Running Again

I'm running again as part of my SparkPeople commitment to myself.
Today it was raining and I looked out the window at the rain splashing on the sidewalk. I stood in the kitchen in my running clothes and thought, "I can run tonight after work." Then I ate breakfast, had a cup of coffee and stared into the rain some more.
And then I ran.
I didn't set any records. I didn't even do as well distance-wise as I did the day before yesterday. But I ran and that was my goal. I'm typing this wet.
I'm supposed to do some other exercises today, crunches, push-ups, that sort of thing. Upper-body stuff. That's not going to happen. Maybe in a few days... more likely after released by the doctor. If he really IS a doctor. It's a workman's comp doctor. I should never have said it happened at work. I've got insurance and I could have seen a doctor who wanted to a) figure out what was wrong and b) fix it. Instead I have a doctor who said, and this is a quote, "That's impossible." He then said take Aleve for a week and come back. He literally, if I held his family over a vat of acid and asked him to tell me whether the tattoo on that shoulder was tribal or colored or if I had a tattoo on that shoulder at all would have no idea. He NEVER LOOKED AT IT.
You know why people sue companies? It's not just for the free money. It's because when they send them to corporate health clinics instead of letting them go to their doctor, they get sub-standard care and are treated like they're trying to get off work with pay. I've got almost 200 hours vacation in my vacation bank. I don't need a doctor's note to get time off work. I need a vacation request form and I can print those out myself. When I'm treated like a criminal it makes me angry.
Originally I went to the doctor to identify what was causing the pain and I want it to stop. Instead I was told I couldn't be having it and to take Aleve. When I pointed out to the doctor that my regular doctor had told me not to take NSAIDs he said, "He didn't mean this one." No kidding. That's what he said. I pointed out that this wasn't a general thing he said like quit smoking, lose weight, eat more vegetables, he'd indicated I had degraded kidney function and NSAID's weren't going to help with that. The pseudo-doctor said, "He meant for prolonged periods. This is only for a week." I sat up straighter. "A week? That IS a long time. It says not to take it longer than a few days unless told to by a doctor on it." He responded that he WAS a doctor. I gave him a raised eyebrow.
I got back to work and sent an e-mail asking for another medical alternative because this guy is an idiot. I don't care who you are, even Doctor House has to see the thing he's diagnosing... or at least one of his interns does and they tell him about it. My doctor saw my shirt. He never asked me to move it to identify range of motion. He massaged it and said "That's impossible."
So, we'll see... but honestly. I understand why people sue sometimes. It's not just for the free money. It's because when I'm in pain and want it to stop I don't want the doctor to tell me it's impossible and then ignore me when I tell him the medicine he's giving me is one I was told not to take. I want him to TRY to diagnose. I want him to TRY to tell me what's wrong and how he plans to fix it. NOT tell me it's impossible and take Aleve. If anything really is wrong, he deserves to be sued to death for not listening to his patient... that'd be me.

I might be "that" guy.

Yesterday while running wearing my hoodie it occurred to me that soon I wouldn't need it. The weather was warming up and I'd be down to shorts and a technical shirt. My first thought after that was "Where will I put my iPod?"

I can't strap it to my left arm. That's where my GoWear fit  by BodyMedia goes, and my wrist has my Garmin 305 on it. My front right pocket has my phone with GPS running to map my path. If I strap another thing on my other arm, my iPod for instance, I'll be practically bionic. But without a pocket I don't know where else I'd put it. I'm afraid Chris' accusation that running was just another way to get more gadgets may be right after all. As much as I was irritated by the Nike+ thing when it would lock up and show my 4 mile run as .2 miles over 55 minutes I keep toying with the idea of putting it back on because I like the community features of it.

I'm going to use DailyMile.com and hope that the community, goals etc. in there are comparable and scratch the itch. But there's no really easy way to get the data in there. It means typing it in again. I already have to enter my miles into GoWagon, SparkPeople, and my paper running journal. I'm getting tired of doing that. There's a lot of running tracker sites out there, and I enjoy the choices. I just wish there were one I liked as much as I liked the Nike+ site. You'll notice I'm not linking to it... it's because I can't recommend it because of the faulty uploads and there's no solution to it. I just kept losing runs and you can't manually enter them.

Hey, in case you missed it. DailyMile.com is the site that I think has the most potential for keeping me. I need to play with it some more, but it looks more fun than the one I've been primarily using (GoWagon) which is a little more serious feeling, and less fun.

Changing it up...

I was using the Nike+ for a long time to track my runs. It quit working a couple times... more than a couple times. It kept losing runs I'd done. The run would show up on the iPod and on itunes but I couldn't get it to show up on the website so I wouldn't get credit for the run... it wouldn't count for me. Yeah I'd done it, but no credit... no counting irritated me. I loved the Nike+ site a lot... but without a way to manually enter runs that their hardware lost it wasn't worth it for me to keep using it. The aggravation was too much.

So, I ditched the Nike+. Today I unbookmarked Nike's site. If they ever added a way to manually enter lost runs I might go back to them. It's unlikely though. What I switched to is the GoWear fit Lifestyle and Calorie Management System. It's a device I wear on my upper arm and it measures my steps, calories used through the day, and tracks it for me on a website. There's a subscription fee (The first three months were free.) but I like the information so far. I'll give it a solid B+. I wish it synced with SparkPeople.com, but nothing really does so I guess I shouldn't count that against it. It would be cool if it tracked the running like the Nike+ shoe pod does. It seems to know when I'm moving a lot and it counts steps and knows the time. It seems like it could track my running somehow.

The food tracking on the Go Wear fit site is nowhere near as good as the food tracking on SparkPeople.com which is excellent. If you haven't joined SparkPeople yet just to track your food to see how much food you eat, calories, salt, fat, etc... you really should join it. If only for a week.

One of the things I like about the thing is it tracks my sleep and shows how effective it is. You know those days where you feel like you're woke up on the wrong side of the bed and you just have no energy? The armband showed I was moving around a LOT on those nights. It showed me laying down for seven hours but actual sleep it showed as closer to five for a couple nights in a row. I wasn't sleeping well at all... I'd never have known other than feeling a little tired. So. I changed pillows and room temperature and things started getting better. They're not perfect yet. The bed's too soft. But things are better and the armband showed me the efficiency of my sleep. Very cool.

Does this track my running? No. Not really. It tracks other things, but not my running. When I'm on the treadmill I've got the treadmill to do that for me. When I run outside I've got a Garmin gadget from Christmas to use for that... and my android phone. But I need an online running log because that's how I do things... online. So, I use gowagon.com and am really happy with it. It used to import my Nike+ runs. Now I can manually enter my runs from wherever I get the information. The social aspect of Nike+ challenges aren't what I wish they were over on gowagon.com but as more people use it then it'll grow there as well. If you work out on a bike, walking, running, elliptical or spinning you can use this site to track your progress.

Book Review: The Spark

The Spark, written by the creator/founder of SparkPeople.com is a new fitness book building on the success of SparkPeople.com and introducing it to people who aren't necessarily online. It brings the site to the Luddites out there as it were. Having read it on my kindle I can only say I'm very glad I didn't have to carry the thing around with me. It's ORANGE! Wow is it orange. I included a picture to show just how orange it really is.

SparkPeople.com is a fitness website that focuses primarily on baby steps, small steps you can make to improve your health. Chains of small steps will add up to big steps. Falling backward from a small step isn't as daunting as falling backward from a big step. That really is a huge part of the system and it's huge. It also makes a distinction between dieters and people changing the way they live. The book beats this into your head as well. A lot. Over and over again. The thing is... it has to soak in. Diets are temporary things that people go on until they fit into a swimsuit or wedding dress then in a weekend of pizza, nachos, and chicken alfredo they are right back where they were before. Either hoping to maintain or happy that "that's over with!"

The book starts off asking us to write down what we eat. Honestly, that's been what I've been doing for three weeks now and I've lost weight. I know it sounds stupid but it's true. Just writing down what I am going to eat makes me reconsider what I shove in my face during the day. Without using the very advanced menu building tips in the book (and on the website) or any of the recipes in the appendix of the book I've managed to lose weight doing just the stuff in Chapter 4. "Ah," you're saying, "but Rich... you've been running!" That's true. I've been running for 3 months though and not lost any weight because I was eating more.

In the book it mentions that 70% of people polled say that they are inspired by reading other people's success stories and that it's a powerful motivator for them. The Spark will help those people feel motivated and inspired then because barely a page goes by that doesn't have something blockquoted. Here's the thing. I find those to be as distracting as the songs and singing were in The Lord of the Rings books. I skipped them to. I'm not big on anecdotes. This, from a blogger... yeah. I get the irony here OK? I'm not a slave to being consistent, don't try and make me one.

The suggestions in the book are clear-cut. The action steps are easy, plentiful, and many. They work too. I've used the site and talked about it before.If a person had  no access to SparkPeople.com I would absolutely recommend this book. If they have access to SparkPeople.com I would say go there first. If they like the site I would then recommend the book. If their complaint about the site is that it's too busy and frenetic I might still recommend the book because it's  less cluttered. Certainly an advantage to the printed page!

Honestly had I never encountered the website I wouldn't have bought the book. I won't lie. The cover doesn't speak to me at all. Have I mentioned it's ORANGE?!? I'd have missed out though. It's worth the money. If it hadn't been I wouldn't have littered this post with affiliate links aiming you at it in the hopes you will buy it.

The Spark: A Book Review

I just finished The Spark. It's a book written by the founder of SparkPeople.com, my fitness site of choice. I love SparkPeople.com, and if you've ever used it you'll find this book a nice supplement to the site. It's got the advantage of being offline and on paper so you can underline bits and highlight sections and... well, I read it on my kindle so that's about all I could do with it. Have I mentioned loving the kindle?

Eating Right

Part of my running that I haven't paid as much attention to as I should is what I eat. I'm tired of carrying extra weight around so I've gone over to SparkPeople, I talked about that last time I posted. and it's still the place I'm going. Chris suggested another site, a less busy site (SparkPeople is jam packed with 1200 buttons, ads, magazine style format layout and is just frenetic to look at. It offends my eye.) that I went to and tracked my food for a few days then ran the reports. I didn't like the reports. I loved the site, but the reports weren't cutting it for me.

So, I'm still on SparkPeople and tracking my food. It's funny that without a plan, just knowing that I have to write it down makes me pay attention to what I eat more and make better choices. When I go to a buffet, and I have twice since starting this, I choose MUCH more differently than if I weren't paying attention to what I ate and it's made a difference. I've lost several pounds since I started. I'm happy with that.

I've pre-ordered their book, there's a link to it on the right. It's available for the kindle as well if you're interested. Oh, speaking of the kindle. If you get one for Christmas, or know someone who has one, or have one yourself check out this really helpful page.

The best part about the eating right thing is breakfast. I really enjoy breakfast and I found that if I get two scrambled eggs and a piece of wheat toast with grape jelly on it I'm not only full through lunch I also feel like I've had a good meal. There's enough sugar in the jelly and carbs in the toast to comfort my little carb craving machine and the eggs keep me going. The little greasy spoon restaurant next door to me at work knows what my regular is now.

Lunch is whatever I want, and then dinner is eaten in stages at home. I eat a little when I get home, a little more an hour later, and then finally, half an hour after that an apple for a snack. It's spaced out so if I stay up late I won't get munchy. Nights are the time I'm most prone to snacking so I spread the meal out into several micro-meals. This is all easy to do at home. It'll be harder on the road and in hotels I think. I'll figure something out though. I'm making too much progress to screw it up with McDonald's Value Meals.

Today was an off day but since yesterday was a light day I did 25 minutes of stair climbing. Not on a stepper machine. I literally climbed the stairs at my house for 25 minutes. Up & down over and over again listening to Queensrÿche's Operation: Mindcrime. What a good album. I didn't realize until too late that I hadn't gotten my iPod and receiver all hooked up so that's two work outs this week that the Nike+ site won't know I did. Fortunately I can enter the stuff into my gowagon.com site to show off my exercise dedication!

SparkPeople - Fitness tracking not just diet tracking

I've been running for three months now and my weight varies across the week by around five pounds, some weeks more, some weeks less, but I'm typically in the 190s somewhere. You know where I was when I wasn't running? In the high 180s and low 190s. I never get to the 180s now! What the heck?!? I'd do better to quit running since I'm putting on weight while I run.

I don't think that really. I think what's happening is I run so I feel entitled to a few extra calories. Maybe some extra carbohydrates the day before my long run so I can "carb-up." The thing is... my long run is around half an hour. It's not really all that long and the "carbing-up" I'm doing isn't really helping. It's just an excuse. I think the term I read in Runner's World Magazine is "compensatory eating." I eat to compensate for the extra exercising I'm doing... and also eat my normal eating... so I'm getting more calories.

You know how many calories I burn running 3 miles? Around 444. You know how many calories are in a Nutty Bar? One of my favorite pretend healthy snacks because it's got peanut butter for protein that I need after a run to build muscle? Yeah... 320. That means if I also drink my Dole Grapefruit juice (290 calories) I'm already over feeding myself for the exercise I've done. And I can assure you my next meal... will not be a salad because since I exercised I will have EARNED a "real" meal. Ugh... you see the nasty stinking thinking don't you? The real miracle is that I haven't gained MORE weight!

Every time I've gone used Weight Watchers Online I've lost weight. I love the program and it's super easy for me to follow. (Especially when I had the blackberry. There was a WW app for the Blackberry that made life very nice. There isn't a WW app for the android that I've found yet.) But Weight Watchers Online isn't free. It costs money. Is it worth it? I've thought so twice and both times I've lost the weight. I hate paying though. Really I do.

SparkPeople is a site I really want to love. I'm going to use it again for two months at least. Over the next month I'm going to use it to track every bite I take and every drink I drink. I'll log my runs on there too but I need to know what I'm eating and I think that that will help. If I have to report that peanut butter and chocolate wafer treat by Little Debbie... perhaps I won't eat it. I'm going to give it a try. If you're on SparkPeople already shoot me a message there. My username is simplerich and I could use some diet support.

For what it's worth, Lifehacker listed SparkPeople as the winner of the reader choice (Hive Five they call it over there) for weight loss sites. It really is (SparkPeople it, not Lifehacker it) a rich site full of content. Sometimes it's too busy for me... I wish they had a guy version of the site that was more vanilla. It feels like it was designed for women. Am I the only one that feels that way? Anybody else even reading this blog that's ever been to SparkPeople?