Discovering the Source of My Little Roll

I only average between 8,000 and 9,000 steps a day, even with a two mile walk seven mornings a week.  It shows how sedentary I was until adopting that regimen in retirement.

Fitbit, which is a pioneer in wearable tracking devices, did an interesting survey of users who average more than 10,000 steps a day, including a breakdown by occupation.

A quarter (24%) are teachers, followed by health care professionals, software developers/programmers, administrative/clerical workers and sales people, all averaging over 12,000 steps a day.

The average American racks up about 5,100 steps per day.  My two mile walk each morning involves about 3,651 steps.  Depending on the day, that can be around 47% or less of my daily count.

In early 2010, when I began using one of the first Fitbits on the market , I was just a few months into retirement.  I was lucky to do 2,000 to 3,000 steps a day back then.

I was under the misimpression a lot of us are, that a calorie is a calorie, no matter the source.  I try to stick to a 30-40-30 ratio, 30 grams of fat, 40 grams of protein and 30 grams of “good” carbs.

But according to dieticians fat provides about 9 calories per gram, protein about 4 calories per gram and carbs in general provide about 4 per gram.

I stay away from bad carbs except for two glasses of red wine at dinner.  But they alone total about 250 calories, about 13% of my entire daily intake.

I didn’t really shift gears until my doctor tapped my little belly roll, after some film was found in one of my carotid arteries, and told me to get serious about daily exercise to bring my triglycerides down.

The Fitbit survey of 10,000+ steppers found that 82% exercise outside of work, even though more than a fourth (26%) spent more than 2/3rds of their day on their feet.

For the last 9 weeks, my significant other and I have added two hours of strength training a week to our regimen after first losing about 30 pounds each.

In my case, those came off not just through exercise but by keeping track of what I eat.  I’ve always been a low and healthy carb-high protein guy because I’ve been hypoglycemic since I was a teenager.

But I quickly learned when religiously using the MyFitnessPal app, that while the carbs I was eating were healthy, in particular, I had been routinely snacking on mixed nuts without realizing it was gradually building up that belly roll.

I learned that what I had been eating as a snack each night with an apple together represented nearly 2,000 calories alone, 77% from fat, 10% protein and 13% carbs from the nuts alone.

It is a little healthier (and safer) than what would be drinking the equivalent of 10 glasses of red wine but I truly only need a little more than 1500-1800 calories a day total.

I’m lean now but not exactly buff.  The type of weight training we do is to regain balance and build strength.

I can feel the difference when I ride my Harley Cross Bones including no leg cramps.

FYI, we use a trainer who follows the Maitland Method in a tiny place here in Durham on Broad Street.

I know one thing for sure.  I wouldn’t have sustained this daily exercise without a good friend to do it with nor would we be doing weights to my best advantage without a trainer.

My doctor now jokes with me that I am turning back the clock.  I don’t know about that but reading the just published book entitled, The Gene Therapy Plan by Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, who knows, I just might be.

Walking Cross Country - Tracking One Step At A Time

I began using a wearable fitness device called Fitbit in January 2010, the month after it came out and my first month of retirement.

Even with all of the hype today about wearables such as this, they are still used by only 1-in-10 Americans.  Half of Americans are aware of wearable devices of various types, not just for fitness.

I come from several generations of gadget people but was surprised that only a little more than a third of those who are early adopters of technology were aware of wearable fitness trackers today.

About 28% of Americans say they are likely to buy a wearable fitness device with half of those hoping to count calories and a third tracking the number of steps taken in a day.

Research shows that nearly 48% of Americans want to lose weight and have made that a goal for this year.  That plays nicely playing into the hands of users of devices such as Fitbit, because 47% walk long distances for health.

Unfortunately, 47% of weight loss seekers also enjoy baking cakes, pies, breads or desserts on a regular basis according to AudienceScan.  I wonder if this correlates to the 49% on a Pew survey two years ago who responded that they “keep track in their head.”

How’s that workin’ for ya?

I put that first Fitbit through the washing machine and waited a month or two to replace it so I don’t have a true running total of all of my activity tracked so far, but I’ve got it for the six years from April 2010 to now.

So far, I’ve walked about 2,900 miles or the distance between where we live in Durham, North Carolina and where my youngest sister and brother-in-law live in Mill Creek, Washington and then back up to the pass back through the Cascade Mountains.

But I only started walking religiously each morning a little more than a year and a half ago.

Every week now, on average, I walk a distance equivalent to walking from Witherspoon Rose Culture near the southwestern Durham County line near Chapel Hill to the northwestern Durham County line near Timberlake.  That’s about 25 miles on foot.

I’m typically an Apple guy when it comes to devices but after comparing the two, I upgraded to the Fitbit Surge for now instead of moving to the Apple Watch due out soon.

It includes some features the Apple Watch won’t have when it comes out next month at and it already pairs with my scale.

In part, it is also because I don’t like the fact that rather than innovating new products, Apple seems prone to either buy them up or run over businesses such as the entrepreneurs who founded Fitbit, which featuring about 40 partners has grown to provide about 70% of fitness wearables in use.

Eventually, once the bugs are worked out and it is clear I won’t lose any Fitbit compatibility, I suspect I might make the switch to the Apple Watch, but that remains to be seen.

Prior to when these fitness versions of a smartwatch came out, they had only 2% penetration with consumers.  Wearable fitness devices in general skew toward those between the age of 35 and 54, about half women.

Smartwatches on the other hand have skewed younger than that and predominately male.  I suspect Fitness Surge and Apple Watch are changing this profiles.

The Surge uniquely incorporates an “okay” GPS to map the routes you have taken but different than other Fitbits, it is better at tracking various exercises such as biking and weight training as well as yard work that may involve more exertion than walking.

It also does a great job of measuring heart rate and breaking it down into peak, cardio and fat burn zones.

If weight loss is a goal, as initially it was for me before dropping 30 lbs. to bring my Triglycerides back in line, take note of research showing that 60% of users for that reason lose more weight when pairing a fitness tracker with a weight loss app such as MyFitnessPal compared with when they didn’t use a tracker.

I wasn’t heavy per se but not in the best shape and my Tri’s were sky high.  They are formed by three fatty acids bound by a molecule of glycerol inside a fat cell and too large to flow through the membranes of the cell.

Typically, fat flows in and out of our cells constantly, but its fat that is stored like this that causes problems, even when we appear otherwise to be okay.

I’ve struggled to enjoy exercise during my life when it didn’t involve team sports or tennis but these devices and apps not only make it interesting but they make you aware of unproductive habits so you can break them.

No, nobody paid me to write this.  In fact, no one pays me to write any of these posts.  I’m just a fan of wearable fitness devices and related apps because they have made a big difference in my overall health.

Now if I could just find something to make traveling lunges seem fun!