How This Fat Guy's House Has Changed in Two Years

It drives my wife crazy. They're everywhere in our house. You can't swing a cat with out hitting one. My house is cluttered with items used in the support of an active lifestyle.

The winter of two years ago was different. The house was much less cluttered by comparison. There were a pair of gloves, a toque and a standard winter jacket. That's all I needed. My big endeavors were to go to the grocery store. Maybe do a little fast food eating in the minivan. The rest of the time was spent on the couch or in bed, sore from a high-fat diet and jellified muscles carrying a ridiculous amount of weight.

Walk in my front door with me now, will you? I'll give you the tour.

The front porch is heavy with indications that I'm no longer sedentary. You'll notice two sets of cross country skis. I only started a week ago and I'm already on my second set. Picked up some waxless skis yesterday that are easier to use. Cost me $20.

Your eyes will no doubt dart towards the snow sleds sitting by the front closet. I have three, one for each particular sledding condition. My latest is soft to keep my spine from compressing and has a fin to guide it true.

On the floor you'll see winter boots for the first time in decades. I need these for tobogganing and winter hikes. A cheap pair of runners is dedicated to icy conditions. They have metal cleats strapped to the bottoms. Can't let ice keep me indoors.

Inside the closet you'll find drawers with not one, but three, sports balaclavas. Each for a different temperature range. Beyond that, there's an assortment of toques, beanies and skull caps for cycling or winter exercise. On the floor, runners for jogging, complete with orthopedic inserts that finally provide relief to my calves during vigorous exercise. And be careful of the freshly sharpened ice skates. They're waiting for December.

You'll have to forgive me for the bike wheel by the front door, I don't know where else to put it right now.

The open stairs as you enter the house are littered with Jameswear. Three sizes of fleece jackets, made for a man who sweats, all of which can be layered if necessary. There's T-Max Heat socks ready to go for cold days, long underwear (which I haven't used since I was a kid), ski pants for very cold weather, and layers of sweat pants for cooler weather. A heart rate monitor and watch sit at the ready, along with my iPod and headphones. Athletic shorts and shirts for the gym are also all over the place. All these clothes are at the ready. Every day some of them get used in the pursuit of fitness.

Which leads me to something else we have a lot more of: Laundry detergent. I'm washing a lot more clothes. Usually there's a fresh pile of clothes soaked with sweat that gets cleaned almost daily. Two winters ago, I rarely worked up enough heat to require clothes to be washed on a regular basis. Now, the washing machine is running constantly.

Entering the kitchen, there's a serving cart that couldn't be more full of bike helmets, sweat bands, cycling gloves, hydration back packs, water bottles and a few cycling tools and bike spare parts.

In the laundry room, more skis for the family, and a bike rack for the car.

The shed had bikes in it two years ago. Now it has twice as many. I picked up bikes on UsedRegina and at garage sales for me or the kids.

Our home and our life is hardly recognizable from two years ago. Thank god!

Fitness as a cure for another fatal disease: Aging

Hours after celebrating my 46th birthday, I had self-assessment done of how well my summer went for my body: I went to the gym for the first time in three months and did my usual workouts.

I worried I would be sluggish doing what I do at the gym because I hadn't done those things all summer. But I did take up mountain biking, which can be straining on one's cardiovascular system, even for novices. And even when I didn't pedal my still-heavy body up those hills, I got off and walked the rest of the way.

Turns out, I'm fitter and stronger than I've ever been. Having fun all summer led to a stronger, more efficient heart and lungs, and seemingly more muscle mass to carry me around. How do I know? I did far more with less heart. I monitor my heart-rate and know that it took a lot more to get it up to the top of the target zone than it did when I was last at the gym at the beginning of summer. I even ran out of incline on the treadmill. It's as if my heart grew five sizes this summer. (Sorry for the Grinch reference so early in the season.)

My birthday made me think of two things. Firstly, birthday's are a psychological challenge for me with my eating and binging habits. Everyone's different but my plan of attack is to eliminate "holiday reward eating." If you pig out on whatever you want on your birthday (I probably achieved 4000 calories or more in the past), you may want every day to be your birthday (or Christmas, etc.) If you're having a bad day, you may say to yourself, "I want today to be like past happy days so I'm going to eat a bunch of junk food until I feel sick."

I kept the cake small so there were no left-overs to have for breakfast or midnight snacks, and ate like I do every other day. It's bad enough I'm one year older, why should I knock days off my life by eating really badly? And one bad day of eating poorly usually leads to more bad days (for me.)

I spent the day mountain biking with my son on the the most beautiful of fall days you could imagine. Usually I'd be at home sprawled out on my bed will full belly, digesting in anticipation of my next birthday reward meal. Best birthday I've had in years.

My second birthday problem: Getting older.

Aging is a fatal disease. Eventually it'll kill you if nothing else does. I overcame most of the ill-effects of obesity by getting fit. I think I can do much of the same with my other fatal disease.

Instead of slowing down in my middle-age, I'm picking up speed, doing more things and having more fun, getting stronger and healthier instead of the opposite.

Fat or thin, aging will take it's toll. Getting active is the secret to warding off old-age.

My Eight-Year-Old Trainer Pushes Me Hard

My kids, like most these days, aren't big on getting off the couch and doing things. Even though we try not to hyper-parent or be overly protective, keeping them on a short leash, there still seems to be little that gets them out into the real world. But my eight-year-old son rarely says no to a bike ride with Daddy, even if it's clear across the city to visit Grandma. Even my four-year-old daughter joins us on the ride-a-long bike trailer sometimes. We did 90 minutes in the warm sun the other day.

My boy, who has always been slower to advance athletically compared to many of his peers, is pretty gung-ho to head out on a bike and pedal to the best of his ability. His ability used to lag behind my rapidly improving fitness level, but now his fitness is improving too (building muscles I presume) and he's pushing me. You wouldn't think we'd be a good match for workouts but I'm still a very overweight middle-aged-man and he's just beginning to blossom into a young athlete as he grows like a well-watered weed.

I don't know what affect our bike rides will have on the kids in the long term, or what they'll remember of it. I do know that I couldn't imagine my parents even going on so much as a walk with me, let alone a bike ride.

I refurbished an old mountain bike to compliment my road bike (hybrid). It's opened up the door to all sorts of new adventures and put at ease my anxiety over breaking a bike wheel again. However, mountain bikes are less efficient than road bikes and I have to work harder to keep up with the boy who won't slow down.

We also bought a deluxe bike rack for the car. This makes us officially a cycling family, like the happy, adventurous ones you see pulling up to bike shops or occasionally depicted in tourism commercials on TV.

It's such a far cry from the other stereotype I used to be.

"If I Could Only Become An Exercise Fanatic, I Would Be Thin"

I believe the above statement is a myth that many of us believe. On the one hand, I believe strongly that getting fit cures much of what ails you because of obesity, especially fatigue and mobility. But I also believe that much of the problem of obesity stems from complex and widely varied problems with our mental health. If you don't work on the mental aspect, being fit isn't the cure for your large waist line. I think--and you hear this a lot from health care professionals--that a comprehensive approach is best.

My pet peeve has always been people who talk about this or that diet or method while people with eating problems perk up and want to know every detail. There still seems to be the notion that there's a secret out there that will somehow easily solve why we're overweight. I'm sure there's not. You have to really examine yourself and find something that works for you--for the rest of your life.

I advocate for improving your fitness in whatever baby steps you can so you can relieve yourself of some or all of the problems associated with being very overweight. You may believe that the heart of your problems is your body image and that's not fixed until you become super-model-thin. But I'm here to tell you that getting strong and capable by things as simple as walking does wonders for your self-image and your self-esteem even while you still may be very overweight.

Start getting stronger in whatever way you can so you can start living your life again, right now. But simultaneously work on your eating as best you can, without looking for the quick and easy fix.

What does the "Ideal You" Look Like and How does S/he Live?

Is the "ideal you" like celebrities or supermodels?
Or is the "ideal you" who you are now?

I write this blog for the benefit of myself and for people like me: the very overweight. I know a lot of you are sick of me going on about how exercise "saved my life" and are wondering when I'm going to talk more about eating. I've got lots to say about my eating issues and I promise to open up about them as I discover and think about new revelations.

The fact is, though, I feel pretty good these days. I rarely feel like I have anything wrong with me. My only annoyance is going to stores and trying to buy clothes that fit. I'm still too big for even oversizes available at department stores.

Honesty is a central part of my blogging. I like to spill my guts and not hold back. So I have to tell you that it bugs me to hear people talk about that next pound they're trying so hard to lose.

My question to you is: Why are you trying to lose weight?

It's a legitimate question and I'll give you my honest answer at the end. Is it because you want to be more healthy? If that's the only answer, then my response is, based on what happened to me, you'd get more healthy by going for a walk every day than starving yourself and worrying about every calorie.

Let me make a list of reasons of why I suspect people want to lose weight. I compiled this list from discussions with people struggling with their weight and from reading I've done recently (about what people struggling with their weight say.)

• I want to fit in.
• I want to be attractive.
• I want to be loved.
• I feel like a failure being fat and it's embarrassing.
• People think I'm a joke.
• My doctor says it's not healthy.
• Society says being fat is wrong.

If you've been overweight all your life like I have, then you've probably had some of these things ingrained in you. It's hard to change your own attitude after so many years of believing something. It's like being told up is down and down is up. It simply can't be true that being fat is okay.

I lost most of my excess weight once (295 to 170 pounds.) I felt great but I was disappointed in the skinny me. Contrary to my life-long expectation, being skinny didn't solve all my problems. It didn't give me happiness and it didn't give me all the babes I thought I deserved because I was now a stud! Being fat, it turned out, wasn't my problem. So as you can guess, the weight started to come back on.

What does the ideal you look like? Have you envisioned him or her? Is s/he the same person as you are now or a different person? Is s/he just a skinny version of yourself who also sits on the couch all day but is somehow happier? Does the world somehow change if you're thin? Is the sky the same colour if you're thin?

Are you more loved? Are you a better person? Are you more respected? Consider these questions and think about your true feelings on the ideal you.

I'll share with you some thoughts I've had over the years on the ideal me. The ideal James is the happy man in TV commercials. He rock climbs, kayaks and he hosts social gatherings (possibly with ice-cold beer.) He has sexy barbecues. He travels. He may even skydive, because the ideal James lives every moment to the fullest. He has many friends and is the perfect father. He is loved by all. All women want to have his babies.

The latter, of course, is not a very realistic goal for anyone. Is Brad Pitt any happier because most women find him hot? Confidence in one's sexuality does not equal happiness. I think of all the horrible women over the years I might have ended up with if I looked like Brad Pitt. Fortunately, my wife (the best woman in the world) has modest standards (or gets drunk far too easily, you decide.)

Does the perfect you exercise? Is the perfect you a fitness freak? The best looking people in the world, as well as the most powerful tend to be fitness enthusiasts. They tackle life by doing things--fun, exciting things that go far beyond sitting on the couch. 

So if I may presume that the ideal you is a person who moves her or his body a great deal, why can't you do it now? Why do you have to obsess about weight when right now you could be going for a walk and building on basic fitness that can improve a little every day? Right now, you could be doing what the ideal, thin you would be doing. You could be living your life, even if that means a short walk to the light post down the street and back is all you can do. At least you're getting some fresh air and doing something huge for yourself. There might be a dozen reasons why you ate poorly today but, if you're at all able-bodied, you probably don't have any valid reasons why you didn't do something physical for yourself.

If you love yourself, set yourself free and get moving! If you don't love yourself, see a counsellor and begin working on what's really wrong with you, because it's not your waist.

If your excuse is that it's too much work, I ask you how is it that you are willing to diet? Dieting is one of most difficult and complicated things people embark upon. Losing weight and keeping it off is complicated. It's a giant pain in the ass to obsess about it night and day. Improving your fitness is simple and fool-proof. It's easy by comparison.


Unlike dieting, the less you think about it, the better.

Why not start being the ideal you today and re-examine why you want to lose weight in the first place? I'm not saying you shouldn't lose weight. I'm not saying you shouldn't eat the best you can. But one part of what you need to do is complicated and one part is easy. One thing is prone to failure, one thing is fool-proof.

Having said all that, in full disclosure, I do want to be smaller. Here are the reasons I currently want to lose body fat: I feel if I have less excess fat on me I can move around even more and therefore do even more in my recreational life. In other words, I can have even more fun. Secondly, I want to buy clothes that fit more easily. Shopping for clothes is the only time I feel abnormal nowadays.

In every other way, I'm ideal.

A Thousand Trees and One Great Big Rock

I'm a slow learner when it comes to self-discovery.

I'm still learning things about myself based on CBT sessions dealing with chronic anxiety that took place and ended several years ago. This is also happening with me as I learn about problem eating patterns and causes that I began discover in Craving Change, a group workshop series of classes that ended many months ago. In that class I began to be aware of things ingrained in me that made me eat the way I do.

The more discoveries I make about myself on this front (not solutions, just discoveries), the more daunting a problem it seems. There appears to be no end to the reasons why I eat in ways that compromise my health. Some problems originated in childhood, more than likely. Others seem to be because of general personality traits I have like impulsiveness and risk-taking tendencies. There's many emotional reasons, it seems, and many habits built up over a lifetime. The reasons, although not clearly or fully understood by me yet, are nonetheless intimidatingly numerous.

Reading Dr. Sharma's blog on obesity and scanning the various studies that appear in newspapers and on the Internet, one might sometimes be led to believe that the fight against obesity is hopeless. I don't have the solution for myself or for others. There is no secret diet, and the body works against itself to gain back weight.

My own struggle is navigating a forest of countless and varied personal issues that have caused me to be severely overweight. I can't even see the other side of the forest, but I resolve to cut down one 'tree' at a time until I can make it through to the other side, one day, one far off day in this lifetime.

But there is one thing I am certain of. There is one thing I can control. There is one thing that I can be a master of and that is foolproof. It's exercise. Getting fit is a no-fail endeavour. You do the work, you cannot fail. You do the learning, you will have the knowledge--the secret--to overcoming the problem of obesity. It works for me; it works for everyone and there are no questions, no uncertainty about this.

I'm unsure about a lot of things in my struggle to tame my disease but exercise and fitness is the rock that I can always rely on. Exercise is well understood by science and even by me. I have total confidence in exercise and my relationship with it. It's a relationship that comes naturally to anyone who gives it a chance.

Obesity is a long way off from being fully-understood or cured. But that's okay. I have exercise. Exercise is the road I walk on, the path I return to while I walk through the forest of eating issues and chop down one at a time. One day it will lead me to daylight.

I Did What a Kid Would Do: I Kept Going

I declare myself fit.

After an hour at the gym this morning, I tobogganed for nearly two and a half hours tonight with the family under the moon and star, and nothing in my body told me to stop. It was my mind that did, after I looked at my watch. I outlasted my kids and they don't have 150 pound backpacks on their backs.

No looking at my heart rate monitor, no stopping to catch my breath, just constant climbs to get that next rush of flying down the hill. That's what a kid would do. If you're having fun, if the adrenaline is flowing, you just keep going. My body has never before cooperated like this, it's always been the party pooper.

It's no exaggeration to say that a year ago I couldn't sit for two and a half hours, let alone climb a large hill repeatedly.

It goes against good judgement, but we let our four-year-old go on her own sled down the big hill with us. There was rarely a concern but she did crash twice. Once was my fault and she cried after flipping at the top of the hill. But she was just crying because she didn't make it down the hill. Then at the end of the night my wife sent her flying over a big ramp (by accident) that the daredevil snowboarders had set up. Everyone ran in horror to see how hurt she was, but she lay there giggling.

I slammed into a pile of compost, which had my son laughing all night long, even after we got home and well past bedtime.

We'll remember these last two nights of our 2011 Christmas vacation for years to come. I don't remember much of the ones I spent on the couch.

After Some Setbacks, I Now Feel Really Good

November was a tough month for me in that my level of hope was challenged by injuries to my knee and back. After an early November bike ride, my first that late in the year, the snow came and my back injury got worse. In September I had a ridiculous accent with cycling shoes indoors and fell on my ass. My back hurt but seemed to be on the mend, although ever so slowly.

I had a good jog in October that was 20 minutes, a very significant landmark for me. It was, in my mind, a real jog because that's what I used to do in the old days of being fit. But it was too much too soon. My previous record this time out was fifteen minutes and that was too large of a jump all at once. I did it because I felt so good up until the end of the run but I didn't stop when I got signals from my knee that it had had enough. It pushed it one minute further to meet my goal.

My knee has been troublesome ever since. Going up stairs and jogging seemed iffy on occasion. But I'm happy to say it's all better now. If anything, going up and down a large toboggan hill seemed to help. It certainly strengthened my legs in ways they weren't before. But I'm taking it easy with jogging just in case, doing intervals instead of one long jog. Even at home on my treadmill (my fitness safety net) I do a minute or two of jogging intervals to spice up an otherwise boring routine.

All runners will tell you it feels really good to run. Well, I'd imagine it feels even better for people like me who, less than a year ago, were confined to laying in bed most of the day. Doing it for even just a couple of minutes here and there, with ever-increasing speeds as my fitness improves, feels oh so good.

I should have seen a chiropractor from the beginning. I hadn't seen one before and I know more now about back problems and how chiropractors can help get things better in a week or two.

So I feel pretty darn good! The only problem is the snow is melting. I actually want it to come back. I was just getting the hang of sledding and I'd usually much rather go tobogganing than go for a walk.

Losing Weight is Futile: Experts

There have been a lot of studies in the news the last few years that seem to say that dieting/weight-loss is futile. Scientists now know that the body works against us after weight loss to regain the weight. It sends hormones out to tell us we're hungry when we're not and it works way more efficiently than it did before. We turn from Hummers into Hybrids, to use a car analogy. It's a cruel fact of nature of which there is no medical way thus far to address it.

The solution? Some say you have to do what you did to lose weight all the time. If that means you were  hungry all the time when you lost weight then you have to be hungry all the time for the rest of your life to maintain it. Yay!

I'm not sure what I think about my own situation. I have no specific weight loss goals at the moment other than to become as athletic as I comfortably can. I'm not crazy about being 100 plus pounds over the BMI obesity threshold (one that is now being questioned by the likes of Dr. Sharma and others) and I would also like to buy clothing at a regular store and not have my joints stressed by everyday living. I know I could do more athletically if I didn't have a hundred and fifty pound back pack on me all the time.

I'm starting to truly believe that a very overweight person can be healthy if they're fit. Recent studies have shown that the fat around our organs (visceral fat) is reduced with exercise even when overall weight is not. This is further evidence that exercise is the cure for obesity.

On the one hand, the body works against us after weight loss, but on the other it works with us after exercise. It builds muscle, endurance, reduces visceral fat and our cardiovascular system becomes more efficient. This happens in everyone and it's foolproof, unlike weight loss.

Get as fit as you can. Near as I can tell, it's the only solution. As long as you're making improvements to your fitness, you cannot fail. This is one area where your body is on your side.

I Broke Through A Major Barrier Last Night

Chris Powell, right. From his ABC TV show.

In the TV reality show Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition, trainer Chris Powell shouts the following words to doubting clients trying to workout: "Every time you think you can't do something, I'm going to prove to you that you can!"

This is something that is happening internally with me as well. I have had numerous misconceptions in what people in general are capable of and what I am capable of. Time after time I prove myself wrong by accomplishing what I thought was impossible.

I've encountered many obese people who haven't exercised a day in their life and have countless misconceptions about fitness. Yet I should know better. I had gone through a fitness phase when I was 30 years old. I went from obese and sedentary to thin and fit. I lived and breathed exercise for two or three years. It was ingrained in me even years after I stopped. So how could I have so many misconceptions about myself now and what was possible?

Well, I didn't know everything back when I was thirty. I still don't, of course, but what I do know now is that almost anything is possible with the human body.

Our bodies adapt to whatever it is we're doing. If we walk for fifteen minutes it builds muscle in our lower body thinking that we will need to walk again tomorrow (possibly to catch a sabre-toothed tiger for dinner.) If we let our bodies sit on the couch all day, our bodies think they no longer need muscle mass and will let it waste away. Soon it's a struggle to have the strength just to make it to the fridge.

I started in April by walking my three year old daughter to her preschool just a block away. It took me seven minutes there, seven minutes back, I was soaked in sweat and exhausted. I used the hour and a half just to rest up so I could pick her up at the end of her class. This happened just twice a week. Then I was asked to add some more walking on a day or two that my daughter didn't go to class.

By then, I was getting used to it and I started doing twenty minutes a night including nights when she went to school in the day time. Things began to change in me. I stopped feeling helpless. I stopped feeling hopeless. My body began to get stronger, more capable. I began to dream about riding bikes and jogging, but I saw those goals as either impossible or goals that would take months or years of hard work to achieve.

If you read my blog, you know the rest of the story. And last night I jogged for twenty minutes straight outside. This is a very important achievement for me because it matches what I did when I was the fittest I've been in my life, fifteen years ago. But I did it last night carrying an extra 150 pound weight on my back.

My body, you see, adapted. I added small increments of time to my jogging (making sure I had off days to rest and recover) and my body got stronger and stronger, preparing for the next time I jogged. I now have legs of steel.

When I first met with my exercise counsellor at the end of June, I told her I was trying 30 second intervals of jogging to spice up my walks and that my goal was to one day this winter be able to jog for 10 minutes once or twice a week. I can remember thinking, "Ten minutes would be nice, that would be good enough if I could only get there."

Now I think that I'll never run 5K in my life and I'll certainly never run a half marathon (21+ KM). But I know it's not impossible if I ever want to do it. It would take the same methods I used to get where I am today: slowly increase the length of my exercise and have patience as my body adapts.

And speaking of misconceptions, my wife, who is a pretty smart person, asked me after my ground-breaking workout last how my heart rate did after such a long run. I could have circumnavigated the globe and my heart rate wouldn't have changed. I've got a pace I jog at and my heart rate goes up to that level and stays there for however long I jog. That's the way it works.

It's like a running car parked in the driveway. The RPMs are normally at 1000 when you're idling but you when you press the pedal it goes up to 2000. Some people see exercise as a car going up the hill with the pedal to the metal. By the top of the hill there's steam coming out of the radiator. If you go slow, your breathing is deeper but not out of breath and you feel pretty much the same at the end of your jog as you do at the beginning, just a little more fatigued (but as invigorated as anything you can experience.)

If you're like me, or worse, you can think of a hundred reasons why you can't exercise and all the things you can't do. You'll have to just bowl these misconceptions over one pin at a time as they come up until you have a full understanding of the reality of what you are capable of.

I believe exercise is the cure for obesity. That's not to say it alone is the cure for excess body fat. As of now, I no longer feel obese yet I'm a full 100 pounds over the current clinical definition for obesity (BMI) for a man of my height. I'm more capable than a lot of thin people my age and I'm only going to get better and better.

Being thin isn't going to make you happy, it isn't going to fix everything's that wrong with you, but empowering yourself with fitness can sure go a long way to cure what ails you, regardless of what the scale says. And hey, it's going to take me years to lose all this excess weight if I so chose to go that route, but getting fit only took a few months with tremendous benefits coming within weeks.

Today I Celebrate Two Months of Cycling

On July 1st I set out for my first bike ride since 1998. I was nervous, winded and had to take at least two sit down breaks to rest. I couldn't keep up to my seven year old son as we pedalled through a paved bike path in the city's suburbs. My bike was uncomfortable and the next day my elbows were so sore and weak I thought my forearms were going to fall off.

Today, just two months later, I was out buying a pair of cycling shorts (innershorts to be specific) and pair of cycling socks so I could squeeze into an old pair of cycling shoes. You might say, I'm a bit of a cycling fanatic. These days I'm not getting winded riding with my son. Hell, I can't even get my heart rate up above 70% (in any sort of training zone) riding with him these days.

I write a lot about how far I've come fitness-wise. The moral of the story here is: Don't underestimate yourself or your body, no matter what shape you're in. Even though I once went from sedentary and obese to thin and fit some fifteen years ago, I still fell into the trap all these years later of doubting my body. I doubted my ability to become fit at 44. I created a bunch of my own misconceptions of what a 44 year old man who is 200 pounds overweight can do.

Only recently have I started to relax on my bike and have fun, not fearing it's going to collapse beneath me, in spite of the fact that a couple of days ago I broke a lawn chair and hurt my leg and elbow.

Last night I did my first jog back on the street after jogging at my clinic's gym all summer. When I started out I had this weird, unsettling feeling. I was moving like I was jogging but I didn't feel the normal sensations that I expected to feel. I felt like I was floating down the street without any effort.

I decided that it must have been six days off (of jogging) combined with my new runners and a summer of building muscles in my legs and the muscle that is my heart. A couple minutes in, I started feeling some of the normal feelings but it was quite jolting at first to see how far I've come.

Two months ago, I wouldn't have believed any of this. And I'm sure I still have plenty of learning to do.

UPDATE: The pants work great and made for a very comfortable ride.

My Doctor Ordered Me to Buy a Gadget

A Sportline heart rate monitor w/ strap

Many of my more cynical friends will tell you I like me my electronic gadgets. This is how geek testosterone manifests itself. Other men pursue pick-up trucks and moustaches, I outfit myself with circuits and flashing lights. That's why I was weak on willpower when my doctor ordered me to go buy a gadget.

I had a conversation about my fitness pursuit with him and, since I haven't seen him since he tricked me into seeing a nutritionist and setting my life change in motion several months ago, I asked him about exercise advice. They always say, "See your doctor before starting any exercise program," I told him, and his response took me by complete surprise.

"Yes I do have one piece of advice," he said. "And only one piece. Go buy yourself a heart rate monitor for sixty dollars at SportMart."

My doctor even advised me on where to shop!

He got busy scribbling numbers on a scrap piece of paper. They were, in fact, the heart rate zones for exercise as they pertain to a person my age. I was quite familiar with this information through my research and use of a said heart rate monitors the last time I went on a fitness quest.

Basically, you take the number 220 and minus your age to get your maximum heart rate. No matter what you do, your heart can't and won't beat any faster than your maximum heart rate. If you exceed 85% of your MHR, you might put some stress on your heart if you're not healthy and, in my doctor's view, make yourself more sore and have a counter-productive workout. I'd doubt many fitness experts would agree with that wholly, based on what I've read, but they'd probably advise an obese 44 year old like me to try and keep below that 85% level.

They used to think that exercising at a lower intensity, say 65% of your maximum heart rate, was good for fat burning. Now I don't think they believe it makes much of a difference. But that's a discussion for another day. For more information, see this introduction to heart rate monitoring or the Wikipedia article on heart rate.

A heart rate monitor strap on a man with erect nipples.

I had a heart rate monitor before as part of my bike computer, of all things. I used to strap the monitor on my chest and go biking, looking at the readout of what my heart was doing on my bike computer. (I still have it but I can't find the strap.) Then I bought one as an accessory to my treadmill (and have since lost it.) I learned what level of breathing intensity corresponded to what my heart was doing. If I could carry out a conversation without gasping, but was unable to sing a song, I was in my moderate or "training" zone. Not too low, not too high.

So, armed with my doctor's advice--nay, orders--I went to WalMart and bought a watch style heart rate monitor that you can use with or without a strap around your chest. It has a strap included but you can also take two fingers, place them on the watch and it will tell you your pulse quite easily and accurately.

I didn't for a second think this would work accurately but it does! It gives me the same reading with my fingers as it does with the strap and the reading stays constant, without going all over the place, causing you to lose faith in its preciseness.

Using the strap gives you a continuous readout of your heart rate and the watch will track how much time you spend below your target zone, in your zone, and above your zone. It'll even beep if you go too high, which leads me to my next point.

The second or third time I tried jogging in my recent fitness journey, I did a thirty second interval which turned into forty seconds because I would have had to stop in front of a family on their front lawn watching the obese man trying to jog. Although my breathing wasn't overly intense at the forty seconds, it took off on me shortly afterwards.

That means my heart was racing towards its maximum rate because I was sucking wind, as they say. My chest tightened up and I started to get concerned that I was going to have a cardiac event. That didn't happen, but I was very cautious from that point forward and restricted my jogs to the length of time I set out to do.

I asked my doctor if I risked dropping dead by exercise and he basically told me that if I stay within reasonable heart rate limits (not at the maximum), I'll be fine. He described the tightening of the chest before I even mentioned it to him and told me that was one reason to purchase a monitor.

I like the heart rate monitor I bought today and will use it on a treadmill in winter as well, and at the gym.

My walk tonight produced a heart rate of 116 beats per minute, give or take a beat or two, which is about 67% of my maximum. Pretty much where you'd expect a walk to be, but as a measure of improving fitness, I'd bet it's much lower than when I first started walking four months ago.

I will say that I felt a little like Robocop out there tonight, with my iPod Touch tracking my pace and talking in my ear, the Nike Plus shoe sensor on my shoe, my heart rate watch on my wrist and a monitor strapped around my chest. But what the heck? It's all a little dose of motivation. The more you know what's going on with your body the better, in my opinion.