Fat But Fit?

Stock Fitness Photo From Here

January is a month when many people make resolutions at the first of the month and, unhappily, have already broken them by the end of the month. Oftentimes those New Year's resolutions pertain to fitness. So, although I do not make New Year's resolutions, I believe that today's post on fitness and health is timely.

I have had a longtime interest in fitness, health, nutrition, food, wellness, quality of life, and longevity factors. I am the sort of person who actually reads the health bulletins handed out at pharmacies, and the health columns in newspapers, and every new update on whether dietary fat got a bad rap in the Canada Food Guide of 30 years ago, and why we should eat colourful fruits and vegetables. And wine. Is that one glass a day actually good for you, and what are the risks, and is a glass of beer just as beneficial? Kathy Gottberg, on her SMART Living blog, has written a lot on these topics, for example, here, here, and here. 

Red Wine Stock Photo From Here

 As well, I am an outdoorsy person who enjoys athletic pursuits. But, as I have written here before, until I retired 18 months ago, I worked long hours at a sedentary desk job that left little time for anything else. Some of the things that were lacking in my life back then included: enough sleep, a satisfying social life, enough time to spend with Rob and other family members, sufficient exercise, and time for personal passions like writing, art, gardening, cooking, and travel.

Although I have always enjoyed cooking, and in the past I grew some of my own fruits and vegetables, during the final five years of my career it became very difficult to maintain a healthy approach to eating. On a typical day, I'd eat a light breakfast, throw together a bag lunch, and race out the door to be at work by 8:30.

The morning was filled with meetings, preparation of agendas and updates for meetings, phone calls, and answering emails. At noon, I would eat lunch at my desk, preparing for the afternoon slate of meetings or answering emails. The afternoon consisted of more meetings, and some were highly political, or involved stressful personnel issues. Finally, at 4:30 when the staff went home, I would sigh and dig into the work that required real concentration and uninterrupted time: writing reports, working on the budget, or planning. I'd also make a cup of tea and dig into the remains of my bag lunch, often high energy foods like granola bars, or crackers and cheese, or puddings. Finally, at 7:30 or 8:00, I'd head home, starving. I'd cook dinner and we'd eat at 8:30 or 9:00.

The lifestyle was a prescription for high stress, lack of activity, and poor eating habits. You can see how it left little time to lead a well-rounded life. Although most of my life I have been short and slender, in the final five years of my career, I packed on 20 pounds and moved into the "overweight" category. One reason that I retired when I did was that I began to have worrisome health indicators that made it obvious to me that I could not sustain that kind of a lifestyle and remain healthy.

So, since retiring, it has been very important to me to reestablish healthy habits and live a well-rounded life. I get enough sleep every night, and refuse to participate in activities that require me to set an alarm clock. I eat three well balanced meals a day, and make sure that I drink enough fluids, especially water. I have an active social life that includes new and old friends, and I spend lots of time with Rob, my kids, and my grandkids. I make time for writing, art, reading, and other personal pursuits.

Alpine Skiing

 And I have increased my activity level. I do at least 30 minutes a day of at least moderate exercise five days a week, as well as yoga twice a week.These photos show two examples of activities that I have done in the past week: A day of skiing, and a hike with Rob up the steep hill to the viewpoint near where we live.

Hiking

For Christmas, I was gifted with a wearable fitness device. This is something that I had not imagined wanting, but it has delighted the data nerd inside my head. The small screen on my wrist tells me how many steps I have taken that day, how many hours of the day I have been physically active, my pulse rate, the distance I have walked in kilometers, estimated calorie burn, how many flights of stairs I have climbed, how many minutes I have spent in sustained exercise (such as brisk walking), how many hours of sleep I got, and whether I have met my goal of 30 minutes of exercise a day, five days a week. If I wanted to, I could also track weight and fluid intake.

It is synchronized with my phone, so at the end of every day, I can look at a report on my phone, and I get detailed stats on all of those categories, with appealing multi-coloured graphs, and stars for the goals I have achieved.

This is the Graph Generated to Show My Sleep Patterns Last Night

 Well, who can resist stars? Not me! Gold stars and graphs motivate the heck out of me.

This is not all. The device also sends me a weekly report. I can see how I did this week in each category, as well as cumulative kilometers walked, etc. Since I put the device on my wrist on December 25, I have been going strong, trying to beat my own stats.

Using the heart rate data combined with age, height, weight, and activity records, the device has estimated my general fitness level. It tells me that my cardio fitness level is excellent for a woman my age. 

I am fat but fit, and I'm happy with that.