Achieving and Surpassing My Winter Goal

It's amazing to me how quickly I've been moving from fantasies, to dreams, to goals, to achievements and beyond. Cycling moved quickly that way for me in the summer. At first it seemed nearly impossible or something that would take years to achieve. I came up with tobogganing with my kids as my winter goal this year and I'm amazed, as I was with cycling, how fast I moved from a dream to an everyday, no-big-deal, occurrence.

I noticed last night that I wasn't looking at my heart-rate monitor watch on a regular basis. Only once did I glance at it to make sure I wouldn't push my heart too far. When I did look, it was a little over my target maximum of 85%, but that's okay. I knew what was happening. My heart, and hill-climbing muscles were all getting stronger and more efficient, to the point that it was no big deal to walk up that big hill.

This means I felt like a normal, fully-capable person, for the first time in many, many years. Maybe even more capable than some sedentary thin people my age. This feeling is very different than what I experienced on the same toboggan hill a year ago with my kids. Then, I stood at the bottom of the hill and watched. Occasionally, I'd sneak halfway up the hill, slowly and with long pauses to rest, and shoot some pictures of my kids having fun. It was ingrained in me that I couldn't do what they did. I was ostersized from the world of the healthy.

After a couple exhilarating runs down the long toboggan hill last night, I stopped near the bottom, looked up at the surreal, artificially-lit winter scene, felt the strong but harmless winter wind in my face, and thought that I hadn't had this much fun since I was a kid. I later found myself alarmed by this realization. How much had I really missed out on all my adult life? And how much more fun should I be perusing in my future?

I'm not sure the answers to these questions yet, but I do know, a day spent without being active is a day wasted.

Tobogganing Day 2

I'm okay!

I could walk on the treadmill for thirty minutes like a mouse on a wheel or I can say, "Hey kids, lets' go tobogganing," and get a high intensity workout while having lots of fun with the family. 

It's like walking on a stair climber for an hour with short breaks when you go down the hill. 

Forgive Me, I'm A Bit Eurphoric

Winter Goal 2011: Accomplished! (And I lived!)

We haven't had a whole lot of snow and it is nastily cold out but my son and I hit the slopes and I tobogganed today for the first time in 25 years.

It's a great workout. I strapped on my heart rate monitor and I'm glad I did. A slow walk up the hill easily gets my heart rate up to 85% of max, where I like to limit myself. I had to pause for a moment or two now and again and slow down to keep my pulse in check, but I was amazed at how well I did. And I expect, like any new exercise, it'll get easier and easier as my body quickly adapts.

Last year I thought I was a hero for walking up the hill a couple of times during the winter but I did it really slowly, pausing to "watch the sledding" every now and again. And I didn't dare put my sedentary body on a sled.

For the last five years, since my first born was old enough to go sledding, I stood at the bottom of the hill envying him, as well as my wife who did the tobogganing. I thought for the first time in many years about the last times I went. It was just after I finished high school and some of my friends would head to the very same hill my son and I went on today.

I remember being dragged there on a really cold winter night and we had the hill all to ourselves. Remembering that night, I'd always be impressed with myself for going out on such a cold night and having fun. Everyone had a blast and I thought of that night often. Today was almost as cold and, as an overweight middle-aged man, I certainly could have stayed at home and had another predictable, safe day. God knows most of the children of Regina opted to stay indoors and play video games. But not me, I got out there, not knowing what might happen.

I put on some cheap winter boots that I bought today from Walmart on credit (don't blame me for being poor) and my deluxe MEC balaclava, stopped by Toys R Us and bought a wide plastic sled and headed for the hill.

My first ride down was surprisingly non-eventful. I seemed to go slow (the snow wasn't very packed down and there's still some grass sticking through.). My son sped ahead of me on his Norwegian-made sled which I wish I had when I was a kid (It has a fun fur seat, steering wheel and brakes on a plastic frame.) I marched up the hill with lots of energy an zest. Really, you don't stop hill-climbing save for the few moments it takes to hurtle down the slope. The subsequent runs were much faster and were a challenge for my recovering back. But what a blast!

My son was nonplussed. I thought it'd be a big deal for him since he's always asked me to to do this (and cycling.) It was just another day on the toboggan hill for him. I'm sure he'll remember it though.

It occurred to me today, after I did the math, that my father was my age (46) when I was born. He died twenty years later and throughout that time, his health steadily deteriorated, mostly due to a weak heart. He was somewhat overweight and had smoked until I was five but he never exercised. That's going to be the difference maker for me and for my kids.

I couldn't have even imagined in my wildest dreams my father going tobogganing with me when I was a kid. I don't even think he went with my brothers who were born eleven and twelve years before me. And all this wouldn't be possible with just weight loss alone.

It's a common theme on this blog that exercise empowers me to do so much more than would be otherwise possible, even with weight loss alone. Just having the confidence in my body to sit down on a sled wouldn't have been possible without having changed my body with fitness and strength.

So the dreaded Winter season has arrived and the side walks are slippery or impassable for walking or jogging. But for a workout--a great workout--all I need do is grab a kid and our sleds and head a few blocks East to the toboggan hill.

I'll keep you updated!

Street Mockery: A Possible Pitfall To Taking Up a Fitness Quest

It's been suggested by more than a couple of people that I write this blog to inspire others, not only the obese with looming health problems (like the recent me), but also couch potatoes everywhere who would benefit from exercise inspiration. I don't know if my potential for motivation is realistic or not, but I'd hate to think for one second that I would ever write something that would discourage someone from firmly grasping the reins of their life and yelling "giddy-up!"

I worry that there might be someone reading this, now or in the future, who is sitting on the fence and might be scared off by something I write. So don't take this story as something to worry about. I don't. We fat people often have a thick skin anyway. I don't let myself get bothered by these things and I tend to forget about these types of incidents a couple hours after they happen, and you can too.

There are a lot of teenagers in my suburban neighbourhood and there doesn't seem to be much for them to do but roam the street in packs. When I got to the point in my walk (time-wise and geographically) where I start jogging I saw a pack of teen-aged girls walking a bit ahead of me in the middle of the street while I was on the side walk. I thought to myself that this'll be a test to see if I can jog publicly without being self-conscious. It was much earlier than I usually walk-jog so the streets and side walks were a lot more busy than I'm accustomed. Nevertheless, I had little hesitation about it since I've been getting a lot more relaxed hustling my large but ever-more capable body around these days on foot and bicycle.

I hit the button my my iPod for my "powersong" (the Nike apps have have a powersong you can jump to when you want to kick it up a notch) and I began jogging. Heart rate monitor attached, I tried to make sure my pace was nice and slow like I usually have it. I wanted to make sure I wasn't going too fast due to people watching.

I trotted along and kept an eye on the girls waiting for them to notice. With music blasting in my ears, I could still see their body language and understand what was going on. One looked back at me, told another, they all looked and it went on from there.

One girl broke from the crowd and decidedly wandered in front of me on the side walk and slowed down. A lifetime of being overweight conditions you to ignore things like this. However--and I blame my combative and troubled childhood for this--I wanted to punch her in the back of the head. Instead, I side-stepped her while attempting to ignore her and her friends, at least on the surface.

But they weren't done. Small groups of them mockingly started to run down the street then fall down, feigning exhaustion. By the time I got to the intersection of a main street, they had fallen down on the street, in the lane of oncoming traffic and an SUV stopped right in front of me, causing me to quickly run to avoid it. All told I had not kept my very slow pace that was usually no more than 78 percent of my maximum when I jogged, a fair way shy of the 85% I'm supposed to stay below.

By the time I left the attention-starved, hormone-laden teen girls behind (and a horrified driver) I had unintentionally got my heart rate 20 beats above my 85% limit, just 9 beats below my maximum heart rate. My chest was starting to tighten and I was sucking wind like crazy. I couldn't get enough air. At first I was stubborn and didn't want to cut short my jogging routine (6.5 minutes) but a few moments later, I came to my senses and started to walk again. It took quite a few moments for my heart rate to recover to a reasonable level. I was discouraged, pissed off and lucky I didn't have a heart attack.

When I first started exercising in the spring I was doing a 20 minute walk around my block (It's a huge block due to a green space and school.) One Friday night I encountered a large group of very hyper young teenagers near the school. I crossed to the other side of the street before I was anywhere near them but one boy had to notice me and get inspired. He dropped his pants and mooned me from about ten yards away. Once again, I had music blaring in my ears and it was all visual only, but I wanted to tell him I wasn't interested. He seemed desperate to impress the girls he was with and a comeback like that probably wouldn't have gone over well.

I'm a big guy. I'm six feet tall and apparently have anger issues. People should leave me alone. If you're a woman, maybe you might feel more vulnerable. But don't. I see overweight women walking alone in my hood every night. No one hassles them and if they ever did, they'd have to deal with me. I'm much more capable of kicking someone's ass now that I was five months ago!

If you are worried about these kinds of rude confrontations, don't walk late at night like I do. But remember, they're harmless. And we all know these little screwhead punks will grow up to be fat, sedentary and friendless.

Give them your pity, but not your attention.

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UPDATE: I have been touched and astonished at the anecdotes friends have shared on Facebook regarding this post. Apparently I'm not alone and there are some terrible, cruel people out there. But they're mostly kids who will one day know better.

Goal Completed and I Feel Like a Million Bucks!

My son and I cycled the length of the longest bike path in my city at dusk tonight (about 18 KM total). This has been a goal of mine for many weeks. Before that, it was a dream.

We had to push hard to beat the fading twilight. I got a great workout because my heart rate stayed up in the 80% range for most of the trip, which took about an hour and ten minutes.

I try to cycle on cool evenings because I get exhausted easily by the heat, due to my excessive weight, I assume. I learned that I need to take more than one bottle of water with me on these trips because my large body needs more hydration than a regular sized person.

I can't tell you how amazing I feel right now. And it's not just because I completed an important goal, erasing the ghost of a past humiliation (not being able to go with my seven-year-old son last Fall when he first completed this marathon bike ride alone), but because of how perfectly healthy and invigorated I feel.

The storm that chased us the other night must have got me in good shape for tonight because tonight I did NOT feel like a morbidly-obese man (which I still am).

I didn't feel like an obese man.

I didn't feel like a fat man.

I didn't even feel like a middle-aged man (which I am.)

I felt like I did fifteen years ago when I was 29, lost all my excess weight and was in the best shape of my life. I felt like I could go on forever on this beautiful August night (provided I had more water!)

The fact that I did this, the fact that I feel so remarkably good physically at this moment seems like a dream.

If I keep going, if I never stop, I'll never wake up from this dream. And that's what I have to do.

Bike Ride Leads to Electrifying Bonding Experience With My Son

My son, his trusty bike, and approaching weather.

I've been looking for motivation to do more cycling. I've upgraded my bike to (possibly) support my weight, I'm training at my clinic's gym to have the strength to do it, but for some reason, I'm still a little hesitant to "get on the horse," as it were.

Part of the reason may be that it can be difficult at first if I'm not warmed up. Doing a few minutes of slow jogging after 15-20 minutes of walking doesn't seem more than a progression of what I'm already doing.

Biking can involve a getting the heart rate up fast and, frankly, I have to dig the thing out of the shed, fill my water bottle and don extra shorts, gloves and a helmet. And part of me wants to preserve my bike until I'm lighter.

Starved for entertainment, I decided tonight was the night I was going to tackle the Devonian Pathway in my city. It's a multi-use pathway that spans about 8 KM or so, covering much of the city. Last fall my son, who was still six years old, rode the entire pathway by himself. It was part of a parenting philosophy I've embraced to give my children freedom so they can learn not to be fearful and to solve problems on their own. In short, it's an anti-helicopter parenting philosophy. There's a movement, check it out.

I let my son do it because he's quite smart for his age, knows more than most GPSs when it comes to geography and he really wanted to do it. Normally I would have gone with him on my bike but I was unable to due to my poor physical condition. It would have suited him fine if I was able to go, it's not that he was asking to go alone, but he was eager to attempt it, even without me or his mother riding with him.

I followed in a car but due to the nature of the terrain, I wasn't able to keep constant watch on him. I had a few nervous moments waiting for him to appear at the next check point but he always did, with a big smile on his face, pedalling like crazy (he only lost his training wheels two months earlier.)

I couldn't do what he was doing and I regretted it. At the time I didn't even dare to dream that I ever could attempt something like that again in my lifetime. Tonight, I set out to put that skeleton in my closet behind me. I decided we'd do the path tonight. I figured it'd take an hour or so round trip.

However, storm clouds threatened. There was a line of rain pouring out of the sky to the west of the city. The trail starts at the West end of the city and it seemed like it might hit us. My boy, now seven, pushed me to continue. "We can always turn around Daddy."

We got about half way when the lightning got a little too intense and a little too close. I changed my mind about the storm missing us. My son convinced me to turn around and make the fifteen minute trip back to the van, even though we'd be going into the storm.

I was wearing my heart rate monitor strap that happens to work with my old bike computer from fifteen years ago. I can see my heart rate on the little computer screen, below my speed, distance, etc. As we pushed hard to beat the rain clouds and lightning, I could see my heart rate rising to the 85% level, the maximum my doctor recommended I go.

I began weighing the risk of heart attack vs the risk of being hit by lightning. Maybe it didn't matter because a friend later joked, "lightning is nature's defibrillator." I kept my heart rate at 85% even though I wanted to pedal harder to possibly save my life. (OK, it wasn't that bad!)

As the skies grew even darker, the wind blew harder and the rain began to pelt us, I told my son that in all the years I've cycled (avidly until my early twenties when obesity came, and again later when I got fit for a period) that I had never cycled in a thunderstorm. The first time was with him.

I was really impressed with my son. He watches the weather channel a lot and we worry that he might be scared of severe weather but he was cool as a cucumber. The kid who runs in the house to change as soon as he gets water on himself outside on a hot day didn't even want to change into dry clothes when we got home.

I suspect he will remember this evening fondly for the rest of his life. I will too. There's nothing like cheating death to bring a family together.

It's also a good way to get a wicked workout.

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.