How to get fit and stay fit, twenty years later (part 2, cardio exercise)

 AboutAnything  | Greg McComb

I can remember those lunch hours from twenty years ago like they happened yesterday.

 Shortly after I committed to losing my belly fat, I decided the best approach was to hop on a stationary-exercise bike and peddle and peddle...and peddle some more. Why not? Everybody else was doing it.  Exercise...burn calories, lose weight. Made sense.                    

        Peddling in a dank-dark  basement

   I didn't give a second thought to the fact I was peddling in a dank-dark basement in my office tower. Sunshine...who needs that. Same thing for fresh air. And, the fact I developed leg cramps after

peddling for half an hour - using the same repetitive motion -  didn't seem to faze me.  

Oh yes, peddling on-the-spot is really boring; like super boring. I juxtaposed the two pictures above to illustrate this point: the first is a scenic bridge we recently cycled over in Mont Tremblant, as part of a three-hour bike ride at the height of fall colors. Spectacular ride. The second is a row of stationary-exercise bikes in a basement. A pretty common sight in most gyms. 

  Question: how would you rather exercise? Of course, the bridge not the basement.

  Back to the exercise bike...I eventually quit peddling on-the-spot without much-of-a-plan to do anything else. I just gave up. That lost year didn't do much; my wobbly mid-section was still there, and I made few changes to my diet, thinking the calorie-burn from exercise would get the job done. It obviously didn't. Along with this cardio exercise, I also made an attempt at lifting weights but was immediately intimidated by all the muscle-bound jocks roaming the gym. More about that later.

                          ----------------

    Part 1 of this blog series explains how I changed my diet: I began fasting, eating healthy foods and I stopped snacking, while I monitored my weight-loss with a high-tech app. Part 2 will cover another 'slice' of the 'fitness pie' I developed in part 1: cardio exercise. 

                             ---------------

               Father's Day Boot Camp

  So, let's get started. What happened? As I said, I became so frustrated and bored with the stationary bike, I quit. I'm  not sure when the 'what's next?' happened. My best guess it was part of a special Father's Day my family organized for their 'fat daddy,' a nickname my daughter came up with. Well deserved.

    I can recall that day sharply. Not knowing what was in-store, I was driven to an aerial park with an

obstacle course and ziplines at nearby Gatineau Park. At the top of some of highest ziplines - looking down - I thought I would plunge to my death...seriously. And their out-of-shape dad did poorly in the obstacle course, huffing-and-puffing his way through it. 

 

    The day was a little like a boot-camp that army recruits are tested with, as part of initiation. Despite doing poorly, something clicked in my brain. An epiphany of sorts. I was exercising...hard...and having a bit-of-fun in the great outdoors with my family. The sun was shining, and it somehow energized me. Strangely, I even liked being scared; it got my adrenaline pumping. I wanted more!         

       Scuba diving and friendly sharks?!

 In the years that followed in my 40's, I doubled-down on this experience. I learned

how to do a lot of high-skill adventure sports. First up: scuba diving, a fairly technical sport. I eventually earned my advanced PADI ticket, and have done deep dives of 100 feet or more during wreck dives, and I did a cave dive at the Dudu Blue Lagoon in the Dominican Republic.  I even got close-up and personal with a dangerous black-tipped reef shark in the Florida Keys. For some reason, I wasn't scared. My scuba training taught me not to act agitated - actions the shark would interpret as aggressive - and it worked. You could say the sharks I encountered were friendly, but that would be a stretch. This brave woman who swims with sharks thinks they are, (click here).

           Choose a sport, any sport

   If scuba diving scares you or is above your skill level, I would recommend choosing an outdoor-adventure sport to your liking; one that you are comfortable with but still gets your adrenaline pumping. I also tried surfing while on vacation and mastered the pop-up, a

technical maneuver to stand-up on a surf board. Surfing is great exercise and builds your upper body while you paddle-out crashing through waves. (The picture to the left is a professional surfer; I rode the beginner waves near the shore...).  On the other hand, I gave kite boarding a try in Cabarete, Dominican Republic and it wasn't to my liking. Too scared the kite would lift me high-in-the-air and I would come crashing down.

  So, pick your poison, something that gives you a bit-of-a-rush. Anything but peddling monotonously in a dark basement. Along with these sports, you need to find a cardio exercise you can do regularly, at least four-times-a-week. Like walking, hiking or cycling...or snow-shoeing.....I'm Canadian eh?!  The rest of this blog will cover those sports.

           Snow-shoeing through bush

   So, yeah, snow-shoeing...one of my favorite winter sports. I learned how to plow through deep snow using high-tech snow shoes with pivoting-crampons, like the ones used by Sir Edmund Hillary to scale Mount Everest. 

Excellent cardio. Worked up a great sweat and didn't realize how difficult this sport was (and how I was getting in-shape) until I brought friends along and they complained they couldn't go any further as I nonchalantly plowed through the bush, drinking a cup of tea. We needed to stop for a beer break, they said. 

    I was lucky my house backed-off a greenbelt with a decent-network of winter trails. So, snow-shoeing two or three times a week was no problem, I simply walked out my back door. 

        Curling and too-much beer

  Speaking of beer, I continued to curl, a life-sport I picked up in my teens. I even coached curling for a Little Rocks league with my son

and daughter.  Love curling, great social sport. However, I wouldn't recommend it as part of a weight loss program, despite the fact that you burn a tonne of calories sweeping. The reason is that the best curlers tend to curl two hours; and then drink beer with their friends for another two hours. What you just lost in calorie burn, you quickly gain in a sedentary sit-down with your buddies. Actually liked the second part of curling just as much as the first (probably more), just didn't do much for my gut.

 

    Adventure cycling with hybrid bike

As I discussed in the opening, I quit the stationary bike and took my peddling outdoors, at first with a hybrid bike, a cross between a road and mountain bike. I chose hybrid because you can go pretty well anywhere with it: on city streets as well as back-wood trails, just not the really-rough ones. 

   I rode my hybrid bike to work for a few decades, and peddled through the trails in the national capital of Canada. I was extremely lucky that my region has

extensive-paved trails weaving through forests, hills and parks, some of the best in North America, (see photo left, for a river loop I often peddled). Not a fan of riding in-and-out of traffic in city streets, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Too dangerous. I have too many friends (3-in-all) who have had serious bike accidents while peddling in busy traffic. Two concussions and a busted-up neck.

    Unlike the stationary bike, I did not get bored with riding outdoors; I loved the sunshine and nature views; very addictive. One other thing. In the national capital, there are plenty of Tour-de-France-style riders; wearing spandex tights, they often buzzed past me. My advice: ignore them; they're a little like the muscle-bound show offs in the weight room. 

   Overall, plenty of sweat and calorie burn for a decent-length bike ride. Highly recommend. Look for any safe-and-scenic trails in your area, and hop on. Better yet, if your city or town is lacking trails, lobby them to build some. Bike and walking trails are a great way to boost your community, and ensure everyone has a chance to get fit.  The city of Fredericton,

New Brunswick, did just that: they funded the conversion of an old-scenic railway bridge to a walking/bike bridge and on any evening, hundreds of people can be seen strolling or riding across.                                        

               Electric bike innovation

As I approached my mid-60's, I found my stamina wasn't what it used to be. Climbing hilly trails on my bike in nearby Gatineau park 

wore me out. Luckily, at about this time, the bike industry started to innovate with a new-type of electric bike; something called ride-assist.  Pretty cool... Instead of being fully electric, you can set the 'assist' to different levels. Say you're climbing a steep hill, you can set the bike to full assist to pull you up, and then take it off when riding on the flat.  

    The bottom line is it allowed me to ride two or three hours in hilly Gatineau Park, and get the 'perfect' amount of cardio, a decent amount of 'sweat' but not worn out. No need for a nap afterwards, although I usually stopped for a quick beer; those habits I picked up while curling are hard to break. I recorded a recent ride through Gatineau park with an action camera duct-taped to the front handle bars; you can view the youtube video here.

          Walking, an exercise-for-life

 I'm not sure when I started to walk, but I've been a big walker for the better part of twenty

years; consistently...in every season. I like to get-in a decent hour-long walk at least four times a week; outside, in the fresh air; preferably in nature. The picture to the left is a hike path next to my house in Canada's national capital, just as the autumn leaves began to fall. Over the years, I've hiked it hundreds of times. I don't know what it is about hiking in the woods, as opposed to walking on a sidewalk next to a busy street with all-the-traffic noise and exhaust fumes. Some people call it forest bathing; I think it's just common sense to walk somewhere...anywhere...where you are close to nature and its calming effects.

  I recently retired to a Caribbean island and continue to walk at least four-times-a-week. The big difference is where.

I replaced the woods with a long, sandy beach; (see left) and I dip my toes in the ocean as I get my steps in...way better than a stationary bike. I am very lucky to have retired to Cabarete, Dominican Republic. It has some of the longest beaches in the world. A special law requires that hotels cannot build any closer than 30 meters from the shore, so I can walk for hours-and-hours without obstruction. 

   

     Because it's so hot in Cabarete, (high 80's F in the afternoon) I start my walks early in the morning when it's cooler; usually 7:30 a.m.ish.  Even though I start early, I often overheat and finish the walk off with a quick dip in a cool pool, before settling in for breakfast. Find this prevents any symptoms of sun stroke. Lately, I've been reading and hearing a lot about cold water therapy, and although I don't practice it (except by accident), recent research shows it has a lot of health benefits. So, if you can find a cool or cold pool after a walk or workout, jump in!

        Health benefits of walking...

     On the surface, walking doesn't seem like much exercise. It's easy and most days you barely work up a sweat. Many people think you need to run or jog to get decent exercise. 

       Nothing could be further from the truth.

  Study-after-study has demonstrated the numerous health benefits of walking from improved heart and lung (cardio) fitness, stronger bones and muscles, improved balance and the main focus of this blog series: losing weight and reducing body fat. (I'll expand on the fat part later).  

   Another big benefit of regular walking is that it increases your life span; you live longer. Studies like this one (click here) showed that people who walked at least 7,000 steps-a-day had a 50% to 70% lower risk of mortality (that's a fancy word for dying).

  One other thing. Like my ride-assist electric bike, walking is something you can do for your entire life. I'm sixty-five now, and can easily walk at a fast-pace down the beach. But I foresee a time in the next decade (uggh, I'll be 75) when I may have to slow down a bit and drop some of my adventure sports. I don't think this will ever happen to walking; I consider it an exercise-for-life. I'll still be doing it even if I have to use a cane or walker to get my steps in.

       Tracking progress with health app

   As a data-geek, I love to track my progress with numbers. With dieting, I used the Renpho scale and app to track my weight loss. Great for positive feedback. I do the same for walking, except I use the iphone Health app to track-my steps. The app is on everyone's iphone; it's a white box with a red-heart in the upper-right quarter.

There are a quite a few step-counting apps out there, and if you find one you like, use it. Android even has a few. I like the iphone app because you don't need to use a watch, and it has a simple interface that counts daily steps and graphs them in an easy-to-understand format, (see left). 

  The graph I generated shows I walked just over 8,000 steps-a-day over the past six months, about 1,000 steps above what it takes to make-a-dent in my life expectancy. Over the long-term, my step count seems to have an ebb-and-flow, sort of like prices on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). I don't really know why; it might be that my mood shifts from week-to-week. Sometimes I'm pumped to get out and walk; other days I am just lazy or doing something else. The key is to stay committed to walking for the long-term. 

      Sorry, cardio won't shed pounds

  So, I'm going to close-off this blog on cardio exercise with the bad news, cardio on-its-own will definitely not shed pounds. I like to use a Canadian analogy for this. Say I walked a brisk 8,000 paces and then stopped for a donut and a coffee at my local Tim Horton's. Using a handy steps-to-calories converter on this webpage, it shows I burned about 350 calories, not much for all that work. On the other hand, in the minute-or-two it took me to down a delicious honey cruller donut, I gained 310 calories, according to this calorie counting webpage. Kindof' a break-even day. 

  This all seems very unfair; you exercise for an hour in an effort to lose weight, and put it all back on during a short coffee break at your local Timmies.

      You may ask, what's the point? 

      The point is this. This blog series isn't about dieting and losing weight; it's about becoming

fit and healthy, while  maintaining a reasonable body weight. This is the fitness pie I talked about in my first blog, (see left). While you may not shed pounds during an-hour long walk, (especially if you eat a donut after)...if you walk (or cycle or snow-shoe) regularly you'll do something even better. You'll improve your cardio health, lowering your risk of a heart attack or stroke; and increase your life span.  You'll also feel a lot better; you'll improve your mental wellness as your body produces feel-good neurotransmitters called endorphins. 

    For me, the adventure sports are a bit special. Not only do they give me a temporary-high from endorphins and adrenaline; they also boost my mental health long-term as I obsess-a-bit about  how I am learning to scuba dive or surf, pretty cool sports. They give me a fun sense-of-purpose as I improve my skills and talk (ok, brag-a-bit) about them with my friends. 

   Don't get me wrong, exercising regularly will shed some pounds, but not as much as you would think. Humans have evolved so we use the food we consume very efficiently. We don't have to eat much to keep us going; any excess is stored as fat, mostly around our midlines. That's why if you are overweight, the initial focus should be on watching what you eat, and using some of the strategies I outlined in the first blog: fasting, eating healthy foods, no more snacking, and monitoring your weight-loss with a high-tech app.

  With that, I will end this blog. The next one in this series will be about building muscle and joint strength through resistance training, something we used to call weight lifting.

 

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