Yesterday I completed my third consecutive 9 week exercise program using EA Sports Active 2. I reported on the two prior 9 week programs here and here. This time around my schedule allowed me to perform each of the workouts of the plan, four workouts a week over nine weeks, without skipping a single workout.
This series the program was at the highest level of intensity and the final workout consisted of a grueling, 50 minute series of squats, lunges, running in place, leg lifts, and a variety of other cleverly arranged upper body, lower body, aerobic, and core exercises, preceded by appropriate warm-up exercises and succeeded by appropriate cooldown exercises. According to the program’s meter, guided by the heart rate and motion-sensing monitors that are part of the program, I burned about 550 calories.
My experience satisfies me that the simple thermodynamic model of weight loss is inadequate. I control my diet rigorously—I weigh practically everything that goes into my mouth and I have a solid, painstakingly acquired knowledge of the composition of the things that I eat. I have not consumed more while on my exercise regimen than before. I have not changed what I eat (except, possibly for the better). I do not cheat. Cumulatively, in the three 9 week programs I’ve gone through since late last year I have burned more than 30,000 calories more than I would otherwise have done and the simple thermodynamic model predicts that I should have lost about 9 pounds. I lost a few pounds at the outset of the first 9 week program. Since then my weight hasn’t varied by a pound.
Fortunately, weight loss wasn’t my primary objective in this exercise regimen. My primary objective was to reduce the size of my waist so that I maintain the 8 inch drop (a variance of 8 inches between jacket size and waist size) that I have had for nearly five decades. I achieved that objective by the end of the first 9 week program.
I don’t have the secret to weight loss in humans. If I did I’d be a billionaire. I think there’s some merit in the simple thermodynamic model but my own experience tells me that there’s probably some merit in the “set point” theory as well. I suspect that heredity may be determinative, particularly later in life.
Since starting the exercise regimen my strength has increased and I am told that my stamina has increased as well. I have exercised muscles that I ignored for more than a half century. I guess that’s the advantage of a formal, systematic program.
The gains have not come without costs. The commitments of time, effort, and sweat (I am literally wringing wet at the end of each workout) have been substantial. In addition I have a neurologically-based chronic pain condition. The pain involved in my regimen has been excruciating. Only the skills of mental and physical control that I acquired through decades in the martial arts have enabled me to persist. I was not unaware of what my exercise regimen was likely to entail when I began it.
I have not entirely decided what will come next. I will undoubtedly repeat the last 9 week program. It’s possible I’ll tweak it a bit to increase the intensity. Or I may add additional activities outside the formal program. I’m wary of that due to the possibility of my not regulating such activities sufficiently.
Or indeed your experience shows that weight is a poor metric for the health issues.
I read a very informed comment a few months ago that stated that studies had shown BMI is not accurate for Northern European populations. I browsed around looking for such studies and could not find any except those being done for East Asian populations.
If you are getting stronger at the same weight, that is a net win, for sure.
I think something similar is happening to me. I weigh the same, but have more leg muscle. I came down off a snow-hike to Kearsarge Pass thinking, “that wasn’t hard.”
First, nice line:
. . . and I am told that my stamina has increased as well.
I have of course fill in the blanks myself. There’s no one worse to have filling in your blanks than a fiction writer. It took about five seconds to go from grateful wife to string of high priced hookers and you in a fur-lined pimp hat.
I’ve just dropped 15 pounds on a straight-up calorie counting diet. And then I hit a wall. But until the recent madness of moving I was back at the gym lifting and it’s amazing how quickly my utterly neglected muscles spring back to life. In just a few weeks I went easily from tired out by 3 sets at 60 to tired out by 3 sets at 120.
I was not familiar with the concept of the jacket to waist but I like it for the simple reason that I have broad shoulders and that your ratio allows me to leverage that nicely against my broad (but 8 inches less broad) belly.
I don’t have a hat head.
I began going to the gym 5 days a week about a month and a half ago (in addition to the 2-3 times a week I play golf). My exercises sessions last about an hour. And about a month ago, I began keeping a daily dairy of what I eat. (It just occurred to me that I don’t record the 2-3 glasses of wine I have each day…ah, well.) This month I’ve lost about 4 pounds. If I continue and lose 2-3 pounds a month, that would be nice. But, and this is an important but, I don’t really care all that much any more about my weight anymore– actually, I don’t obsess. I’m only 5’6”, and I weigh 199 lbs. Now you might think that’s fat, but my wife says she doesn’t think I’m fat at all. Stocky, yeah, but not fat. But the way I feel now, I’m 70, work out pretty hard 5 days a week (on machines), and I can see and feel the difference the exercise has made. The tone of my muscles has increased dramatically. When I look at myself in the mirror, I look, well, tighter. Not bad, I tell myself, for an old geezer.
(Oh, in the interests of full disclosure, I’m sanguine about my health, and the reason, I think, is that I have bradycardia. My resting heartrate is about 55 bpm. And when I was younger and did a lot of running, it was even lower. Probably gonna need a pacemaker at some point…)
My brother is a year and a half younger than me. I’m 68. He played some college football, doesn’t smoke or drink, jogs every day.
I smoke and drink and get my exercise at the keyboard.
When we get together about twice a year (he in Oregon, me in Florida) We look about the same – typical paunch.
To account for the typical 40 pound weight gain over 20 years most of us experience, you need to consume just 20 extra calories a day. Pretty tight regulation if calories are the sole determinant.
Steve
That’s the evidence usually proffered to suggest that something other than the simple thermodynamic model must be operating.
You may have gained muscle pounds while losing fat pounds.
550 calories per 50 minutes seems suspect.
Bottom line, do you feel and look better? Take it.
Not to me. That includes running a mile, doing, literally, thousands of stride jumps, thousands of rope skips, plus core and upper body exercises.
Sadly, I never feel better or, at least, never feel good. I feel hungover all of the time plus shooting pains and persistent widespread aches.
“Not to me. That includes running a mile, doing, literally, thousands of stride jumps, thousands of rope skips, plus core and upper body exercises.”
I’m no physical therapist/biokineticist etc. But I do remember watching on PBS once a lecture by an MIT “expert” on this issue commenting that various forms of exercise use different amounts of calories. (Swimming/biking/running/basketball etc) The winner? Running. When asked why running was the most efficient calorie burner he replied with the stellar: “we don’t know.” In any event, I’m not sure even pure running burns 550 in 50-55 mins. Unsolicited advice: you might want to find out who calibrates that.
“I feel hungover all of the time plus shooting pains and persistent widespread aches.”
In the words of a former president: “I feel your pain.” Your years of marshal arts may have left you much like ex-football players – torn up. The body was simply not meant for that.
Me – golfer. Before you laugh, I was told that the dynamic force of swinging a driver was like dealing with a hundred pound weight. Who knows? In any event, 4 cervical disc herniations and three fusions later – and after years of nerve impingement induced headache, a left arm paralyzed for 9 months, three years of shooting pains, aches and muscle spams, and lost sleep – well, I feel your pain.
The easy thing to say would be its a bitch getting old. However, I’m finding that a well designed regimen of exercise and stretching that (in my case) stabilizes cervical support and opens up nerve canals but in your case may simply restore knee, shoulder, hip etc joints to proper balance (eg we tend to close up like a shrimp if we do not pay attention to back exercises as we age) is of great benefit.
Best of luck.