Exercise
Yes, I'm posting...
Recently, baby girl has dropped her nursings to twice a day. I don't mind. It's way more convenient. However, I now have reached the stage that the amount of calories I'm consuming is exceeding the amount of calories I'm burning. Some kind of activity is going to have to replace the missing 3-4 nursings or I'm going to have to cut back on the goodies.
I was able to eat dessert any time. So many times I'd have seconds. *sigh* I'm getting further away from fitting into my very skinny jeans (my favorite pair!). I actually fit into them when baby girl was 5 months, but ... oh wait, that's when she started solid food... gradually they've become tight enough to not be publicly acceptable for a 30-year old and now I can't button them without a little something over the waist band.
I've decided to begin seriously exercising. I now have access to the VA's workout room and if I go after most people have left for the day, I have the place to myself. I decided to start doing 30 minutes of cardio type workout three times a week for the first two weeks, and then throw in some weight work to help tone the muscles. I was hoping that increasing my activity level will be enough and i can consume more or less the same amount I had been. I try to remember what you always hear about getting in shape: you have to burn more calories than you intake. The problem is that doing cardio work makes me crave carbs like a crazy person. I see rice, cookies, pasta, etc. and my body tells me that i have to eat it. I try to resist, but it's as though I have a deficit and I have to make up for it. I do know that when you work out you initially burn the glycogen (long chain of glucose molecules) in your liver. Supposedly when you start running low on glycogen you begin to burn fat. I don't think I ever get to that point, not in 30 minutes. After exercising, my body tells me to eat glucose!!! It's replenishing the glycogen. So I have a theory. In the past, the times that I've lost the extra poundage and been able to fit in my jeans is when I've gone somewhere I have to walk alot. No excessive sweating or increased heart rate (>140bpm). In addition, I would be eating out alot and enjoying it. I am thinking that high intensity aerobic exercise burns up the glycogen and only begins to touch the fat stores when the glycogen begins to get really low. If I can anthropomorphize the body , I would imagine it would say something along the lines of, "Oh, we're working really hard, we need quick energy. We'll go to the reserves only if we need it." However if you're just doing a lot of walking at a normal pace, the body would burn some of the glycogen, but because the activity is not so intense, the body is at leisure to use some glycogen, and doesn't "feel" the necessity of sticking to the quick energy. The resources can be engaged to initiate fat burning. [All this is unsubstantiated. It's only based on my personal perception and imagination :o) ]
Sometimes I think about how things were originally intended. Were we meant to go to gyms and spend an hour a day running on treadmills and starving ourselves, not able to enjoy food? I don't mean being gluttonous enjoyment. I would imagine people way back in the day would do a lot of walking for their transportation and would burn a lot of calories that way. None of this three times a week intense cardio stuff.
I would really like to begin walking to and from work. The only problem right now is that doing so would consume 1 hour per day, during which I couldn't be "productive." At the VA, I can start a PCR reaction and go work out while I wait for my products.
This is getting long. I don't know if anyone would be still reading, but I must go on.
The other issue about exercising is that I don't think stationary equipment do a person much good other than getting their heart going. Thinking about the physics of it, when you're on a stationary bike, the only part of you moving is your legs in little circles. You are not propelling your entire body through space. Remeber that work is defined as the product of distance and the force, and force is defined as mass times velocity. If you are biking on a real bike, you are moving your body and the bike a particular distance. On the stationary bike, the only mass moving are your legs.
Mass of your legs < Mass of whole body + bike
Distance of legs moved < distance of body+bike in real biking.
Therefore
Work of stationary bike < work of real biking.
It just drives me crazy that these machines tell me (paraphrasing), "Yay! you've walked 5 miles and burnd 400 calories!!!" When I actually get outside and walk 5 miles I'm sore!
Solution? As of now, I think I'm going to ditch the intense stuff and the stationary machines. I'm just going to go walking with baby girl outside and do weights. we'll see what happens.
Ok disclaimer:
I know some of you may say, "oh Meg, you're so silly. you look fine. " Thank you for making me feel good, but I know where I'd like to be physically and this is not it.
Recently, baby girl has dropped her nursings to twice a day. I don't mind. It's way more convenient. However, I now have reached the stage that the amount of calories I'm consuming is exceeding the amount of calories I'm burning. Some kind of activity is going to have to replace the missing 3-4 nursings or I'm going to have to cut back on the goodies.
I was able to eat dessert any time. So many times I'd have seconds. *sigh* I'm getting further away from fitting into my very skinny jeans (my favorite pair!). I actually fit into them when baby girl was 5 months, but ... oh wait, that's when she started solid food... gradually they've become tight enough to not be publicly acceptable for a 30-year old and now I can't button them without a little something over the waist band.
I've decided to begin seriously exercising. I now have access to the VA's workout room and if I go after most people have left for the day, I have the place to myself. I decided to start doing 30 minutes of cardio type workout three times a week for the first two weeks, and then throw in some weight work to help tone the muscles. I was hoping that increasing my activity level will be enough and i can consume more or less the same amount I had been. I try to remember what you always hear about getting in shape: you have to burn more calories than you intake. The problem is that doing cardio work makes me crave carbs like a crazy person. I see rice, cookies, pasta, etc. and my body tells me that i have to eat it. I try to resist, but it's as though I have a deficit and I have to make up for it. I do know that when you work out you initially burn the glycogen (long chain of glucose molecules) in your liver. Supposedly when you start running low on glycogen you begin to burn fat. I don't think I ever get to that point, not in 30 minutes. After exercising, my body tells me to eat glucose!!! It's replenishing the glycogen. So I have a theory. In the past, the times that I've lost the extra poundage and been able to fit in my jeans is when I've gone somewhere I have to walk alot. No excessive sweating or increased heart rate (>140bpm). In addition, I would be eating out alot and enjoying it. I am thinking that high intensity aerobic exercise burns up the glycogen and only begins to touch the fat stores when the glycogen begins to get really low. If I can anthropomorphize the body , I would imagine it would say something along the lines of, "Oh, we're working really hard, we need quick energy. We'll go to the reserves only if we need it." However if you're just doing a lot of walking at a normal pace, the body would burn some of the glycogen, but because the activity is not so intense, the body is at leisure to use some glycogen, and doesn't "feel" the necessity of sticking to the quick energy. The resources can be engaged to initiate fat burning. [All this is unsubstantiated. It's only based on my personal perception and imagination :o) ]
Sometimes I think about how things were originally intended. Were we meant to go to gyms and spend an hour a day running on treadmills and starving ourselves, not able to enjoy food? I don't mean being gluttonous enjoyment. I would imagine people way back in the day would do a lot of walking for their transportation and would burn a lot of calories that way. None of this three times a week intense cardio stuff.
I would really like to begin walking to and from work. The only problem right now is that doing so would consume 1 hour per day, during which I couldn't be "productive." At the VA, I can start a PCR reaction and go work out while I wait for my products.
This is getting long. I don't know if anyone would be still reading, but I must go on.
The other issue about exercising is that I don't think stationary equipment do a person much good other than getting their heart going. Thinking about the physics of it, when you're on a stationary bike, the only part of you moving is your legs in little circles. You are not propelling your entire body through space. Remeber that work is defined as the product of distance and the force, and force is defined as mass times velocity. If you are biking on a real bike, you are moving your body and the bike a particular distance. On the stationary bike, the only mass moving are your legs.
Mass of your legs < Mass of whole body + bike
Distance of legs moved < distance of body+bike in real biking.
Therefore
Work of stationary bike < work of real biking.
It just drives me crazy that these machines tell me (paraphrasing), "Yay! you've walked 5 miles and burnd 400 calories!!!" When I actually get outside and walk 5 miles I'm sore!
Solution? As of now, I think I'm going to ditch the intense stuff and the stationary machines. I'm just going to go walking with baby girl outside and do weights. we'll see what happens.
Ok disclaimer:
I know some of you may say, "oh Meg, you're so silly. you look fine. " Thank you for making me feel good, but I know where I'd like to be physically and this is not it.