Diet, sport & lifestyle

Introduction

Morning,

when the covid pandemic began I decided to get back in shape; as usual I started to make a list of requirements, evaluate various solutions, and establish a modular program. Often it's not the out of shape the real trigger, because the laziness tend to progressively justify the situation, and effectively also in my case the spring has been the incapacity to make some movements, and the short breath during intense and strength activity (i.e. motocross). In 2019 I was 48 and now I'm 51.

I splitted the approach into two macro modules: the diet and the fisical activity (i.e. sport); obviously due to my overweight it's ridicolous to think to a training program that include 2-hours run, or 5 workouts per week.

    It's necessary to start from the diet side, because the correct feeding offers the correct physical energy levels, and the correct intake of vitamins and macronutrients ... and because I wanted to avoid finding myself after 6 months with all the analyzes wrong.

    I thought to the "diet" in terms of correct life balance, a lifestyle reminder to maintain the correct ratio intake/activity (no problem eating a whole pandoro as long as you cycle for 5 hours the next day).

Diet

After several evaluations, about specific diet-ologies, rather then contact a dietician/nutritionist, I realized my two big requirements:

• I work, and so it happen to eat at the restaurant, and so I cannot pretend to have a rigid scheme with exotic or rare/complicated foods
• I need to change my diet trough the time (training phases) or by opportunity (I can't resist to certain foods)

Therefore also the best diet ever, with a perfect balance, would turn out to be a failure after a business launch, or a sudden pizza night with friends. I thought that the correct solution was a calorie counting app, because it's like a backpack to be filled: no matter which food you need only to respect the daily calories intake.

    This "variable" (i.e. non fixed) diet must be addressed in successive stages:

1. basic respect calories counting: at the beginning there is no organization, so it's important to refer to known and simple foods (a no oil tuna, pasta/rice with raw tomato sauce, green salad, boiled potatoes, peach/cantaloupe/strawberry, etc), avoiding "complex" ones (as bread with olives, seasoned meat, etc) ... a precise food logging give deterministic results
2. after 1 month, tipically you'll understand that your favourite foods are not many, and you'll start to respect the macronutrients (carbo/prot/fat) ratio
3. vitamins intakes, two aspects: as a long term (life) diet all vitamins and minerals are important (the right app helps you choose the foods you prefer the one that contains the vitamins you need), and (but) it's important that you cannot exceed some vitamins daily limit (i.e. the fat-soluble ones A-D-E-K) for long periods (carry cancer)

Avoiding the night raids on the refrigerator and taking into account the amount of food I ate, for the first 120 days I lost about 100 grams a day (I neve skipped the daily scale measurement); I started adding the "sport" activity after 30 days from the begining.

To be fast and efficient these are my hints for the food logging:

• at home identify your preferred "bare" key foods: a can of tuna give 25 grams of protein, an egg (55-60) 6-7 grams of proteins and fats, parmiggiano reggiano more fats than protein, etc; with these ones the logging become scientific and recurring (i.e. time efficient), and simple to maintain (conversely complex foods, rich of condiments, etc are not prohibited, but they make the logging by novice really difficult)
• at restaurant prefer pasta/rice with tomato sauce, fruit, or alternatively chicken/turkey, because they have a deterministic calorie intake when consumed without condiments; by practice you'll able to order red-meat, etc
• since the big mistake is underestimating the weight, the foods above are low calories, and so they reduce that error; btw if you're paranoic or, as me a very precision person, buy a portable scale: as big as a cell phone you can take it with you
• the general rule should be a carboidrate-based launch and a protein-based dinner; along the time, after 2-3 months, when workouts increases that rule will not be sufficient
• water is important (contributes to weight loss, helps the assimilation of hydro-soluble vitamins, etc) , an adult must drink 30-35 milliliters of water per kilo of body mass, so a 70 Kg person must drink 2.45 lt/day; it's recommended to drink a glass before the beginning of each meal)
• and last, the accessories:
• some supplements are overly sugary, avoid these, you need minerals, etc, if you need sugar ... you know it's in the jar in the kitchen), in any case log these to control your intake and your mineral levels
• vitamins: it's almost impossible to take the recommended daily dose, tipically you need pills; the rule is never to exceed 50% of the daily values, because the rest comes from foods ... choose a non commercial one, that contains at least vitamins D -- and -- K because they are present in small quantities into the foods, and because when both present help prevent cancer

After an analysis I choose the MyNetDiary app, because has also some shortcuts to help to:

• copy previous meals
• tracks vitamins, minerals and macronutrients
• create your customized meal, also cloning from a defined one (f.e. if you clone the "milk" you maintain the calcium mineral, usually not declared on the package)
• add a food by barcode
• "compose" the meal selecting the food from a list, where on top appear the most used ones

MyNetDiary sync from GoogleFit also in the bare "free" version; this is important to add the workouts in the weight estimation to check if you're on target or not. I start my journey using my bluetooth scale, and despite the fact that the impedance is not reliable, the weight measurement is perfect, and it's uploaded instantly to GoogleFit and so it shall'be used by the app.

    Target can be expressed by date or daily calories budget; I prefer the second one, because I do a workout each day, so I should avoid the under weight.

    Choose the premium one to:

• enforce your custom macro ratio (I need to follow different ratios trough different workout phases, as strenght, definition, etc)
• use time in food logging (I need to differentiate the morning and afternoon snacks)
• vitamins/minerals intake analisys (fundamental for diet stage 2 and 3)
• sync trough other fitness platform as Garmin Connect.

Generally speaking for diet stage 1 (i.e. calories counting) there is not much differences trough various apps, but for a long term program the efficiency (that lower the probability of giving up) is foundamental, so:

• food recognition by photo is not very useful, because it could be slow and often lead to incorrect results (and I don't have the patience to wait if I'm in the self-service queue), it's faster to select the food from the most usued or favorite lists
• fitness data repository (as data aggregation platform): you could be a Garmin fun, so "Garmin Connect" is your complete ecosystem platform, conversely if you wear Polar sensors/watch (as me), and you need the freedom to be open to various solutions and / or additions (automatic scales, etc), you should relay on GoogleFit platform; GFit sync is free in base version that it's the first small step that you should comply (remember the "by step" approach)
• web user interface is a plus to input datas from your browser; it's not critical if the app interface is fast, but it helps in some situations (low cell phone battery, etc)

Personally I "program" my journey the evening before or during the breakfast; when I'll out of home, I sketch my restaurant launch inserting rice/pasta/chicken, and leave the dinner empty, then during the dinner I complete the journey to reach the correct levels of proteins, etc. So I'm able to fill my diet in a very simple and fast way. 

  Physical activity (i.e. workout/sport)

I started train regularly after 1 month from the beginning, 2 times per week, mainly by tapis roulant cardio sessions; actually I do 3 cardio sessions per day (1 hour and 1 quarter each) as tapis/cycling, 3 strength workout (1-1.5 hours), and the 7th day is the motocross day.

    From 2 trough 7 ? it seems to much ? no, it's the diet effect, and I explain how the "diet" change the perspective:

• before the diet
• I did the routine blood tests (cholesterol was a little high, not life threatening, but to be correct)
• my heartbeat at rest was around 60, and I was able to complete a 15-20 motocross session
• then:
• after first year of  "diet" my blood tests were perfect; subsequently, thanks to food logging, I also discovered that the slightly high potassium level was due to carrots, and so I fix it
• my HB, seated in a chair, is 40-42, 36-38 during night (33-35 in the summer) ... and I'm not bradycardic :-)
• I'm able to do (2 x 1 hour) motocross sessions where beat stay in band 5 (the higher one) for 50 minutes, or (2 x 45' + 30' minutes)
• feeding correctly help the daily training, that become an "habitude" because it shall the body to require (and the mirror confirm); training is an energizer and a method to reduce the lean loss (muscle) and strength after 40 years

My first target was the motocross training, but honestly it is very rewarding to be able to make efforts in the sun without particular problems :-)

About the strength trainings I choose to have my own personal gym in my garage, and now I can say that it was a winning choice. It's not necessary a "The Rock" setting, but to begin it's sufficient a couple of dumbbell, or a multi function cable machine.

Fitness trackers

During the entire process the fitness trackers are a key function, to avoid overstimate your workout and the quantity of calories burned (no black magic here, you swallow and you consume).

    Clearly a phased approach is possible, and desirable to avoid being overwhelmed by inputs that we would not yet have the experience of handling; at the beginning a simple fitness band is sufficient to track runs, various light workout and give a good estimation of your heart activity.

Along the path you'll use sport watch with external sensors to have a more precise estimate of your heart rate and work on thresholds (there are specific high-low cardio graphs to increase the fat consumption); an external sensor improve the beat analysis and it's more portable than watches (think to armband Polar OH1+ as a valid and reliable replacement for the chest strap, with the main advantage of a better wereability).

Actually I use my Polar Vantage M as general calories and step counters, and as a base to gather info from external beat sensors (used to improve precision).

    I dropped the chest strap Polar H10 a bit (moisture is always something of difficult during winter) and replaced with the arm band, even if for cycling the chest strap remains a good and actual choice (positioned in the chest it is not affected by movements and enhances the natural precision).

Due to lot of mobility during motocross it's mandatory to use the armd band, conversely during swim, where the beats vary little the "bare" sportwatch is sufficient.

    Keep in mind that the optical sensor technology (vs. chest strap electric misuration) is not an incorrect idea, it's the application (i.e. placement) to make the difference; both in standalone or connected (to sport watch) operation modes, if placed on bicep rather than on forearm (near elbow), it does not vibrate or move during accelerated movements (bacause it's light), and it's really precise (and it does not make any interpolation as some "reduced 

The top sport watches brands are Garmin, Polar, Suunto, and we could conferencing for hours, from my point of view I choosen Polar at the beginning mainly for the chest strap (it's a know standard), and then I appreciated the "not so close platform", rather than the good mobile app that transform your cell phone into a cycling computer at no cost (Polar Beat).

    Naturally I disabled all the "smart features" (phone call notifications, message, etc) and so I'm interested only to have a precise sport watch, because I have always my phone with me, so I don't need an extension (but this is philosophy).

Conclusions

Both for the diet and for the training it's important to understand that:

• let's consider any calories counting app as an instrument, it's necessary to govern the entire process; any gym subscription (for anyone that does not have a dedicated space) is a priority 2 fact
• there are not big secrets, the more you eat the more workouts you have to do, so counting your intake and to have a flexible diet are the winning factors ... the limit is that we're not professional athletes or holliwood stars, so we have a limited time
• diet and training must be approached in steps, the "evil shortcut" as "I pay a gym to be forced", it is a constraint, so it is not a desired choice ... and sooner or later you will abandon; by steps it could be that in some period you decrease the number of workouts, but hardly you'll abandon (in more of two years of continous training I skipped only a few ones ... the fingers of my hands)
• about the time ... I remember the phrase "sleep faster", but at the beginning I never thought I'd get to all these workouts, so you start slowly but steadily; trough the process I discovered that early morning workouts (6-6.30) are not as tiring as I thought, but conversely energize me for the entire journey

In summary I lost more than 15 kilos, and improved my cardio resistance, then I started to gain lean mass.

I hope I have been useful and helpful, Regards,

    gino