Twenty-ninth weight progress report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

This past year has seen repeated attempts to recover from the weight gain of the previous two years.

I’m right on the upper edge of my self-imposed weight range. If I stop paying attention to my weight or start snacking to cope with the stress of grading, my weight shoots up rather quickly.

As I mentioned in Starting jogging, I started running over Memorial Day weekend. I’ve kept it up for 9 days, with only minor aches from stretching out muscles and tendons that don’t get used on my bicycle.  During March, April, and May I also averaged 4.66 miles a day of bicycling (mainly my bike commute to work).  The bicycling helps loosen up muscles that tighten from the running.

I started jogging over Memorial Day weekend, and have gradually been increasing my distance. (For those who prefer Imperial units, 12 km/h is an 8-minute, 3-second mile pace, and 2km is 1 mile 1282 feet.)

I plan to continue running throughout the summer, with distances gradually increasing. Once I get up to about 3km, I’ll start alternating short and long days, to give my muscles some time to heal between the longer runs.  When I get up to 10km, I’ll probably switch to a long-rest-short cycle, to allow more healing time.

I’m in better shape now than I was in summer 1970 when I couldn’t run a mile, but not in as good shape as summer 1971 when I could run a 6-minute mile (16 km/h) and could run up to 15km (though only at 12 km/h).  Although I’ve been keeping to around 12 km/h so far, I expect to slow down as the distances increase.  I’d like to keep above 10km/hr (a 9:40 mile pace), though, or the running will take up too much time.

My current goal is 12km runs by  Bike Santa Cruz County’s  12km run on 26 August 2018 and 15km runs by the end of October.  If I don’t injure myself, I’d like to get to the point where I run a marathon before the end of 2021.

So far, I’ve been running in my Teva sandals, which have more padding in the soles than any of my other shoes, and which fit comfortably.  I’ll be buying some running shoes in a couple of weeks, once I have some spare time.  I’ve been recommended Altra and Brooks Cascadia shoes, and both lines are carried at Santa Cruz Running Company (along with half a dozen others brands).  The method they describe for helping customers pick shoes sounds reasonable, and better than just picking a low-cost shoe randomly from Amazon (which is pretty much how I choose my bicycling shoes every 4 or 5 years).

 

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Twenty-eighth weight progress report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

My weight has fluctuated a lot in the last year, but I’ve stayed pretty much in my target range for February.

It is probably about time for me to pick new breakpoints for long-term trend lines. I can’t really pretend that my “maintain” period is really modeled well as a single straight line.

My goal is to stay in the middle of my target range (~158 lbs), but this may be harder to achieve than I had originally envisioned three years ago when I started on the weight-control effort.  I’ve been skipping lunch entirely lately, which makes me a bit hungry on the days when it is 14 hours between breakfast and dinner (mostly Tuesdays and Thursdays when I have late lab classes to teach).

February had me riding an average of 4.78 miles a day—about normal for a 5-day-a-week commute with a tiny bit of weekend errand-running.  I have had huge grading loads most weekends, so sometimes I don’t even get time to do a short errand like biking down to Trader Joe’s for soy milk and cereal.

I’m still thinking that I’ll try doing some running this summer, not for weight control but to start training for running a marathon when I retire.  The longest distance I’ve ever run was 15km, and that was about 47 years ago.  I was recently told that Bike Santa Cruz County (that is the renaming of the “People Power” group that used to meet in my living room, back when I was a bike activist) sponsors a 12km run on 26 August 2018, mostly on flat dirt trails at Wilder Ranch.

If I plan on building up to longer runs by increasing length by 1km each week, then I’ll have to start training around Memorial Day. My initial training will be very easy, perhaps on the UCSC 800m track or the Santa Cruz High 400m track (both approximate measurements on Google maps).  Later in the summer I will probably alternate long days (leading up to 12km by the end of August) and short days (1–2km).  On short days, I should probably do some cycling to maintain some cardiovascular fitness—cycling up to the UCSC track to do two laps would probably make a decent short day.

 

 

 

Twenty-seventh weight progress report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

I’ve finally gotten my weight back in my self-chosen target range, but only barely. Keeping it there will be tough.

My goal is to stay in the middle of my target range (~158 lbs), but this may be harder to achieve than I had originally envisioned three years ago when I started on the weight-control effort.

January had me riding an average of 3.85 miles a day—slightly over my longer-term average, but not up to what I expect for February, as I did not start riding to campus daily until classes started.  I’m thinking that I’ll try doing some running this summer, not for weight control but to start training for running a marathon when I retire.  The longest distance I’ve ever run was 15km, and that was about 47 years ago.  Maybe I can get in shape enough to run (slowly) 15km by the end of the summer. I’m not sure there is anything available, though, as the running calendars on the web don’t seem to have events that far in the future.

 

 

Twenty-sixth weight progress report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

Although I managed to get my weight back within my target range around the end of October, I’ve not managed to keep it there.

Long term, random fluctuations are about ±3 pounds, but there is an upward drift of about 3 pounds a year that I need to resist.

My goal is to lose five pounds and keep them off—staying in the middle of my target range, but this may be harder to achieve than I had originally envisioned three years ago when I started on the weight-control effort.

November and December had me riding an average of only 3.29 miles a day—over the whole year about 3.6 miles a day. In a week, my exercise will go back up, as I’ll be cycling to campus five times a week, for winter and spring quarters.  That guarantees me 4.6 miles a day average, which will get me off to a good start.  But summer and next fall’s sabbatical will probably reduce the exercise hours again.

My family did get in a nice walk yesterday (about 5.6 miles with 580 feet of climb).We had mapped out 3 possible routes before we went for the walk, with different turnaround points depending on how tired we felt.  We ended up taking the middle of the three.

We started from home, walked to the end of Escalona, along the bike path to Harvey West Park, then took the Harvey West trail and Pogonip Creek trail to the Pogonip, up through the Pogonip to the Spring Trail, then back down the Spring Trail, Spring Street, and Laurent Street to home.  It’s been years since I’ve walked in the Pogonip, and I’ve never walked the Harvey West and Pogonip Creek trails before.  They were very quiet and shady—we saw a lot more walkers on the Spring Trail and on the trails near Golf Club Drive.

The shorter route would not have reached the meadows of the Pogonip, turning up Lookout Trail up to Spring Street (cutting off about 1.4 miles).  The longer route would have taken us up to the Spring Box/Koi Pond and then come down Coolidge Drive rather than Spring Trail, adding about 1.6 miles.  (Google maps has all the major trails in the Pogonip marked, if you want to see where we went.)

Somewhat surprisingly, my wife, who does the most walking of any of us on a daily basis, was the slowest of the group. My son and I walked at abut the same pace, with his youth compensating for his lack of routine exercise.

 

 

Twenty-fifth weight progress report

This post is yet another weight progress report, continuing the previous one, part of a long series since I started in January 2015.

 

My weight has finally gotten back within my self-imposed target region.

The recent rapid drop is probably due to the Mechatronics class—I have to bicycle up to campus almost daily, and I spend the day in the lab without eating.

The month of October had me riding an average of 5.23 miles a day. I’ll probably keep up almost this level through November, but my trips to campus will drop in December, but come back up in January.

Incidentally my cholesterol level is essentially unchanged several months after switching from 40mg atorvastatin to 20mg rosuvastatin—my HDL/LDL ratio may be slightly better, but that is probably just noise in the measurements.