When I browse Pinterest (you know,
every freaking day) and I'm checking out the Health and Fitness
section there's always the same quote floating by each time... “I'm
not telling you it's going to be easy. I'm telling you it's going to
be worth it.” Sitting here with nearly 2 months under my belt of
maintaining my goal weight, I think those words are the epitome of
truth.
Sometimes I forget what it was like 76
pounds ago. Pants that are 2 sizes too big help remind me what it
was like 15 pounds ago.
In an attempt to keep myself interested
and to learn more about maintaining this lifestyle I've gotten myself
into, I decided to read some books. I thought I'd be fun to talk
about them in the blog as a little aside from the normal conversation
and it would give me something fun to do on the side. Of course,
reading takes forever when you're paying attention to your fitness.
I feel like laying on the couch and reading a book is sort of a waste
of precious time that I could be out running. It makes me want a
treadmill in my condo so that I can walk and read at the same time.
I read the Hunger Games trilogy at the gym last year, afterall.
The first book I decided to take on was
The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer by Gretchen Reynolds. She's the
Phys Ed columnist for The New York Times, I believe. Heard about
this book on NPR and while they were chatting with her I immediately
got up out of my chair and started typing standing. It sheds light
on what can happen to you if you live an inactive life.
Since this book isn't a novel, I don't
know if I can really describe whether I “enjoyed” reading it or
not. It is very informative and she writes in such a way that I
continue to read. It isn't dry science stuff, even though she does
discuss innumerable scientific studies in the book, and she even
finds ways to bring humor into the mix.
The purpose of the book is to discuss
the difference between Health and Fitness, two terms that are often
seen together... but what I learned from this book is that with
exercise you don't exactly have to have those two things
simultaneously. Health can be achieved through the book's title...
in the first 20 minutes of exercise. You can be healthy and still
have some weight to lose. Fitness is the thing you choose to do,
going a step further... and that's what you need to lose weight.
It was great to read this book and get
validation on some things that I experienced during my weight loss
journey... a journey still taken daily (I've ran about 120 miles so
far). The first point is that walking alone will not help you lose
weight. Walking will help lower your risk of diabetes, which is very
important, but walking for 30 minutes won't raise your heart rate to
burn fat. I tried walking way back when, just to get moving, and was
discouraged at how little impact it had on my weight loss. Actually,
I hated walking. When my arms dangle too long my fingers fall
asleep.
Little did I know 76 pounds ago that
taking up running would help so much in shedding the weight and the
inches.
Reynolds has experience in several
forms of exercise but mainly she talks about running, cycling and
swimming. She admits too that so much of the information that she
puts forth in the book is constantly changing, that the science
involved in physical fitness is forever gaining knowledge.
Some highlights from the book without
absolutely making it so you have no need to read it (which I feel
that all amateur fitness people should give this a read, even if you
just check out a few chapters that you feel most interested in)...
She begins by talking about stretching.
I do not stretch when I run. Period. I'd read about stretching
before I picked up this book and I've learned that “dynamic”
stretching, or using the muscles that you plan to use during the
physical activity in a way that they're meant to be used is how you
should warm up your muscles. So if you're running, walk or slow jog
for 5 minutes before you start your run. If you're playing a sport,
don't sit on the ground and stretch out your muscles in holding
positions, do the things you'd find yourself doing while playing the
sport.
When you hold those stretches for a
long time, you're engaging the mechanism in your muscles that start
the repair phase. Since working out and building muscle comes from
microtearing those muscles and then them repairing themselves,
holding a pose in a stretch throws the muscle into the mode where it
thinks it's time to repair, rather than time to work. When running,
you need your muscle to pull back into position to get those legs
moving faster. It's not that stretching is going to kill your
workout, you just can lose some of the “umph” that your muscles
have going for them. You feel flexible because stretching accustoms
your body to the pain of pushing further... but performance can be
stinted.
To quote the book, “Most experts
agree that a warm-up should do two things: Increase the range of
motion in the joints that will be used in the upcoming exercise, and
literally warm up the body.”
Stretching afterward feels good
though... I'll do that sometimes.
She has a chapter on injury. I've been
running for 6 months and I haven't injured myself yet (I just knocked
on every wooden object I own). She writes about how those who get
injured are more likely to have injuries again whereas those who have
not gotten an injury are less likely. I'm hoping and guessing that
I'm in that latter category. I don't know what a shin splint is...
Maybe it's because I only run about 3 times a week.
And then the book goes past weight
loss, past fitness... and talks about how being active in any way can
make our lives better. You decrease your risk of disease, you
decrease your risk of dementia. Reading this book makes you want to
move just because of reading what could happen to you if you don't.
If you're new to fitness or an amateur
like me, I'd definitely recommend checking out this book. If you're
fit as a fiddle and doing fine, it can still be very interesting.
All of the studies that she brings up are interesting. They found
that chocolate milk is the best thing to consume after running.
I think one of the most important bits
in this book is when she talks about hydration. I actually don't
drink water when I exercise. I took this from watching Extreme
Makeover: Weightloss Edition a year or so ago, when the trainer
wouldn't let these 500 lb people drink any water until the workout
was over. I figured, if that 500 lb person who was sweating their
ass off doesn't need water, then neither do I. And it's true.
Sports drinks, I gather from this book,
would be a weight loss nightmare. Unless you're performing insane
amounts of physical exertion and losing pounds of body weight in
sweat, there's no reason to consume a Gatorade. The sodium that it
is designed to replenish will screw you on the scale. Think of it as
drinking chicken broth. If you're doing moderate exercising or just
taking a trip to the gym to hang out on the elliptical for an hour or
so, don't drink a sports drink. You're going to be setting yourself
back.
But people that are in it to lose
weight are generally well hydrated to start with. We carry around
water bottles and keep track of the ounces we've consumed during the
day in hopes that drinking this water will give us the sensation of a
full stomach, thus keeping us from overeating.
If you're one of those people, you
don't need to drink anything with your exercise. You're plenty
hydrated.
Interesting fact I learned about
hydration too is that being hydrated won't necessarily save you from
the heat.
Next on the Book Review docket is a
memoir of sorts. I'm hoping to get some good poetry out of
experiencing the next book. Can't wait to tell you about it.
I was fairly naughty this past weekend.
Lost of alcohol lead to some “fake weight” and water retention
and I'm hoping that the super good girl that I was today will help me
shed a little of that. I'm still under the goal weight and that's
the important part to me.
And just so you can't say I didn't
mention food at all this week, I had an apple and I had an avocado.
I googled “apple and avocado” just to make sure that when I cut
them up and put them in the same bowl that it would taste good.
I promise you. It does taste good. If
you love avocado like I do, you just have to try it.
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