bargalya's Fitness Profile

bargalya's Journal

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  Title...

  The shoes are better. But I guess I have to run more to know how they will work for me. When it comes to shoes I believe that less is more. Too much stabilization or cushioning can prevent the foot from stabilizing it self. But for the foot to being able to stabilize it needs to strengthen, so it plan on gradually move to lighter shoes, or what they call racing flats. I might even experiment with Vibram 5 Fingers. - It gets pretty cold here. But I am pretty used to train in the cold. Running in snow is kind of uneven but it is softer than on cement, so it has its benefits. ;) - About your knee problems. You might try cycling to strengthen up your stabilizing muscles. And I think you absolutely must do strengthening and stabilization exercises, else you will always get these problems. But for now you must let your knees heal up.

  Posted about 1 year ago by arnthorla

  
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  Yes no doubt, you must rest your knees.

  Went for a run today, hope I will be ok. - About your injury. You most definitely must rest your knees. And you did right going to the doctor. You must find out what is causing this. Have you been doing leg strengthening, and stability exercises? Do you perhaps land on your heel when you run? Perhaps your shoes are not right for you (you should go to a specialist running store and get properly fitted). - Even though you are not running, don't eat too little. Your body can't recover if you don't eat enough. Good luck and all the best. :)

  Posted about 1 year ago by arnthorla

  
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  How are you doing?

  Just checking. :)

  Posted about 1 year ago by arnthorla

  
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  Be patient ;)

  Looks like you are not eating enough. Your BMR (what you burn if you would stay in bed all day and night) is around 1387 kcal. So multiply that with 1.2 or 1.3 to account for activities of daily life and you would have your minimum amount of calories to maintain your current weight. That would be around 1665 - 1803 kcal (depending on which multiplier you use). - But you want to lose weight (or fat more accurately) so you would take use a modifier to find your new minimum calories. (You subtract the modifier from your current minimal maintenance calories.) That number is typically 200 - 500 kcals. 500 being the most aggressive and 200 being most sensible. You also have to think about your total size. The smaller you are the bigger the modifier becomes relative to your BMR. So for a big guy you would use 500 with out hesitating, but for a small woman like your self I would not use 500. If you are too aggressive you send a send a signal to your body that you are in famine, and your body will try to save your life by saving energy and burning as little as possible. And I suspect that is what has been happening. So you need to eat more to tell your body that there is no danger and it can carry on being active and burning energy at a more optimal rate. - So what I would do is to use a minimum maintenance number of say 1800 kcal and use a modifier of say 400 so your new minimum kcal would be 1800 - 400 == 1400 kcal. - There is one way to look at calories, is to look at a week at time. Sum up the total amount of calories over a week. And then use low calorie days and high calorie days, as a way to lose weight but not going into starvation mode. The high calorie days, make sure your body does not go into starvation mode. But you must be sure to get the right amount of calories total over the whole week. I have not tried this method, but I know some have used it to good effect. All this depends on how your body works, we are all a little bit different, even though we are also more or less the same too. - And if you train regularly with this, that will speed up the progress and of course improve body composition too. - So the most important thing for you now is to stop looking at the scale as much and look more in the mirror, and how your clothes fit, and things like that. And eat a bit more, and train regularly. And realize that 35% of the body weight is in muscle, so if that weight changes that will have a big effect on total body weight. That's another reason not to stare too much at the scale, focus more on body composition and how your body feels, and how you perform in your workouts. The last bit of fat is always slower to go and much more stubborn than if you had more. So this is all very normal. ;) And don't forget that you have a normal body percentage! :)

  Posted about 1 year ago by arnthorla

  
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  I think BF% is better to measure your progress.

  Hi. The reason I was wondering, is because BF% is a much better measure of progress, if one is looking to slim down. It is possible to become lighter and reach a kg goal, but still have a similar BF% and that just means one has gotten smaller but is similarly fat compared to size. Another reason BF% is a better measure, has to do with focusing on loosing fat and not muscle. Muscles burn more calories, but even more importantly you will need your muscles to stay fit in the future. A still another reason is that the kg number says very little about how you look. An athletic woman, that looks great, might have a high kg number but a lower BF%, so she is slim but muscular (not speaking of super muscular ... just a healthy athletic look). I think you would be better served by getting your BF% measured, probably just in a local gym. (I use cheap plastic calipers (http://www.accumeasurefitness.com/). I don't recommend them especially, I just use them because I don't have anything else close at hand. I actually don't know where they are right now. So I guess I should go and find them soon.) - I am no expert on lowering BF%, but in general a high ratio of protein in diet and a slight deficit in calorie intake (not dieting but eating just enough, and even 100 kcal below that, roughly) is what most do. If you lift weights and do some cardio, then that will speed up the progress (but then you might have to eat slightly more too to have energy to work out). That's about it when it comes to lowering BF% and not losing muscles (you want to keep your muscles to maintain your fitness after you have lowered your BF%). - The thing with my BF% is that I I have never been real fat (I have not allowed my self to get fat) so I guess I have never been over 13% or so, and that makes staying low pretty easy. I guess I have been about 11% most of my adult life. That means I have always cleaned up my nutrition when I saw that I was getting fat, I never just waited until I got fat. I think I was closest to getting fat when I was about 25 years old or so. The most powerful way to control your body composition is through the right nutrition. But exercise speeds it up and is needed for looking fit of course and to make you fit and healthy. - My achilles tendon seems to be better but I don't trust that yet. What is so frustrating is to have the endurance to run and run but the tendons are just not ready for it yet. - Thanks and same to you. ;)

  Posted about 1 year ago by arnthorla