Tag: Sleep

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Weight Loss Exercise

Measured and Sustained Action

One of the things that I have really learned with my daughter and her Kidney disease is that we have up times and down times and we need to really take advantage of both.

Kidney Disease But Still Super Active

taylorOur daughter Taylor, when she is feeling good likes to go on long bike rides and hikes and has lots of energy for that but then she does need to have her downtime and will be quiet and read or watch TV for the next day or so. Taylor has a far more balanced life than most people and it is because she wants to always do stuff but knows that the downtime has to happen and that sleeping and eating are critical for her health.

I learn a lot from Taylor, and you can too

I find that once I start moving I don’t want to stop. I like to be active with my hockey, weightlifting, training for my Kidney March, and anything else we can find to do. The trouble is that there is no urgency, I don’t schedule a lot of outings with the kids we just run with it so if I miss a day of exercise then it is no big deal. But it should be.

Really we need to schedule our exercise and activities or they probably won’t get done. There is a finite number of hours in the day and some things just always get in the way. Work, eating, sleeping, household and family chores, lots of stuff. If we don’t plan our fun, active stuff then it will not happen.

Downtime – Very Important

On the other side is our quiet time. I am worse for this and feel bad about it but we all need that time just to relax and recharge. Sitting in the backyard listening to the neighbourhood and sipping some kind of drink, meditative times just reflecting on where we have been and where we are going, and less active activities where we just get to hang with the family and friends and be truly present instead of thinking about the next thing that we are going to do (A whole blog post is sitting in that statement).

And sleep. I wish I was the guy that could thrive on 5 hours sleep a night but certainly I am not. I need my sleep and I count this as really the majority of my downtime. I listen to a quiet podcast, maybe read, and then fall asleep for hopefully 8 hours so that I am fully rested and tackle another great and fantastic day.

These are the things that my daughter Taylor really does well and mostly far better than me. She does all the active things, and then bakes, reads, sleeps, hangs out with friends and even talking to the dogs. All the things a kid should do but it is all measured.

Taylor’s Balanced Schedule

We were talking to a newspaper reporter a few months ago and she was asking what kind of difficulties that we have with Taylor and her Kidney Disease and I told her that it was not a big deal. My wife looked at me like I was crazy and then started listing off all the things we need to do; hospital visits, vitamins, shots, blood work. When I heard it that way it sounded like a very tough lifestyle. But realistically I think that our of everyone in the house my daughter really has everything together much better than any of the rest of us do.

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Weight Loss Exercise

Best Practices for Weighing Yourself


If you’re trying to lose weight then the very best way to stay motivated to meet your goals is to track your progress. The weighing scale is a great way to see progress, but you want to get accurate results. Here are some tips for weighing yourself the right way.

Don’t Weigh Yourself Every Day

scalesEven though you’re probably really excited to see results right away, it’s a bad idea to weigh yourself every day. Why? Because you might not always see a change. Worse, you could find that your weight has even increased from one day to the next. This will interfere with your training and your progress, because it stops you feeling motivated to continue.

Remember, just because the scale does not show it, your body can tell the difference. Eating more healthily and exercising on a daily basis does a lot more for you than simply lowering the numbers on that scale. It’ll make you look and feel better, not to mention the fact that you could be building muscle, which actually weighs more than fat!

Instead, try weighing yourself every seven days. Pick a day of the week and don’t weigh yourself on any other day. That way, you’re still tracking your progress, but you won’t be doing it to an obsessive level. You’re far more likely to see real results once a week than you are by weighing yourself every day.

Weigh Yourself When You Wake Up

A good time to weigh yourself is as soon as you wake up, firstly because you have no food in your stomach, so you’ll get a more accurate reading. Did you know that you also lose weight by expelling moisture as you sleep? This is another reason to weigh yourself in the morning. Note that when you do weigh yourself, it should be after urinating. You should stand on the scales naked, as the clothes you wear can also have an effect on the number on that dial.

In the morning, we’re also less prone to the circumstances that can make our weight fluctuate throughout the day. However, if you work on night shifts your body clock will be different. Also, if you’ve been drinking the night before you may seem lighter the next morning due to dehydration. Or, if you’ve been eating in the night, you may appear heavier!

The scales never show 100% of the true story, so it’s a good idea to combine them with measuring your body fat, and also being in tune with the way you feel. Weighing yourself regularly is a fantastic way to stay motivated, however, as long as you follow those tips above for the most accurate readings.


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Weight Loss Exercise

How to Prevent Injuries This Summer


I have always found that the best way to get started on something is to do it for consecutive days. Exercise is no different than anything else but in the past I have been terrible for this as I used to never do enough to prevent injuries

What I have always done is set a goal, lets say to run a 10k. Well I go in gung ho and run hard everyday for a week, not getting started and moving up in distance but just moving up too quick and I end up with lots of aches and pains and injuries that just end up stopping me. This is bad.

What happens when we start and exercise program is that we need to strengthen a few things. We need to strengthen our will, our tenacity, our strength, our joints, and our form. Lets looks at each of these.

Prevent Injuries By Working Up

How to Prevent Injuries This SummerStrengthen our Will – The very first day that you go for a walk or run, or even a weight workout you will be excited and carve out a piece of your day to squeeze it in. We are all busy and fill everyday so something falls off that day. What falls off? TV, or Facebook, or just some quiet time, even sleep sometimes. Well after that first day, especially after the first week life invades again.

For me my internet surfing and quiet time have to be sacrificed to get a workout in unless I workout at lunch. The trouble is that after a few days of this for most people, me included means that life is not the same as it once was. I miss idle time, I miss just “catching up”. But these priorities are not as important as a daily workout. In my household workouts are a top priority but in most households they are not. So what do you do? Strengthen your will, get serious about your exercise priority and realize that there are no shortcuts. You can workout at lunch (like I tend to do) but if that is not convenient then maybe getting up an hour earlier to workout will help. Whatever it is this is a painful change in your schedule.

Strengthen our Tenacity – I call it this because I am not much of a runner. If I start running then a few minutes in I will think about walking for a few minutes. After about 20 minutes of running I want to just be on the couch. Again this is tough at the beginning but exercise in the beginning is always tough. After a few workouts, and I really mean a few like 5 or 6 workouts your brain gets less lazy, and your body is able to get these workouts done and you don’t have the lazy brain telling you to stop because your body knows it can handle more.

Our Strength – Leg strength and arm strength, even core strength takes time to increase. The trouble is that we get sore. After a weight or cardio workout you feel invigorated but in the morning it is hard to get out of bed. I feel this most in my legs and lower back but truth is that your body will get the hang of it and strengthen pretty quick unless you take a week or more off of your training. This is another reason to not be dumb like me but to progressively up your output as you get your workouts, or new style workouts going.


How to Prevent Injuries This SummerOur Joints – This is a tough one for me. Whenever I start running I know that my legs and back will get sore later but what really has always stopped me is my joints. I have trouble with my hips and my knees and always have. One of the problems with me is that I have a pretty big frame with a fair amount of muscle on it and I don’t think that 200 pound guys are really built to run.

What I have always found is that there are alternatives to hit joints and the internal ligaments better. I find that bike riding has always strengthened my knee joints since there is a lower amount of force but a huge number of reps when you ride a bike. Try to find these high rep ways to strengthen your joints and you will be in much better shape to make them work better.

Our Form – This is critical. Have you ever seen a good long distance runner in training? These guys are awesome. They have short strides, float between strides, and seem to make the action more effortless. This is good form and this makes all the difference to all of the points above. If you learn proper form then the mechanics of the exercise will make things much easier for you and lead to less injuries and a much more enjoyable time training.

Another opposite example of this is a new weight lifter. Have you ever seen a guy on his first time doing lat pulldowns or bench presses? It is all about jerking the weight up and down, once you learn the biomechanics of the exercise you will see people with really smooth reps up and down and there is a much more even and steady force on the muscles.

Safest Way to Move Up Our Training

Really there are no excuses for bad form. The easiest way if you are running is to join a running club, if weightlifting get a few workouts from a personal trainer, and otherwise with most sports you can have someone record you on an iphone or video camera and then after watching this you can go to youtube and watch how a pro moves and see what you are missing.

All this leads to progressive exercise. I know that just for my wife and I starting to do distance walking for our Kidney March we have to eventually get to 100 kilometers in 3 days. The forst week is just a 3 kilometer walk for three days which is easy, but after 8 weeks there are a couple of 20 kilometer walks. Finding time for a 40 minute walk is ok now and our muscles and joints can take it but finding 4 or 5 hours a day in a few weeks will be tougher on our time, muscles, and joints. Having a chance to progressivley move up from 3 kilometers in 40 minutes, to 5 kilometes in and hour and 10 kilometers in 2 hours over a few weeks will allow everything from our style of walking to our joints, our will, and our muscles to get stronger

Follow these steps to prevent injuries and you should have a much more safe and enjoyable summer


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