Next Monday I’ll be getting back on the ice for my first hockey clinic in almost a year. Since my last clinic (where I had the interesting experience of slamming face-first into the boards), a variety of things we’ll call “Life” conspired with my general laziness and tendency toward sitting on my ass being sedentary to keep me off the ice.
A couple months ago I realized how long it’s been and that if I didn’t do something about it I’d never play a game. I also realized that I was in worse shape than I was when I took my first clinic last year, so clearly I had some work to do.
Diet
Weight has never been a real problem for me. I’ve always been able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted without really gaining anything, but I did notice that I’d put on a few extra pounds over the last year – mostly around the middle. In addition to that, a lifetime of being able to eat anything you want doesn’t really create healthy eating habits, so I started this process with a cholesterol level of 194 – just below the “borderline” level on most charts. Still in the normal/desirable range, but higher than I want it.
A few years ago my ex-wife started on Weight Watchers and I did it at the same time to support her. She was very successful at losing weight and I learned a lot about my eating habits and what’s in those restaurant meals. But there’s a lot of paperwork involved in that – looking things up, counting points, etc. If I really, really wanted to lose weight, it would be the best way, but I’m primarily interested in some small changes at this point to see what will happen.
I’m used to eating what I want, when I want, and I want to see if I can improve things by adding and changing, rather than giving anything up. At 6’-2” and 175-pounds, weight loss isn’t what I need – what I need is weight transfer and even some gain. I need to build muscle and lose fat – maybe even ending up weighing more, but without the fat around my middle. So traditional weight-loss goals, where we’re measuring pounds lost, won’t really work.
The first change I made was in what I drink. No, I didn’t give up beer – because I don’t drink beer in the first place. Beer is a waste of perfectly good grain – it was on its way to being a fine whiskey when something went horribly awry.
No, what I changed was soda. I’ve drunk soda, almost exclusively, for most of my life – Coke for most of that time and Mountain Dew more recently. So how do I cut down on the amount of soda I drink without feeling like I was giving it up? By adding water – not to the soda, but to my drinking regimen.
When I finish a glass of soda, I fill the glass with water. So rather than having a glass of soda beside me at all times by default, it’s now water about half the time, and I only have more soda when I’ve finished the interim glass of water. I don’t have to give up any soda – I can have another glass immediately, if I guzzle the water right down, so I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself of anything and don’t crave it. In fact, as time went on, I found myself getting water instead of soda by choice.
I added fruit to my diet (vegetables I simply don’t care for that much, so it had to be fruit. I do like fruit, though, so keeping good apples and bananas on hand is enough to ensure I’ll eat them by choice. Fresh berries as well – I’ll mix some strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries together with a container of cream cheese dip and have a bowl once in a while. Yes, the dip has calories, but remember I’m lucky enough to not be worried so much about the calories as I am about getting more fruit into my diet.
For years I’ve stopped at McDonald’s to pick up breakfast on the way to work. I’d actually prefer Panera or Chickfila, but there isn’t one convenient to my route. Regardless, a Sausage McMuffin with Egg and a deep-fried hashbrown every morning isn’t conducive to a healthy diet and lower cholesterol.
So I added oatmeal. I don’t like instant oatmeal at all, but I do like a good steel-cut oatmeal with some brown sugar and dried fruit. A couple mornings a week I’ll make a batch of this and eat it before I leave. This is not in place of McDonald’s – I’m adding, not replacing and not denying myself anything. If I feel like a Sausage McMuffin after the oatmeal, I can have one – mostly I don’t, because oatmeal’s pretty filling.
After a couple months of doing this, my cholesterol dropped to 156. A forty point drop – still not where I want it to be, but not bad for a few easy, sustainable changes that don’t leave me feeling like I’ve given anything up. And that drop is before adding any significant exercise to the mix.
Exercise
For the last year, “exercise” has consisted of walking the dog – about 1.5 miles two or three times a week. Certainly not enough, but I’ve never in my life exercised for the sake of exercise – it’s always come from being naturally active in some activity. But the last year (and the decade before that) found me inactive with little time on the ice or kayaking or anything else, really.
Living in an apartment now I’ve had access to a fitness center less than a hundred yards away for over a year and a half, but until this month I’d never bothered to use it. But I made a decision at the beginning of December to do something active every other day – if I don’t take the kayak out, skate, or something else, then I have to hit the gym.
Exercising and fitness machines have always seemed pointless and boring to me. I hate it. But I think I’ve found a compromise I can live with. First of all, I listen to audiobooks – in the past I’ve tried listening to music, watching TV, whatever, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t get my attention away from the drudgery of exercising. The audiobooks work, though – I’m able to keep my mind active and forget about the exercise part.
Another thing that’s helped this time is the machine I primarily use. In the past I’ve tried the treadmills, but the impact (knees) and the constant speed (I don’t want to have to press buttons to change my pace) piss me off – yes, I’m a grumpy, picky old-man. The elliptical (Precor EFX 546) eliminates both – no impact and I can change my pace at will. This particular one has all the typical program features and the ramp changes angle automatically.
That’s a feature I especially like, because apparently the angle of the ramp changes the muscle groups that are targeted. I didn’t know this. The machine’s console has little lights to tell you what’s being worked the most and it appears that the calves are worked most at the extreme low and high elevations of the ramp.
That’s kind of important for me to know, because my calves are where I get the most fatigue when skating, so I want to work them more. The fixed-ramp machines have an elevation in the middle, so I’m assuming I’d get less benefit out of them.
I started at fifteen minutes, quickly moved to thirty minutes, and, today, did forty minutes with no problem. Rather than increase the time any more, I’ll start bumping up the resistance.
The program I use is like two hills. It starts with a middle incline, rises over time to the highest, then down to the lowest, back to highest, and then ends back at the middle. At the higher and lower inclines, when it indicates that my calves are working the most, I increase the resistance for half the time.
After that I use the weight machines, then walk the dog for a 2-mile cool down.
Has it done any good? Well, I went skating yesterday for the first time in quite a while and managed a full hour without taking any breaks. I left the ice to get a drink periodically, but went right back on. It felt like a big improvement in endurance from the other times I’ve skated this year.
We’ll see Monday when I start going to the clinics again.
