Dusting off My Home Treadmill

My treadmill. I eat people that size for lunch.

When we bought our current home a couple of years ago I made sure we factored in a treadmill--a nice quiet and powerful one. Got this baby delivered from Costco online. Had to get my friend Jack to carry it up the stairs, it was so ridiculously heavy, even unassembled.

I actually used the thing on a regular basis for about three months ending a year and a half ago. I used it every other day for about 20 minutes. I noticed an improvement in my health but nothing like I did when I started walking around the neighbourhood every day for the same amount of time this spring.

I found the treadmill tedious and boring. My kids were always excited when I got on but hassled me all the time and I tensed up worrying about their safety, especially my two-year-old at the time.

I set up numerous fans and perspired like the dickens. I was really out of shape. Walking on the treadmill isn't quite as good as walking in the real world but I did have a few fantastic workouts where I got lost in my thoughts, exercised for over a half hour and pumped up the incline a bit to get my blood pumping even more. Endorphins flowed freely.

Time on the treadmill at the gym seems to pass so much faster than at home. In both situations I have headphones playing music but at the gym, maybe, I can let my mind wander when I'm not worrying about family coming and going. Also, not staring at a wall, as I do at home, might be a better environment.

The treadmill I walk and jog on at my clinic's gym is a pro-quality treadmill. It's very sturdy and very powerful. My floor tends to wobble at home, just a bit, but enough to distract me.

With winter suddenly here, I decided to literally dust off my treadmill and home and test it out. One thing I noticed tonight is that I'm Superman now compared to before. I'm so much stronger and my heart hardly notices the challenge. I'm stronger and more fit. I've come a long way. The old me on that treadmill was a sickly, profusely sweaty, unhealthy man.

Heavy D

Speaking of which, rapper Heavy D passed away today. He was only 44. I'm not familiar with him in any way beyond recognizing his name and knowing he was heavy, but it's yet another overweight celeb dying in their early forties.

I let my eight-year-old son try the treadmill tonight, using every precaution to keep him safe. Man did he love it. He put in more than 15 minutes in his formal dress clothes. He was fiddling with the incline and speed, slowing it down to have a drink of water, and trying out running. He was very, very happy about his experience and immensely proud of himself. I suspect he'll want to do it a lot more.

He's not a very good runner because he always hops and skips and then slows down. He also has poor form with his arms (he's had a lot of fine motor skill issues.) Running on a treadmill might force him into a proper technique and boost his confidence in sports at school and in soccer.

New Shooz

Nike Air Pegasus, Livestrong (about $130 in Canada)

I decided to buy some new running shoes yesterday and, after some research, found that one of Nike's most popular runner (Air) is one of the shoes commonly recommended for someone like me who has high arches and/or is heavy. The reason these shoes are good for me is their high amount of cushioning in the heal. They happen to have been my running shoe of choice over the years but I rarely splurge on expensive runners except when I'm on a fitness kick.

But let me tell ya, it's worth it!

What a huge difference they make, especially when I'm jogging. I really noticed their benefit when I started trotting on the treadmill this morning. It seemed like gravity had been reduced slightly! (P.S.: I'm all for having gravity reduced if for no other reason than to stop the sagging.)

The difference was so noticeable that I was repeatedly surprised to see my heart rate at the top end of my training zone (85% of max.) because my lower body felt so good. It didn't feel like it was working as hard as it normally does when I jog. And my ankle pain was more or less non-existent.

I set a new personal modern day record for jogging time by doing 12 minutes on the treadmill at incline 1 (to match real-world exertion.) I felt pretty good afterwards, considering it's twice as long as I normally jog.

Today was my last workout at my clinic for some time as I wait to get my 3 year old daughter into a preschool in the fall. Hopefully when she starts somewhere in late September, I can have the time and the freedom to get back to the gym. (We have absolutely no childcare support because we have little surviving family left in town and no other options that we can afford.)

The gym at my medical clinic was made available to me to support my lifestyle changes. Some day I hope to write a nice long post about how amazing my medical clinic is and how I think everyone should have access to the services they provide free of charge.

Why You Shouldn't Be Scared of Jogging

There's two main things I got out of watching obesity reality shows: An insight into the mental dysfunction it takes to become severely obese, and that the obese body is every bit capable of exercise as any healthy body. It may take longer, but if you make your body move, it adapts in a remarkable fashion for the next time it might have to do the same thing.

If all you can do is walk to the nearest lamp post, do it. Do it a few times then start walking a few steps further each day. You'll find your body is adapting and probably building the muscle necessary to complete the task.

With me, I could walk about twenty minutes when I started getting fit this time. I thought that was all I could do until I saw people twice my weight doing more, including jogging. So I almost doubled my walking time that I do every day and I was perfectly fine.

In my late twenties, when I first got fit and lost a great deal of weight, I cycled a lot and, after I lost about 40 pounds, started jogging. Much to my surprise I liked it. Hell, I loved it. It was so empowering to think that the lifelong fat guy could jog. But mostly I liked the endorphins that my body released when I exercised at a little higher intensity. I became an endorphins junkie. I can tell you that "runner's high" is very real. Maybe not everyone gets it easily, but I did.

It was big morale boost for me to be able to ride my bicycle a few times this month, but jogging--or as the kids these days call it: "running"--seems like the last frontier of exercise to conquer. I jogged for about ten seconds during my walk one night to see what would happen. I didn't die.

Earlier this month I would occasionally (not every night) start jogging for about thirty seconds after I got well into my walk. If I went any further I'd get severely out of breath and that doesn't seem safe to me. But, as any expert will tell you, all you have to do is jog for a little while (usually 90 seconds at first) and then walk for a couple of minutes to rest up, then repeat. That's called 'walking to run.' It's how most people start a jogging program if they're not already fit.

Ninety seconds is too much for me right now. I'm too out of shape and too heavy. My rule of thumb is to jog until I can't any more because I'm out of breath or my legs are too fatigued. At first it was 30 seconds, but now it's a minute, and today I did five minutes of a very slow trot on the treadmill at my clinic. Treadmills are a little easier than running in the real world because the side walk is moving for you. The remedy for that is to raise the incline of the treadmill up slightly to just 1%. That compensates for the moving walking surface.

It feels good to jog and it feels good to sweat. It's a self esteem boost and anything that helps me get out and exercise is important. I can see myself jogging for ten minutes later this year as part of my walks, but just not on consecutive days.

I hurt my knee when jogging when I got in shape fifteen years ago. Injury is possible but it's rare and you have to use common sense. If you're middle aged like me and or if you're quite heavy, taking a day off between jogs is important to help your body recover and get strong again. The compulsivity and risk taking behaviour that got me obese in the first place caused me to jog too much, too often and when my knee began to hurt, I didn't stop because I was looking for my endorphins fix.

It took a few months to heal and I really hated stopping jogging for that long. I've learned my lesson though. My knees are doing just fine these days. Four months ago they'd hurt just by walking up the stairs in my house. But my body has since greatly adapted to exercise.

Here's to good health!