Myth Buster : A short fitness session will compensate for Hollidays extravagances

Supposedly a 45 minutes of "Intense" exercising will compensate for the craziness of food over-consumption  during Holidays feast, or maybe less ?

Average : 4500 Calories

"A quarter of those surveyed thought they could burn off the calories by working out for two hours…when it would actually take a 130-pound woman more than seven and a half hours of running or more than 15 and a half hours of brisk walking to torch 4,500 calories. Also, 60 percent of respondents said they planned to go for a walk. Other people said they'd shop or get busy in the bedroom later to blast away fat. Hmm, not gonna cut it."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/eating-thanksgiving/story?id=21021483

"seven and a half hours of running".
Not even true, if you consider cardio zones, the different "calories" types or body storage (carbs, fat) as well as the basics of timing of the training itself. It would be accurate if you were running DURING the feast and we considering pure calories output/input without internal storage considerations. Which is only true in the case of some ultra-runners.

 (http://runeatrepeat.com/2013/11/19/eating-pizza-while-runninginterview-with-dean-karnazes/)

Let's do some math:

If the dinner itself is around 4500 Calories, it is likely your food intake for the day will be around 5500, including breakfast and a light lunch or snack. which is likely 4000 too much overall for a day.
Then, How do you burn 4000 calories, i,e. more than 1 pound (0.5 Kg of fat) ?

Using as a reference my 10K race, and I was not fooling around, in 50 minutes, averaging 8 min/mile, I burned 600 Calories with an average HRM of 155 bpm.

http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/fat-versus-carbohydrate-utilization-during-exercise-calculator.aspx

Unfortunately in this training Zone, I am burning 90% of Carbs and 10% of fat, Carbs that I will have to re-compensate by the daily intake at -at least- 80%, lets assume 200 Calories of burned/race.

In short, I will have to race a 10K every day for 40 days to lose the weight excess of one meal.

Now, using a long run, Lets say, 20 miles, 1500 Calories at 125 Bpm, I am around 50/50, i.e. 750 Calories of fat per long run.

In this case, I will have to execute "only 5 times" a 20 miles/4h run  to compensate.

Piece of cake. Specially, when we are talking of people who would have hard time running 30 minutes on their own. Sorry, jogging. Even, walking.


Morality: 
It is way easier to lose weight by controlling the food intake than to burn it through exercise. It helps, of course, but except if you are training for a marathon, you are not gonna cut it. 


The only way to compensate for Holiday excess is a strict diet for at least one to two weeks after or before. Exercising "intensively" BEFORE the diner will help to empty your carbohydrates storage and the food intake will directly compensate partially.

The other way is to eat less, drink less and go vegan.
But that's not for everybody, I guess ;)
Not just yet.

Old news for a new toy

For my birthday, Well, Almost for my birthday, as the release date has been delayed over and over, I got a new toy. Thanks to everybody who contributed a bit, by the way.

The Forerunner 220

I used to run with my cell. Well, it is bulky, the GPS is always more sensitive and the battery could not handle runs longer than a couple of hours. Those watches are awesome. Paired with a Heart Rate Monitor, you got all information you need for serious running. They have a built-in accelerometer that give you cadence and stride and compensate roughly when the GPS is not available (heavy cloudy days, runs in the forest, treadmill, etc..).

I discovered the correct training zones, and now focus on running by the heart rate, instead of a perceived effort. It helps to save energy and balance your needs and expenditure for the longer races.

Actual review:

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/11/garmin-forerunner-depth-review.html

(ps: No, you cannot check your emails and facebook on the watch. Not yet.)

More data for the geek in you

20 Miles Run with Maui in perspective

Now, I cannot run without technology. How pathetic ;)

The last of the long runs

I was a bit anxious for this one as well. 20 miles is quite long and I was feeling again my usual right hip psoas pain. To the point I iced it yesterday night, a first in a while. I picked a new route, which will bring me to the start of the Crater road. Starting at 6AM, the only issue is the relatively important elevation, which will slow things down. 

Halaekala Hwy, in the early morning.
Very few traffic

Kula and his historical garage

We should go check this place someday

At the foot of the volcano, a cute lodge.

22 Miles to go, and all going up.
Not today

As usual, the magnificent view of the  Kihei shores

Kekaulike Road, Kula

Kekaulike Road, Kula,
with funny picture quality

Cobb Street, going up.
Hard to realize on this picture, but after 2:30 of runs,
it was like a wall.

Run summary

Overall, the run went very well. The overall pacing do not seem too bad, related to the climb (+1500ft up and down) which kills my legs both ways (in fact, I prefer going up than down, at this point). I keep my heart rate always lower than before, between 110 and 130, which is the low part of the cardio zone, and high part of the fat burning zone. More on this later.

At this pace, running that long is no more a real issue, and I am now confident I will be able to push it to 26 miles. 

I was very tired, though, coming back home ;)

Readjusting Weight : Strava vs Garmin

Losing weight is all about approximations.
Dieting is not.
Approximation of calories eaten, consumed, burned, of weight lost, muscles builds, etc..
Keeping a weight log of calories, sport activities, weight and waist size is critical to readjust time to time, and kills some wrong ideas.

Couple of last months weight log

First, I pretty fast realized I would not reach my weight goals before the marathon. There is two parts of that. I cannot limit the intake too much in a high training period. And I am building muscle, which weight more than fat. However, there is some signs that I have become leaner. Waist size decreased. Overall shape. But this doesn't show in the graph.

obviously something happened early December that skewed my numbers. In fact, I did switch to Strava as a running log.
And use the website as a Calories Burned reference.

Yesterday, I double checked on the Garmin Connect system.
Based on Strava I have burned in the last 6 weeks a deficit of 7000 calories on top of my daily deficit (300), which bring us to a theoretical deficit of 20K calories, i.e. more than 5 pounds.
Well, obviously, something in wrong.

Based on the Garmin Website, I actually built a deficit of Only 1300 Calories.
Now, If you extrapolate a bit, you can imagine that I might not burn anymore 2000 Calories / day at rest, but , let's say, 1900.
Some math, and voila, I would have only build a total deficit of 10K calories, i.e. less than 3 pounds. Add the muscle build from the strenuous activity , and you have a picture way closer from reality.

As a conclusion, I decided to not change any weight goal for now, but to use the Garmin Connect calories calculation / approximation for my needs.

Some references:

https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/20959327-Calorie-Calculation

Calorie calculations for runs require that you enter your weight. Strava will use your weight and the elevation data and distance of your run to estimate calories burned. If you're having trouble getting calories calculated for your Runs, check or reset your elevation correction by following the instructions on Elevation Correction for your Activities. Calories for runs are a function of speed (grade adjusted), weight, and moving time. Multiply these together with a scaling factor, and that's the estimate.

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/11/how-calorie-measurement-works-on-garmin.html

It then combines this data with heart rate information from the ANT+ heart rate strap. Specifically, it evaluates the time between heart beats (beat to beat) to determine estimated MET (Metabolic Equivalent), which in turn is used determine actual work expenditure.

In short, no methods are accurate, but personally, I do believe that calories consumption have to be related to effort and effort is directly related to cardiac activity.
In my case, there is no doubts that Strava is way too generous on the expenditure, I have seen more than 1500 calories difference on a single long run.



Well, If you want to feel good and eat cheesecake, might as well stick with Strava ;)

Back in business...

Surf is pumping as a Christmas gift. And it is windy too.
Could not stay too long with my broken gear, just in case I had to go out with the paddle board.

Christmas gift in advance of a couple of hours,
got an amazing deal on a all carbon paddle.

Piece of Art,
Extra light

Full carbon

Made in Oregon, but by a native Hawaiian Dave Chun.

At KIALOA We Live Like We Paddle

Cannot wait to try it out !