Topic: The Health, Fitness and Exercise Thread

I decided that last week was a write off after I kneed the door handle. I wanted to see if I could fit in exercise with a full week of work but I didn't get that chance.

No work this week so starting that week again with running in a minute and hopefully yoga later.

I seem to still be losing weight though, down to 16st12 which is a BMI of 30.2. only 3 more lbs until I'm "overweight"! Woop!

@kyleforrester87 @Thrillho nice one on your exercises! I really fancy some jerky now 🤤

@ralphdibny exercise first, jerky later

Somehow I did 18 hours 30 minutes cycling last week around a Mon-Fri 9am-6pm job. I felt like all I did was work/pedal/eat/sleep though - couldn’t handle that regularly.

But commuting by bike is a great way to get exercise in around a full time job. Obviously it’s literally impossible for some jobs, but it’s a lot more feasible than some people think too.

@kyleforrester87 jerky 24/7, well it would be if it was less expensive!

Ahh you do a 9 hourer? That's a killer, I was doing 9 hour days way back when and it was awful. It's never something that I'd be keen to repeat, I'd literally have to live next door to my job to consider it.

I'd love to cycle in if I was more confident in it to be honest. Apart from not having rode a bike in like 10 years, I really wouldn't fancy cycling into London. Maybe london itself would be okay-ish but going through SE to get there would be awful with all the cars on the road

@ralphdibny I don’t mind 9 hour days, I quite like my job. It’s usually pretty busy but on the occasions when it isn’t it can be a drag. My commute is west London zone 4 into zone 2, it is pretty busy and dangerous to be honest. Not sure it’s a bigger risk than illnesses as a result of lack of regular exercise though! That’s kind of how I justified starting doing it

6.5mi in 50 mins Saturday for an easy paced long run with a max climb of 1194 ft. You have to love the rolling hills of Virginia. On pace for 100+ miles in May.

Hi, what are your opinions on fitbits? Do you swear by them or is it more a intrinsic motivation thing you go by?

@Rondoooo9 Yikes, is that climb from sea level?? A good pace though that with that climbing!

@ellisael I’m My wife used to use her Fitbit religiously to record walking and swimming until it broke. I’ve never used one but just use my phone and Strava for my runs. Up until the last week (because of work and the weather) I had got into a good habit of running on the same three days each week and having the 100km month goal was good at keeping me going out too.

I think they have their place though, particularly if it’s helping you to think about how active/inactive you are on a normal day.

I dont absolutely trust the metrics on my Fitbit but they seem to be consistent (even if consistently wrong) so you can kind of measure progress even if it’s not really an accurate reflection on reality.

The heart rate sensor for example seems pretty accurate when resting and for measuring sleep (basically the lower end of things) but there are plenty of times I know my heart rate is at peak for short periods and it’s not registered at all.

Right! Thank you folks- Strava has come up many times from my colleagues too- I shall check that out. And noted about the better accuracy for lower level stuff. Thanks, folks!

@Thrillho It's from slightly above sea level. I live in the mountains. Finding a flat route is impossible.

I use an apple watch, their workout app gives me all the info and more I personally need, plus the music stored on it and can answer calls/texts while I'm out without having my phone. In future I may go with a garmin as I eventually want to get away from all Apple products.

@kyleforrester87 ah sweet, it's good that you like your job! I think a busier job can certainly be better as you don't notice the time ticking down so much. I was knackered after last week but not as knackered as I would be normally because I was running the job so it's more mentally challenging than physically challenging. Bit of a change of pace, especially after a year off 😅, decent wad of cash to keep me going for a while too lol

@Rondoooo9 nice one on the run!

@ellisael I use a cheap-o £20 watch from Amazon. It's ok for the price, I think I'd get a better and more well known brand next time though. Things it doesn't do but I think would be useful include:

GPS in the watch itself. I can connect it to my phone and use the phone GPS but the connection conks out after about 8 miles so while it tracks the miles, I lose the record of the pretty map with a big line that traces my journey.

Constant monitoring. If I set the watch or my phone while it's connected to do a workout then I get a nice graph with my heart rate and stuff on it. I'd kind of just like that for the whole day. I'd also like the tracker/app to be more transparent about its calculations too. I think it uses different calculations if say I am doing a Yoga or if I'm doing a generic Workout.

A more user friendly app. The app is rough and ready, it does the job but it's interface leaves a lot to be desired. I sort of discover new things I can do on it every now and then but I don't know why it's so obtuse.

All stats for every type of exercise. My current watch will show me a heart rate graph for yoga but will only give me an amount of time I spend in the fat burning zone and not cardio or maximum intensity. Same for walking. A run will give me max time for all 3 non resting zones. It's a bit weird and random and could be better.

So yeah, it's a cheap-o watch but good for beginners I think and I quickly found out what it's lacking and therefore what to look for in my next purchase. It's a bit smashed up now though because I wear it all the time. I'd hope to be more careful with a more expensive watch 😅

I've heard Garmin thrown around as a brand. One of my colleagues had a Garmin watch and he showed me the app last week and it looked impressive! My brother's got a Garmin actually and he is able to connect a bank account to it and use the NFC as a contactless payment method in shops, useful for travelling light!

Exercise is just ticking over for me at the moment. I am just about squeezing in both my couch to 5K and my yoga commitments. I have been generally busy for the last few weeks so I've only been out for long walks once a week and even then, last Sunday was truncated due to trash weather.

I went out for a long walk today though which was good and I am about to do a yoga. My current weight is 16st11lbs which is a BMI of 30.1

Only 2 more lbs until I hit that target of being "overweight" which on paper means I am less at risk of serious covid - I know it doesn't mean much because it affects everybody differently but I just wanted to do everything I can to mitigate it. Having said that, my age group (31) is next in line for the vaccine so I'm hoping I can book myself in for one in the next week or so!

Oh yeah, finally did my first full 20 minute run on Friday. I knew it was coming so I paced myself, painfully slowly I might add. Just under 14 minutes per mile 😅 but... At least I kept up the running for the full 20 minutes. Just for comparison, my runs have been getting slower the longer I have to run. I started off with 10/11 minute miles in the first couple of weeks, then 12 minute miles, then 13 minute miles. I know I am just building stamina at the moment so I shouldn't be deterred.

@ralphdibny Keep it up, it's going to be so worth it. Good luck with the vaccine too. I got hit really hard by that and felt terrible for a few days but others I've talked to have been fine so hopefully you'll find yourself in that latter group.

I've been the same the past few weekends with exercise. Where I should be pushing myself more now I've ended up with things just ticking over. Went for a run with some friends over the Peak District a few weekends ago and that was nice to have a bit of a social, but because of that we probably didn't put in as much effort as we should have done. Then this weekend spent plenty of time with the family so got out on my bike for 40km and ran for 10km and that was about it. I'll try harder this week 😉.

@render cheers! 👍 Which one did you have? My bro had the Pfizer one, first dose was fine but the second dose wiped him out for 2 days. Supposedly because the antibodies from the first one fought the second one resulting in flu symptoms.

I'm probably going to get the Pfizer one if available. It's just a bit annoying when the newspaper headlines post these kind of non-peer reviewed research and it influences your mind. I saw one that said the Oxford/az one is better against the Indian variant which made me almost want that one but then I think about the blood clots 😅. I will go Pfizer I think, if they give me a choice that is!

I seriously can't wait for this pandemic to be over and I can stop looking at the news. It just feels me with total dread and anxiety. Not just the pandemic but everything else that's going on in the world. I am going to have a complete ban on news when it's all done! I just want to be as totally oblivious to it all as I was pre pandemic. I mean, I'm not John McClane, I can't actually do anything to stop World War 3 if they decide to do it so why worry about it in the mean time! 😅

Nice one on the cycles and runs, still good to get some in! And a bit of social! I think that's what kept me doing at least one walk a week. I walk an hour to my mates house, we then walk an hour or so around the meadows near his and then I walk back home. It's a bit of a killer on the legs but a decent distance so I'm happy with it

@ralphdibny I had the Oxford/AZ one and reading around it does seem that one affects people on the first jab more than the second. I know quite a few people who had Pfizer and all said they were fine after the first, and the few that have both said they were not too bad after that either so does seem to have less side affects. I think its a gamble either way as who knows what variants will appear next, you just have to choose one and go with it and hope your gamble pays off 😂.

The walking that you are doing sounds like it's working well for you and it's definitely good for the sole. If you can feel it afterwards then even better even if it doesn't feel it at the time. I'm hopefully going to be able to join some friends for some walking in the lakes this year so really looking forward to that. A bit of exercise, some fantastic views and some great company.

@render haha I assume you mean good for the soul. It's not great for my soles 😂. To be fair though, it's a lot less foot pain than I expected considering my history with plantar fasciitis. I think having walking boots (which are actually a bit tired now after a year of owning them and 5 months of extensive use) and the walking/running socks really helps with that though. Also the fact I actually want to do this walking whereas when I had plantar fasciitis before it was after a 6 month stretch of dragging my heels because I was being made to do menial tasks to give the appearance of me "looking busy".

My mum actually got pretty sick after her first AZ jab. It's really hard to know how bad though because she makes a meal out of every little thing so I can never tell what's legitimately serious and what is a minor inconvenience. I think she is a worrier like me though (or rather I am a worrier like her!) So I imagine she had all these thoughts of blood clots swirling around in her brain like I would.

Yeah, it's going to be great to get back to some social soonish. I think I will probably massively overcompensate though and do a bunch of junk I wouldn't even have done before the pandemic 😂. Bowling, music festivals, beach days, goodness knows what else but it's all on my list!

@ralphdibny I should really read what I've typed before posting but yeah one way it is good and the other is not so good 😂.

Absolutely, it's always good to have well fitting and comfortable footwear. It makes a huge difference when you are walking longer distances as every step taken will be that bit more efficient. I've managed to damage the running shoes I use to run the trails around here so will have to buy some replacements but they always take a while to bed in so annoying to have to switch when they'd just got to that perfect level of comfort.

@render haha don't worry, sole was still absolutely applicable. Would be even better if we could incorporate some conversation about the type of fish 😅

Ahh that sucks, there's that tiny window between breaking in and completely broken shoes isn't there. I am really gutted that Decathlon don't do the Kalenji Bipron any more, they were easily the comfiest trainers I have ever worn - even without breaking them in. If they pumped them out regularly then I could see myself buying a new pair every year or 2.

@ralphdibny You’re right; don’t worry about your pace with running at the moment. Getting through that mental barrier of running for that long in one go is the hardest part and it will get easier! Keeping the motivation up is the challenge and you seem to be doing that.

I did my personal best distance at the weekend at 18km in 1:35:29. Still a reasonable bit of climbing in there too and I’m slowly getting towards my half marathon goal!