True, a little puzzly! After 13 and some months its time for 2013! And why would that be of any importance? As we close a couple of kilograms on that one, the exact amount I unfortunately can’t (no, not won’t) indicate, but it’s safe to say its more than 20. Starting at the end of november 2011 and in continuous rate with Snow Vitaal (Snow Vital) and the accompanying goodies this post is a lot lighter to type *G* (the picture below indicates april to november roughly)
A lot of questions as ‘how’ or ‘what could I do’ are raining down. The funny thing is I don’t have the feeling I needed to adjust that much, we did (yes, Marianne too) cut back on shopping juices and soda’s so that was not changeable any longer. The ‘walkabout’ to another coffeemachine at work does only so little so what is there to change? The only ‘real’ thing I quit and had to get used to; no sugar in my coffee. It’s remarkable (yeah, colleagues I know) how bad Senseo than tastes. It goes from ‘OK-ish’ to ‘time for other pads’. And it’s quite remarkable on how easy some things slumber by. More on that after the break!
Today was a closure day for a number of terrific, exciting, though but also nice, interesting and educative months. After years of doing nothing much (as in, wasn’t allowed to) in sports it’s a pleasure to highlight my new PR on 9km of continuous run with a good pace. For those who followed the tweets and/or run keeper, the continuous runs where few – the HiITS overwhelming (High-intensity Interval Training, see below). It’s like lowering and raising the bar (raising the condition and lowering the boundary on other things) and it feels great.
If everything keeps pacing out after 24 months there will be (again) a nice winnersblog to mention!
For all the readers, friends and/or family best wishes for 2013 and make it a good one!
For those who read on, back to the how and why;
As explained during one of the few presentations at Vitaal, getting used to is comparable to switches for lights. If you move them it takes a couple of weeks to get used to it, but put it back to it’s original spot and it takes time again. After a few weeks though you almost don’t notice. For me that’s how sugar in my coffee worked, despite that you also have that ‘switch’ on other locations. To some degree (coffee at former assignments, at friends houses where sugar is on the table, etc.) I noticed myself almost ripping open a small bag of sugar and … “ow, that’s unnecessary”. And where required (as in; senseo or cheap coffee) a sweetener will do the trick. (Do you fancy sweeteners? No not at all, but it’s less disgusting than the coffee :P). (below a picture of todays steps on the FitBit)
Especially the ‘getting to move’ is the part you should remember, one of the ‘goodies’ of Vitaal was a stepcounter – to optimize for some of the contenders I re-used a Scandinavian idea that also was started early 2012 (too early for Vitaal) in the Netherlands. Walk a virtual distance using a stepcoutner; the result is still visible on  SnoWalk for those interested. We walked from Amsterdam to Brugge and afterwards started everyone on a roundabout on Dutch borders (>1600km) in small groups. The used counters are from  FitBit, and there newest product even ‘nicely’ wakes you up in the morning 🙂
All in all my intensions where to start with more movement early 2012, the running (after years of not being allowed to sport) where torpedoed time and time again in 2011 with colds and more misery that kill conditioning – on top the ‘thinner’ (self) and ‘vital’ (via Vitaal) lifestyle while being on an assignment where there is enough pressure – and things at home obviously, as starting something together also means more ‘criticism’ and ‘endurance’ towards eachother. It almost looked (to) much for one year, but the result is there!
Looking at my background you might think some numbers and analyses come up, but I didn’t want to go there. Besides not being useful it wouldn’t help anyone specifically (either positive or negative). The fact is that getting thinner ‘can’ come to you without much adjustments. The trick is moving more by just ‘walking’, wait a minute you were starting sports again? No not that type of movement, you will loose something (and gain condition) but it’s the wrong burning – just plain walking is the magical thing. Borrow a stepcounter from someone and see for yourself.
- Healthy: 10.000 stappen
- Loosing weight: > 14.000 stappen
So borrow such a device, on a normal workingday (without walking during lunch) I won’t get beyond 3.000. Cycling to work adds some 2.500-2.800 ‘steps’ and the lunch walk (+- 2.2km) 2.500. Thats just about the ‘healthy’ mark. I had days walking more than 17.000 steps and a colleague used to do that daily. We both started running as well, but for conditioning and not burning off/loosing that added luxury.
So now your satisfied/healthier/fit? That’s what people are asking me all the time, I’m not sure myself though. The back still hurts but it’s delightfull to sport again (allowed to). Months of cycling were fantastic, restarting running frustrating (am I walking that slow/small amounts, sigh), but it comes with the package. A colleague of mine is gathering people for a running match next year (15km) and I’ve told her I’m up for it. Even better, after the improvement today I seriously do consider running to work someday soon! It takes some time but would get me already closer to the milage for that match 🙂
So, improve the world – start yourself as we say? Well, we can cross of this little todo item 🙂 The list is complete and can be trashed, unfortunately with it goes my wardrobe as almost nothing fits anymore. Alas … you do find some you never threw away for some reason. The TV ‘I want to fit in that thing again’ comes to mind – been there – done that – fitted the t-shirt (again). (maybe not the best picture but the yellow coat is an ‘S’-size :))
High-intensity Interval Training; as I was told and how I took it in. The raising of the heart rythm to 180% during one minute, I used running but if you can do it by ironing that’s fine as well. During 1 minute (180%) intense and then a minute of resting (walking/relaxing). Repeat it till you had 10 intense minutes – obviously (for running) I start with 8-10 minutes if warm-up, than HiIT and close it with a continuous run of 10-15 minutes.