by an increment of .2. When I reach exhaustion (somewhere between 8.0 and 9.0 depending on the day) I  drop down to 5.3. Then I begin speeding up every 30 seconds by an increment of .3 until I reach exhaustion. When I need to slow down to rest, I drop the speed down to 5.4. I incrementally increase the speed every 30 seconds by .4 until exhaustion. Then I drop down to 5.5. Incremental increases at 30 second intervals are .5. At exhaustion I drop to 5.6 and repeat the same kind of cycle. When exhausted and I finish that round, I start the process in reverse: 5.5, 5.4, 5.3, and 5.2. With that final round done, I walk for 5 minutes again to cool down.

The entire exercise takes a little over 30 minutes, usually about 35. If I don't have that much time I can adjust to make it shorter. If I feel a bit of overachiever in me, I can make it go longer.

The advantage is that I get an effective workout, instead of  just putting in time on the treadmill. Another is that this is effectively an interval exercise, or HIIT (shown to reduce belly fat). With every round I am challenging my body to either work harder or longer or both.  I can evaluate each session I'm on the treadmill by recording the length of time that I run and the point at which I reach 1 km, 2 km, and 3 km.

Similar approaches can be used on the exercise bike, the elliptical machine and even a stair master. If you are not sweating and needing to get your heart rate down at the end of the exercise, you need to reevaluate what you're doing. It's not the machine. It's how hard you're willing to work while you're on the machine that makes the difference.


Check out other great health and exercise resources at my Coach site. With the use of BeachBody products I have lost over 100 lbs and I'm keeping them off. At 55, I'm in the best shape of my life. I look forward to helping you reach your health and weight goals.

Ta Da!

A sudden drop in weight came on Saturday. That morning I weighed in at 195. Then I started urinating. A lot. Usually that's the sign that a quick significant weight drop is happening.  I had actually already lost the weight. I was just retaining the fluid. If I know I have curtailed the calories (and I had) then the weight has to be burning off. But even if the adipose is burned, fluid may be retained, keeping body weight up.

One thing that seems to trigger the elimination of this retained water is drinking tea. I brew tea at home that I drink cold and often in the place of water. I drink the tea without any sweeting--sugar or artificial. I started drinking fresh brewed tea that way while I was in high school. An acquired taste to be sure, but now I actually find it far more refreshing than to drink sweetened tea. Ironically, my preference for unsweetened tea puts me quite out of step with South Carolina's bias for sweet, really, really sweet tea.

We use a Mr. Coffee tea maker. I use three regular tea bags and one green tea bag to brew the tea.  It makes for a mild tasting brew, but I'm not so sure there's much health benefit from the one green tea bag. However, adding the small amount of green tea doesn't hurt.

And one slightly related rabbit to chase: refrigerate the tea and scrub out the pitcher between brews. If you don't know what "soured tea" means, learn. I have been to many restaurants, ordered tea and found it soured - literally a bacteria culture gone viral. In fact there is one very success deli in town where I won't even  get the tea because its always soured. When I ask the wait staff for fresh tea because the tea I'm drinking has soured, I have often been met with the blank stares of obvious ignorance. I think the reason so many people aren't aware that tea can sour is that they mask the taste of soured tea by adding more and more sugar.

Why Does This Feel Good?

I'm loving this. The way my body feels after a workout is amazing. There's a slight feeling of tiredness in the muscles, but a great level of energy and satisfaction.

Tomorrow is the 45 days left to go mark. I've got to push this hard, really hard. And I've still got Thanksgiving and Christmas to get through. I need to be flawless in the execution of the program to make my goal. I have 16 lbs to go. A chunk of that will be gone in the next few days. Then I drop below 180.

At that point my basic caloric needs will be pretty low and my body could even shift over into famine mode since it will be a new low in body weight. It seems that adipose is ill disposed to be disposed of. Its like fat fights back to keep from being burned off. That's another aspect to be factored in.

Muscle seems to be willing enough to grow. I just have to keep pushing forward on increasing the weight I use. However, I have to watch out for injury. Right now there are some twinges in my shoulders that are telling me I'm pushing my limits.

I'm doing well with the resistance training, but I'm doing it every day. I'm supposed to do it every other day. And I'm not doing the cardio aspect at all. I'm trying to get to the gym most days (5 or 6 out of 7) and do the HIITs. By the way, yesterday's results were okay: I broke 100 calories at 9'30" and 1 mile at just under 10 minutes. That distance is actually .97 miles in 5 minutes. The first 5 minutes on the treadmill are for warm-up and are a series of graduated walking speeds. Then at 5:01 I start running HIITs. I get two rounds in before I reach the 10 minute mark. I did okay on the next 10 minutes, but then I slowed down the last ten. I did break 400 calories, but just barely. I think I was dealing with some dehydration. What makes me think that is the way my body seemed  bit slower getter down to a resting state at the end of HIIT rounds. Also my top speeds were lower. Still, overall, I'm continuing to show improvement in my strength for running.

Today I'm eating a meal at church while attending a meeting. I'll be good. This afternoon I need to do some painting (community service project) and once I get home I would really like to get to the gym. Or I may just try the sweat thing here (Power90). Gotta do something to make these last 45 days count.

O well, time to get ready for church. Later.

The Cost of Ditching Nutrition

Progress has been great. There have been days when my weight loss was totally inexplicable. I'm marking it up to the three front approach to fat loss: totally clean eating; resistance training; and HIIT style cardio.

From September 27th I went 12 days without watching the nutrition. Judy had "company" company in town and then we had a few days before the rush to my youngest son and his fiancee's engagement party for family. I could feel my body thickening up. And I could tell that I wasn't feeling as well. Those few days really demonstrated how imnportant my nutrition is and just how fragile the benefits of good nutrition are. In that short time the scales say I gained about 10 lbs. I didn't eat that badly every day (though there were some). The issue is that my body reacts awfully to awful food. This will come off right away, I'm sure. But even if it comes off as fast as it went on, that will be a total of one month lost on the progress.

I'm not beating myself up over this. It was factored into the plan. And I fully expectd the results. The weight loss I have seen since I took all processed foods out of my diet is amazing. My body just dosen't do highly processed carbs without the natural fiber element. Fruit is fine as long as it is in its natural state. Take away the fiber and it becomes a recepie for fat. I'm glad to know that. Randall can't do bready foods. It makes him almost instantly fat.

The goals are on track. I will easily beat the 172 goal by 1-1-10. Then I push for the cut bod. Woo hoo, doing great, even with the set backs and difficulties getting the exercise in.