OldGoat's Forum Posts

I had been doing very well with my trail running and weightlifting routine, then bang – I got hit with Plantar fasciitis in my left foot.

Anyone else have experience with this?

Turns out I fit the “typical” criteria for getting this painful condition – overweight and over forty male trying to get back in shape … total bummer and it has significantly slowed me down.

Ah well, all the more reason to stick to my goal and get back in good physical condition – it’s actually a good motivator, as I’m not getting any younger :-)
_

For those of you unfamiliar with this – The plantar fascia is a thick fibrous band of connective tissue originating on the bottom surface of the calcaneus (heel bone) and extending along the sole of the foot towards the five toes. It has been reported that plantar fasciitis occurs in two million Americans a year and 10% of the population over a lifetime. It is commonly associated with long periods of weight bearing. Among non-athletic populations, it is associated with a high body mass index. The pain is usually felt on the underside of the heel and is often most intense with the first steps of the day.

Topic: Fitness and Exercise / Plantar fasciitis

Thanks to both madocaro and coskigirl for your great replies and suggestions – I fully admit, stretching is something I tend to neglect and it looks like it has now caught up to me. I have been on a hot streak for several months, with consistent running and fairly intense weightlifting workouts. I had been steadily increasing my calve routines and I suspect this repetitive strain without proper stretching played a large role in my painful plantar fasciitis.

Sounds like icing worked well for the both of you, I shall start doing that after my workouts. I’ve been off for a couple weeks and now plan to ease back into things. No running yet, just spin cycle and maybe the elliptical and go from there … slow and steady with a lot more stretching :-)

Topic: Fitness and Exercise / Plantar fasciitis

ghshephard – I, much like yourself, have compared the three sites you mentioned as well as TrainingPeaks (which is very good but cumbersome to input data with a slow initial learning curve, nowhere nearly as intuitive as DailyBurn).

I have “quit” DailyBurn a couple times now, often frustrated with figuring out whether it was really beneficial to me or not and I really dislike their new “training program” feature with constant advert bombardments to utilize it. Fortunately, DailyBurn also allows you to still develop your own customized workouts and has a great workout tracker, as you had mentioned. My only other beef with DailyBurn is that they have a cheesy pricing structure and confusing multilevel user hierarchy … a money grab for sure, but my beef is IF a user pays for the pro or elite status then it truly should be completely AD FREE, and that should include ads from DailyBurn and their affiliates or blogs as well… it’s a little thing, but does annoy me for sure.

One of my other frustrations, and this does not just apply to DailyBurn, is the difficulty to find serious and truly supportive motivators who share same goals and fitness interests – I would love a greater level of participation in my chosen groups, but it tends to be more of a passive feature that people join but do not really participate in. I’ve since learned this applies to virtually all similar fitness / lifestyle / weightloss sights and the nature of fickle social networking – I’ve become far more choosy as to whom I select as motivators and that has made a substantial difference in the overall experience.

I quickly gravitated towards Lose It!, as it has a highly intuitive, simple and attractive interface – but as you get to use it more the faults quickly start to show. It is too light weight, has significant input limitations and repeatedly failed to sync with Withings Scale – which is a “must have” feature for me, a truly amazing tool that ‘keeps you honest’. However, if DailyBurn fails to ‘keep up’ with feature and interface improvements – I predict Lose It! will quickly surpass them with regards to overall user preference.

TrainingPeaks is hardcore and has an amazing database feature – just too cumbersome and unwieldy to use for the long term. However, it is the database set to use for the truly dedicated athlete, especially when linked directly with your coach or personal trainer – TrainingPeaks has been doing this for many years and their experience shows – their weak area is in the social networking and mobile interface areas, lots of room for improvement there.

Overall, DailyBurn consistently wins out with regard to it’s winning combination of great features, good interface and the number one item for me is a terrific Nutrition Tracker. DailyBurn’s Nutrition Tracker is by far the best I’ve used – the more I used it, the more I realized how great its features are. I can create my own recipes (which I prefer to do) and it accurately provides a comprehensive nutritional breakdown; then I can pre-plan my meals for the week, or the month, or however long I wish – and then simply check off whether I ate according to my meal plan or not, or I can add or modify at my liesure. This is truly one of DailyBurn’s strong points and a terrific database tool.

Another consideration is that DailyBurn was recently acquired by MindSpark – that may be a good thing or a bad thing and the results remain in question. It may be a good thing in the sense MindSpark is a big company and DailyBurn therefore has access to resources and may likely be around for a while. It may be a bad thing in that it remains to be seen whether MindSpark is serious about developing a truly fitness, health oriented user experience or if flashy glitz and a quick buck is their aim … as games or glitzy sites tends to be their area of expertise, NOT sites with true depth and long term user interface.

Ultimately it boils down to the simple fact that, like you, I do not want to be repetitive with data entry – as such, I have decided to stick with DailyBurn for a while and give it a sincere try – essentially, like all such programs, you get out of it what you put into it.

Topic: General Discussion / Making a Decision to Commit - DailyBurn for six months

snowd0gg – I agree with your perspective. It’s a tough balance for any web service – where do you put the emphasis and what are the market demographics to justify? Right now, I believe DailyBurn has the best overall “balance” out there … and I do not envy the constant choices they need to make in order to stay on top.

For example, like you and virtually every other DB user, we all have our preferences and a wish list of services/features we would love incorporated into a fitness/lifestyle website – from my perspective, I would LOVE the ability to map my runs (which many other sites offer) but the data storage requirements, user interface development and mobility compatibility must be substantial.

Like everything in life, there is always a trade off …

Topic: General Discussion / Making a Decision to Commit - DailyBurn for six months

chimo1975 – thanks, the towel scrunching idea works quite well, glad to hear it’s getting better for you. I have been icing a few days now right after my workouts and I’ve noticed considerable improvement.

madocaro – I’ve been thinking about your impact experience with PF and, in hindsight, my own PF developed right around the time I started some serious trail running – which was on old logging roads graded with shale and crushed rock … this resulted in multiple “impacts” on my arch from rocks of various sizes, which may be a significant contributing factor. When my foot feels 100% again, I do plan to get back to trail running but will choose a more woodland route with softer footing.

ezrida – A hearty congrats on finishing your olympic triathlon race and thank you very much for the website link, it is quite good information and gives a concise, clear explanation with great images. When it states “Athletes who overpronate (rolling in or flattening feet) are especially at risk as the biomechanics of their feet place more stress to the band.” I believe they are spot on with my situation – being overweight for my height and bodyframe likely causes me to overpronate on my longer runs, apparently a common problem for any newbie or lightly experienced runner starting on longer endurance type runs. I’m not sure if I would find taping comfortable, but I may give it a try – so far I’m noticing considerable improvement with stretching and ice after workouts, but it has not gone away.

Thanks again everyone – it’s nice to get good advice and words of wisdom, much appreciated.

Topic: Fitness and Exercise / Plantar fasciitis

Ditto with what arnthorla stated, and it is absolutely true – there is no magic just hard work!

Topic: Motivation and Support / Building strength and needing a motivator

I realize this is now a dated thread, but the topic remains highly relevant, so why repeat it yet again. My question > the article below which was a good discussion provoker for this thread, was excellent and refreshing – but, with recent research studies, does it remain relevant?

I hope so, as between my work/lifestyle and general sleep pattern – I tend to average only about 6 hours sleep per night (and afternoon naps with the mutt on the week-ends). It feels like it is an adequate amount, but maybe I’m doing myself more harm by not promoting more sleep time?

Open to thoughts on this, the original article from TimeHealth is as follows:

Sleep is one of the richest topics in science today: why we need it, why it can be hard to get, and how that affects everything from our athletic performance to our income. Daniel Kripke, co-director of research at the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in La Jolla, Calif., has looked at the most important question of all. In 2002, he compared death rates among more than 1 million American adults who, as part of a study on cancer prevention, reported their average nightly amount of sleep. To many, his results were surprising, but they’ve since been corroborated by similar studies in Europe and East Asia. Kripke explains.
Q: How much sleep is ideal?
A: Studies show that people who sleep between 6.5 hr. and 7.5 hr. a night, as they report, live the longest. And people who sleep 8 hr. or more, or less than 6.5 hr., they don’t live quite as long. There is just as much risk associated with sleeping too long as with sleeping too short. The big surprise is that long sleep seems to start at 8 hr. Sleeping 8.5 hr. might really be a little worse than sleeping 5 hr.
Morbidity [or sickness] is also “U-shaped” in the sense that both very short sleep and very long sleep are associated with many illnesses—with depression, with obesity—and therefore with heart disease—and so forth. But the [ideal amount of sleep] for different health measures isn’t all in the same place. Most of the low points are at 7 or 8 hr., but there are some at 6 hr. and even at 9 hr. I think diabetes is lowest in 7-hr. sleepers [for example]. But these measures aren’t as clear as the mortality data.
I think we can speculate [about why people who sleep from 6.5 to 7.5 hr. live longer], but we have to admit that we don’t really understand the reasons. We don’t really know yet what is cause and what is effect. So we don’t know if a short sleeper can live longer by extending their sleep, and we don’t know if a long sleeper can live longer by setting the alarm clock a bit earlier. We’re hoping to organize tests of those questions.
One of the reasons I like to publicize these facts is that I think we can prevent a lot of insomnia and distress just by telling people that short sleep is O.K. We’ve all been told you ought to sleep 8 hr., but there was never any evidence. A very common problem we see at sleep clinics is people who spend too long in bed. They think they should sleep 8 or 9 hr., so they spend [that amount of time] in bed, with the result that they have trouble falling asleep and wake up a lot during the night. Oddly enough, a lot of the problem [of insomnia] is lying in bed awake, worrying about it. There have been many controlled studies in the U.S., Great Britain and other parts of Europe that show that an insomnia treatment that involves getting out of bed when you’re not sleepy and restricting your time in bed actually helps people to sleep more. They get over their fear of the bed. They get over the worry, and become confident that when they go to bed, they will sleep. So spending less time in bed actually makes sleep better. It is in fact a more powerful and effective long-term treatment for insomnia than sleeping pills.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,…

Topic: General Health / How important is sleep?

My wife was getting frustrated with my “diet” progress and stated my eating habits are truly atrocious to say the least. As such, she has started me on her own customized meal plan based on SOLE Food. I did some research into what SOLE food is all about, and very much like the concept:

Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical (SOLE) food is part of a larger movement to change the way that people eat, and the sources of their food. Proponents believe that eating SOLE food will help people to live longer, healthier lives, and will also benefit the environment. They also believe that it is important to combine all of the elements of SOLE, as food could be organic but not ethical, or local but not sustainable. It is hoped that SOLE food will enhance our connection to the environment, food producers, and our food. Adherents of the SOLE food movement range from proponents of slow food worldwide to major corporations which are trying to change the way they care for their employees and the world.

The sustainable part of SOLE food refers to farming and harvesting processes which are supportable in the long term. For example, a farmer who rotates crops and allows fields to lie fallow is farming sustainably, because the land will continue to support agriculture for centuries if well cared for. A farmer who continually plants the same crop and douses the land in fertilizer is not farming sustainably, because this exhausts the land. Proponents of SOLE food believe that the growing global population is putting intense pressure on the food supply, and that the only way to guarantee food for future generations is to start thinking long term, and farming in a sustainable way.

The term “organic” in SOLE food is a nod to organic agriculture, which is a type of sustainable farming practice. Organic agriculture goes another step, though, and tries to take care of the environment in general by producing food naturally, without the use of herbicides and pesticides. Organic farmers rotate crops, use natural pest control, and do not use artificial drugs or hormones for their animals. Most organic farmers also adhere to humane standards which dictate the amount of room animals have to move in, and how animals are slaughtered.

Adherents of SOLE food also believe that it is very important to obtain food locally. Food that comes from long distances is highly inefficient, and uses a lot of fossil fuels for transit. Local food also supports the local economy by keeping food dollars local, rather than in the hands of large companies and agribusinesses. Eating local also allows for a greater connection to the people who produce food, and helps to bridge the gap between city dwellers and farmers, consumers and producers.

Finally, SOLE food should be ethically produced. Ethical food standards include concepts like Fair Trade, which ensure that people are paid a living wage for their labor. But ethical food is also food that is produced humanely and in a way that benefits the environment. Companies which produce ethical food are expected to pay their workers well, complement the communities they live in, donate to ethical charities, and care about more than just the bottom line of profits.

By combining these four cornerstones, SOLE food proponents believe that they will nourish their bodies and the environments in a healthy way. With rising concerns about food supplies, food contamination, and obesity, many consumers are turning to SOLE food to make changes in their lives, and in the way food is produced globally. It is also hoped that a growing demand for SOLE food will result in higher production and lower prices, making it accessible to all consumers, not merely the wealthy.

Anyone interested in joining me during my SOLE food journey to a healthy body weight and much healthier lifestyle habits, feel free to connect with me or join the Healthy Lifestyles – Living Life! group

Topic: Diet and Nutrition / SOLE Food : Meal Plan / Lifestyle

This topic was created for the “Push to do more Push-ups!”:http://tracker.dailyburn.com/challenges/push_t… challenge.

Topic: Fitness Challenges / Push to do more Push-ups! by CrankyGoat

Great – and I also have to make it work with my workout routine, it will be nice to try to get into the habit though. I used to discard push-ups but some of the latest research shows there is some real value in a regular body weight workout, and with the four “basic” in particular: push-ups; dips; chin-ups and pull-ups! If I can stick to doing push-ups regularly, I plan to look at getting a dip rack for home – I used to love doing dips!

Topic: Fitness Challenges / Push to do more Push-ups! by CrankyGoat

I had developed Plantar Fasciitis in the summer and it really sidelined my running routine (and impacted my weight loss journey) … very painful.

For those who don’t know what this is – Plantar fasciitis is inflammation of the thick tissue on the bottom of the foot. This tissue is called the plantar fascia. It connects the heel bone to the toes and creates the arch of the foot. Plantar fasciitis occurs when the thick band of tissue on the bottom of the foot is overstretched or overused. Treatment recommendations are all over the map – but most commonly focus on rest and good stretching techniques.

Well, now I am about the start back running again – I am always interested in anyone who may have had experience and any advice with regards to Plantar Fasciitis. Particularly how you effectively dealt with it and how did you change your exercise routine to prevent it from happening again?

ALSO – looking for runners who are willing to be motivators, as running is/was the most effective way for me to start dropping the weight. Thanks

Topic: Fitness and Exercise / Return to Running ...

It seems that, over time, we all struggle with motivation and “Motivator” issues here on DailyBurn. It can be an effective support tool when it works – so count me in, let’s give it a try. I’ll send you an invite but, in the meantime, what are your goals? What are your exercise preferences? Are you using a structured diet or going with a more generalized meal plan?

Topic: Motivation and Support / Looking for serious and dedicated motivators !

NewOrganic, If you plan to target losing ~2 or more lbs per week – I’ll match you on that. I am also developing my own nutrition plan, mostly vegetarian but not entirely – I love my sockeye salmon, halibut, eggs, and organic turkey way too much to give up. Plus the odd steak here and there is a yummy thing indeed!

Nothing wrong with a good brisk walk – I’ve been doing that these past few months while I was healing up from Plantar Fasciitis. As for me, I really enjoy weightlifting – but it has done absolutely nothing to help me lose the excess weight. So I am trying something new, bodyweight exercises and an aerobic mix of running and rowing – just getting back into the running and it has been a slow go.

If you plan your start day for tomorrow (Friday the 11th) then let’s set up a weight loss challenge?? That way we can easily keep track of each other’s weight loss and ‘compete’ in a friendly way. How about it?

Topic: Motivation and Support / Looking for serious and dedicated motivators !

Great, thanks for the Challenge – I did not weigh myself this morning but will do so tomorrow. I use the Withings scale and love it, definitely ‘keeps me honest’ and makes it so easy to keep track. Even though we are heading into the holiday season – for me, that’s all the more reason to focus on losing the weight.

I plan to have a structured meal plan – with a regular breakfast, snack and lunch routine and the only variation will be my supper meals. I worked it out and it is well balanced nutritionally with a good ratio of 40% carbs; 30% protein and 30% fats … we shall see, but that’s what I did when I was really busy with work a coupe months ago and the weight really started dropping.

Topic: Fitness Challenges / 2PPW (Phase 1) by NewOrganic

Javanek, how’s your shoulder holding out? Hope you have a good week – you may not be into “challenges” (and I am usually not interested either) but NewOrganic started one up as a friendly way to lose some weight before the holidays and help us keep on track:

My links don’t seem to work well – so look up 2PPW (Phase 1) in Challenges if you are interested. Just started a day or so ago…

Topic: Fitness Challenges / Push to do more Push-ups! by CrankyGoat