PhysicsDiet.com

Holly's Triathlon is tomorrow. I can't wait to read how it went.

I won't be able to do a triathlon this year, so I have to live vicariously through Holly and others. Next year I'll review all of Holly's posts while I'm training for my first triathlon.

TTGF has a great post about why he weighs himself in the morning. This was my favorite though:

It motivates me to exercise in the mornings. If I go out for a run before weighing myself, I know from experience that I’ll lose maybe a half to one kilogram (1-2 pounds) from sweating. Some might call it cheating since you’ll put that weight back on as soon as you have a drink, but if it motivates you to exercise so that you can clock up a slightly better score, it can’t be all bad! I find this motivation is especially powerful if I gained weight on the last weigh-in.

This is genius. If you struggle to stick to a consistent exercise routine this might just be the perfect mind hack for you. Personally I prefer to exercise in the morning. But lately I have been staying up too late working on the site and I'm struggling to stick to my exercise routine. I might have to give this strategy a try.

I added the first bit of statistics to the homepage. Now when you are logged in, you can see a summary of your weight loss/gain, rate of weight loss/gain, and your daily calorie deficit/excess for 3 different periods of time. Here's what mine looks like today:

The Total Weight Change column shows the amount of weight you've lost or gained for that period of time. So you can see that I've lost 82 pounds since I started my diet. I've lost 8.4 pounds in the last 30 days. In the last 1 week I've lost 2.5 pounds.

The other two columns are the same calculations that the Weight Chart uses to show the Weekly loss & Daily deficit numbers. They are based on the best fit line on the Weight Chart. Right now the Weight Chart only shows the All Time figure. Soon I will change that so the figures shown on the Weight Chart matches the timeframe of the weight chart. So if you are a looking at last month on the Weight Chart the Weekly loss & Daily deficit will be calculated for last month instead of for All Time like it is today.

I'll be adding more to the home page in the coming days. Right now I'm working on a BMI chart that shows where your current BMI sits in relation to the different BMI categories. Eventually it will show your starting BMI, current BMI, & goal BMI. I will probably also add some of these things to the public profile.

Let me know what you think.

You can now make your PhysicsDiet.com profiles public. This will let you share some of your charts and your Weekly Summary information with anyone, even if they don't have a PhysicsDiet.com account.

By default your account is private. To make your account public you need to go to your profile page and check the "Make Profile Public" and save your profile.

To see a sample check out my public profile here:

http://www.physicsdiet.com/Public.aspx?u=Matt

If you don't track your Body Fat % then the Body Fat chart won't show up on your public profile.

Let me know what think or if you notice any problems.

I added a Daily Energy Balance section to the Weekly Summaries report. Here is what it looks like:

On the left side you see the Daily Average for the Calories Eaten, Calories Burned (from Exercise), and the Calorie Deficit/Excess.

Calories Eaten is the total of the Calories Eaten I entered for 4/16 - 4/22 divided by the number of days (7 in this case).

Calories Burned is the total of the Calories Burned divided by 7.

Calorie Deficit is calculated as (# of pounds I lost X 3500 calories) / # of days.

On the right side are the TEE figures. The Predicted TEE is the calculated TEE based on the weight I entered on the first day of the week. I need to change this so it is based on the Avg. Weight for the first day of the week.

The Effective TEE is calculated this way:

In this case the numbers were:

I chose to calculate the Effective TEE this way because I have the activity level in my profile set to Sedentary. That describes my lifestyle except for the deliberate exercise I choose to do. Since I track the number of calories I burn during exercise, I don't count those calories in my TEE calculation so I don't want to count them in this calculation either.

The value of the Effective TEE is that it shows how my metabolism varies from what my predicted metabolism says it should be.

Over the last couple months I've noticed changes in my weight loss that made me think my body was adapting my metabolism to balance my energy use with the number calories I eat. I can lower my calorie intake substantially without seeing much change to my weight loss. I can increase the number of calories I burn substantially without seeing much change to my weight loss. This is why I started tracking the exact number of calories I eat and burn. I wanted to see if there was a pattern here.

For now I'm going to leave the Effective TEE the way it is. I'm doing some experiments with my diet to see if I can get my Effective TEE as close to my predicted TEE as possible. I want to see what that does to my rate of weight loss. I suspect that I'll be able to maintain or even improve my rate of weight loss by focusing on the Effective TEE for a while.

I'm curious what other PhysicsDiet.com users think. Is Effective TEE a strange way to look at things? Would it be better for me to include my exercise in my Activity Level and then include those calories burned in an Actual TEE calculation? Or is there some other way you'd like to compare your calories consumed with your calories burned with the number of calories you are gaining or losing? Let me know.

Update: The Predicted TEE is now based on the Avg. Weight of the first day of the week rather than the raw Weight entry.

I love carrot cake. It is my all time favorite dessert. So I was prepared to be disappointed by the Carrot Cake flavored Clif Bar.

I tried one yesterday. It was ok, but it suffered from the same problem as the Lemon Poppyseed. It not sweet enough so all that is left is the bitter taste of carrot. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't disgusting and I didn't have to spit it out. But I won't be buying the Carrot Cake flavor again.

I'm still eating 6 small meals a day. I like to keep a few nutrition bars around in case I need to eat on the run. And sometimes a nutrition bar is a good way to add a little variety to my diet. I don't eat them often, but when I do I like something that tastes good.

Clif Bars usually don't have enough protein in them for me to consider them an entire meal. I usually drink a serving of Syntrax Nectar with them. But in a pinch, on the run, they work fine by themselves.

This week I bought a variety of Clif Bar flavors. I've had them before and I generally like them. But I wanted to sample a lot of the different flavors to see which ones I like the best.

This morning I tried Lemon Poppyseed. I love poppyseed bread and poppyseed muffins. I expected the Clif Bar to taste similar. But it didn't. It was much more lemony than I expected. And there wasn't much sweetness. I was able to finish it, but I will never buy the Lemon Poppyseed flavor again.

I was planning on running tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be pretty good in the morning - warm with a chance of light showers. But my left hip is still a little tender. I think I'll give it one more day of rest and run Saturday.

I was able to go out for a bike ride this evening. That was an unexpected surprise. We were supposed to have thunderstorms all afternoon. But the storms stayed to the west of us for the most part. That gave me chance to get out in 80 degree weather. There was a major headwind for the first half of my ride. But that didn't take away from pleasure of my first 45 minute ride in shorts and short sleeves.

Yesterday I talked about some of the aches and pains I get from running. TTGF is worried about my Achilles tendon. I'm not too worried about it though. I'm hyper aware of it, and I will not push it too far because I know how long it can take to recover from.

But I am a little worried about my hip pain. For years now I've suffered from pain in my hips - more so in my left hip - when I walk any distance. I've always assumed that it was arthritis. The only time it was a problem was when we would go walking around the mall for a long time. Or when we'd go on a very infrequent nature walk. But when I started running and the hip pain sprouted back up I wondered if it was something similar to my Achilles tendon problem.

I did some research last week and I came across this page where ultra-marathon runners talk about hip pain from running. That got my attention because I've always assumed the pain would get better after I got in better shape. But if ultra-marathon runners can develop hip pain then maybe this isn't a short term problem. In fact, I started to see the same flawed logic I used when my Achilles tendon started bothering me.

So I've been paying special attention to my hips. When they ache I try to focus on where the pain is coming from. It seems to be coming from the ligaments that surround the hip joint. The pain doesn't happen while I'm running. It develops after, similar to my Achilles problem.

On the page about Hip Pain, one person said that compression shorts helped them resolve their problem. I thought I'd give that a try. Last night I bought a pair of Nike Pro compression shorts.

As soon as I put them on I felt a difference. The pain in my hip just melted away. That confirmed what I imagined was happening. The muscles, tendons, and/or ligaments in my left hip seem to be too weak to support my hip properly. The compression shorts seem to take just enough pressure off my hip to ease the pain. But I don't see the compression shorts as a long term solution. My body needs to be strong enough to support itself.

This morning I was listening to SimplyStu's interview with Jessi Stensland. She talked about how she almost had to quit competing because of hip pain. She said Core Performance was the solution to her problems.

I've seen the Core Performance book in the bookstore but I've never looked at it. I will have to check it out tonight.

P.S. Jessi has a discount code on her home page for 10% off at the Core Performance site. The same code gets you 3 weeks free training on the Core Performance site.

Last week I started running. I've been cycling for 3 months now so I'm in the best aerobic shape of my life. But I've read that aerobic fitness doesn't necessarily carry over from one sport to another. I expected it to take me a while to get comfortable running.

My plan was to walk/run for 20 minutes, 3 times per week. To start I decided I'd warm up by walking for a couple of minutes. Then I planned to run for 30 seconds and walk for 60 seconds. I decided that if I needed to walk for more 60 seconds then I'd do that.

I got my heart rate monitor on Friday, March 24. Sunday, March 26 was the day of my first run. I stayed out for 20 minutes. I had to extend a couple of my walk intervals to 2 minutes, but for the most part I was able to stick to the plan.

I felt pretty good after my first run. My hips and knees were a little sore for the next couple of days. But I kept icing them and they improved fast.

On Wednesday March 29 I did my second run. It was very cold that morning, but I had my coat on, my hood up, and my gloves on, so I stayed fairly warm. The only real problem was the wind was blowing into my face on the second half of my run. My face got pretty cold and my nose ran, but other than that it was a great run. Later that day my hips and knees started aching again. This time my left Achilles tendon got a little tender too.

A few years ago I had a minor bout with tendonitis in my left Achilles tendon. I had started walking. At the time I was 300+ pounds and I would get to the point where I could walk faster and then I'd over do it. At first I thought it was just a muscle ache. I kept walking every day thinking the pain would go away once I got used to the exercise. But after about a week the pain kept getting worse. It got to the point where I was noticeably limping. That's when I decided to do some research.

I self-diagnosed it as tendonitis. From what I could find that was the least of the problems I could have. The recommended treatment was to ice it and elevate it regularly. Most importantly, I needed to rest my ankle. I didn't worry about my diagnosis being wrong because the treatment for tendonitis wouldn't worsen the problem if it turned out to be something more serious. I decided if I didn't notice an improvement I'd go see a doctor.

Icing, elevating, and resting helped. Within a week my limp was gone. Within a couple of weeks most of the soreness was gone.

Anyway, I'm very aware of my Achilles tendon now. I also pay better attention to other aches and pains too. I now know the difference between muscle aches and sore tendons

On Thursday, March 30, I got the speed and cadence sensors for my bike. I originally planned to run again on Friday. On Friday morning I felt like I was physically up for a run, but I really wanted to ride my bike to test out my new gadgets. And I figured the extra break from running would give my body a few extra days to recover from my first 2 runs.

I didn't run again until this Monday. I hadn't planned on increasing the length of my runs or the amount of time I spent running. But when I got out there I felt good enough to run for 45 seconds and walk for 60 seconds. I also decided to stay out for 30 minutes. The extra 10 minutes and the increase in my running time meant that I basically doubled my distance. The first week I covered just over a mile in 20 minutes. On Monday I went about 2 miles in 30 minutes.

I felt very good during my run. But later that day my left leg was pretty sore. The tendons in my hip and above my knee were sore and my left Achilles tendon was also tender. My left foot was also sore. By Monday night I decided that I'd probably need to skip the run I planned to do this morning. But by last night I was feeling pretty good. In fact my daughters and I ended up going out to play a little tennis. The weather was beautiful and the sun now stays up until almost 8pm.

I felt good after tennis but I wasn't sure how I'd feel this morning. My legs were a little tender. I iced them before bed but I thought I'd probably end up skipping my run this morning.

But when I got up this morning I felt great. My legs weren't sore at all. I threw on my running gear and hit the road. I felt great until I was almost home. Then my Achilles tendon started to feel a little tender. I decided to walk the last 3 minutes home. After I got ready for work I iced my ankle for a while. I've felt pretty good throughout the day. My left hip is sore, but not as bad as it has been. My Achilles tendon is almost completely normal. There are a couple of positions where I can feel just a tiny bit of swelling in it but that is only because I'm paying very close attention to it. I iced my hip and ankle while I was at home for lunch. I'll ice it again tonight.

I plan to run again on Friday morning. At this point it seems like I shouldn't have any trouble doing that.

I did notice that my aerobic fitness didn't translate to running. On my first two runs my heart rate was very high considering my pace wasn't much faster than a brisk walk. But this week I noticed that my body is adapting much faster to this new stress than it did when I started cycling. I expect I'll see the same thing when I start swimming too. But I hope my body adapts quickly to swimming too.