Exercise For Stress Relief

I hope everyone is doing okay while in the process of self isolating and practicing social distancing.

It's definitely been a thing. The added stress of being in a strange situation while being trapped at home where the outcome is still to be decided, it can be too much. So I wanted to throw it out there that physical exertion can be an effective way to get out of your head. Exercise can be a good outlet for anxiety with the added benefit of helping you sleep.

Start out easy. Grab that jump rope that's been collecting dust. Follow along to some videos on YouTube. If you have a elliptical or treadmill, now is the time to break it out. It can be even simpler than that though, just start doing those exercises you did in P.E. when you were in middle school or high school. A few jumping jacks, squats, reverse lunges, pushups, and crunches and you'll have yourself a good workout. Just get your heartrate up and sweat a little.

Here's a couple videos I've been doing in March. I've been doing them one after the other to get a hour long workout:

A good 10 minute bodyweight workout. The six year old does this with me.

Fast paced low impact aerobics with great arm work.

I've stopped doing stairs at work since we're supposed to be avoiding close contact with other humans. And of course our gym is closed, so we picked up a used treadmill on Craigslist that needed work done on it. Works great now and we started using it this weekend.

A Frank Conversation About My Health and Weight

Sorry it has been such a long time since I last posted. After my husband was seriously ill last year and hospitalized twice that culminated with an emergency surgery, our family has been looking seriously at our health. As a couple who had a child late in life, I felt longevity was something we needed to focus our energy on.

As a Vietnamese American, waist circumference, BMI, and weight takes on a more heightened meaning. Asians overall have higher rates of diabetes, renal failure due to diabetes, and strokes of any other race in America. Which is due to the manner in which we store fat on our bodies. Asian’s tend to store fat inside their abdominal cavity right around their organs, also known as visceral fat.

Fat acts as an organ by producing an array of hormones. Hormones that are involved with blood clotting, blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, and cell signaling. In this manner, when there is too much fat stored, these hormones can affect other organs negatively.

This means as an Asian American, I need to be at a smaller weight and have a smaller waist circumference than the rest of the population. Non-Asian women with a waist circumference over 35 inches are at high risk for developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, whereas Asian women with a waist circumference over 31 inches are at high risk for those same things. That is a 4-inch difference in waist size. Asians also have to stay at much lower BMI to lower their risks for these diseases.

What is considered a healthy weight for the average American would put an Asian American at high risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Japan has taken steps to adjust their BMI charts to take into account the higher risk at lower BMI’s for their population, they now consider a BMI of over 25 to be obese. In comparison, a BMI of 24 is healthy for non-Asian populations, they are not even considered overweight.

Every 11-pound increase in weight in adulthood for Asians correlates with an 84% increase in their chances of getting diabetes.

What this means for my own health… I have lost 20 pounds this year and now currently weigh 143 pounds, which equaled a loss of 2 inches in waist circumference. For me to lose another 3 inches around my waist to reach a waistline of 31 inches, I would likely need to lose another 30 pounds.

The weight loss has been very slow. Over the course of almost 2 years, I have lost 35 pounds. My spouse actually lost 50 pounds in a month or two during his health crisis, which left him weak and wasted.

Last November, 10 months ago, we joined a gym. To gain strength and at the same time lessen the impact on our joints, we just did an hour on the elliptical every day for two months. After that, we started adding stair stepper and jogging to our exercise routine. At this point, we regularly run on the treadmill 3-4 days a week.

I did experience a couple of setbacks this year with straining a tibialis anterior muscle, which kept me from exercising for 4 weeks. Then I had minor surgery on my foot which laid me up for another 4 weeks.

My husband has made tremendous gains in his strength and endurance. He was running eighteen to twenty miles a week, but has backed off from that pace when his work became more physically strenuous.

Sources:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ee8f/dbb68f1e1470b0333ddef027a5b75344a0da.pdf
https://www.yourhormones.info/glands/adipose-tissue/
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/ethnic-differences-in-bmi-and-disease-risk/

Exercising on the Keto Diet

I've been on the keto diet for three weeks now and just recently started exercising again, just the beginners section in Jane Fonda's New Workout which is fairly hyper dance aerobics. Working out is easier when you're in ketosis. It felt pretty good and I didn't have to stop in the middle of it.

It had been three months since I had exercised last, do to being ill. But with a kid in school and daycare I'm probably going to keep getting sick for years, and I can't keep using the excuse of being ill to stop me from exercising. Yes, I'm actually ill right now with a sinus thing. You just have to keep doing what you're doing no matter what.

We've been checking our ketone levels using urine strips so my husband and I know we're in ketosis. Normal ketone levels are negative, so any amount in your urine usually means you're in ketosis. I've also had lab work done which shows I'm in moderate ketosis, but my levels usually fluctuate between low and moderate.

Now, when I jumped up to the advanced workout on Jane Fonda's New Workout, that was a bear. They do a lot of double hops so you're jumping all the time and I was breathing hard throughout the aerobic section. But maybe some of that is due to the respiratory sinus thing I've been fighting off. The next day I was tired but felt pretty good illness wise, like maybe it had cleared me out some.

Burning off the fat

Burning off the fat takes a lot effort, you have to actually work longer and harder before your body switches to fat burning. Normally your body utilizes energy from carbohydrates molecules first that might be free floating in your body, once that is used up it turns to metabolizing protein otherwise known as muscle to produce energy, but once you've worked out long enough and hard enough finally your body turns to fat burning.

You can tell the difference immediately when your body turns to fat burning. It's what runners call their second wind, when you get a big spurt of energy and it feels like you can run forever. Fat metabolism actually produces twice as much energy vs. the other energy pathways, but it takes a bit of work to get there because your body is completely switching gears to get to that point.

The key to fat metabolizing is anaerobic also known as without oxygen versus aerobic as in with oxygen. When your muscle are starved of oxygen they naturally turn to fat burning. Whereas aerobic exercises naturally uses muscle as energy first, you have to actually run longer before your body switches fat burning. For me, I reach my second wind after 40 minutes of running which is when my body finally switches to fat burning. With aerobics your heart is pumping harder and you are breathing heavier which works to move oxygen to your muscles, it's not until your muscles become starved for oxygen that you switch to fat burning.

Probably the most efficient way to lose fat is through weight lifting, generally you are not breathing as hard and your heart rate isn't obscenely elevated so it is more of an anaerobic exercise since your muscles are still working away while getting less oxygen.

But I want to stress that it is still very important to do aerobic exercises which also works out your lungs and heart.

Really it's up to you. Run longer and harder or weight lift, or do both. Step aerobics is another good alternative as is jumping rope, or even running up and down the steps in a stadium if you want to focus on fat burning.

But for me, I'm not looking to get sculpted and ripped. I still want that nice layer of softness or baby fat while being trim and athletic. Plus I really like feeling the burn in my lungs and the hard pounding of my heart. Which means I lean towards aerobics, but I get bored easily enough that I'm always trying the alternatives.

Daily workout, 1/21

Morning:
140 jumping jacks
70 pushups
60 floor tricep dips
20 minutes jogging
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
100 glute clenches
10 minutes stretching

Night:
150 squats
60 pushups
60 floor tricep dips
150 glute clenches
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
15 minutes stretching

Daily workout, 1/20

100 squats
60 pushups
70 floor tricep dips
130 glute clenches
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse situps
15 minutes of stretching

Daily workout, 1/19

Morning:
100 squats
100 glute clenches
50 pushups
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
5 minutes of stretching

Night:
100 jumping jacks
100 glute clenches
50 pushups
50 tricep dips
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
15 minutes of stretching

Thoughts on exercising

As you can tell, I like high reps when it comes to exercises. It builds stamina as well as strength.

When the exercises get too easy I make them more challenging by raising my feet higher for pushups or changing up the exercises, do something different like adding squats or pull-up bar exercises. It's also a way to keep your interest up during workouts. If you reach a plateau or get into a rut just completely change your workout, add something new, or increase duration like run harder or run longer.

My workouts have always followed the seasons. Winter was for weight lifting, jumping rope, rowing, and indoor bicycling. Spring and fall involved some form of aerobics. And summer was for running, basketball, swimming, canoeing, baseball, or tennis... really anything outside would do.

By nature I am really in my head, but being active and physical puts you in your body and teaches you to live in the moment rather than spending all your time dreaming of tomorrow.

And honestly when it comes to dieting. I don't. The more active I am the more my cravings tend to whole foods, fruit smoothies, vegetable juices, etc. It just happens naturally. Plus you'll probably find yourself reading exercise magazines looking for new interesting workouts, which by extension you will find yourself reading their healthy diet articles. After awhile everything just converges.

Daily workout, 1/18

Morning:
100 crunches
100 crisscross crunches
80 reverse crunches
50 glute squeezes
50 pushups
5 minute stretches

Night:
100 jumping jacks
50 squats
100 glute squeezes
50 pushups
50 floor tricep dips
100 crisscross crunches
100 crunches
80 reverse crunches
15 minute stretches

Thoughts about being fat

I don't mind exercising. I don't mind sprinting or jogging. I love aerobics, butt clenches, jumping rope and weight lifting.

My weakness. Eating. And general laziness.

So, no more sitting on my ass reading a book. That means I am done with fiction. Done. No more junk food for the brain.

And I need to eat less. Sure sometimes hunger feels like a living breathing thing inside of me that's consuming me from the inside. But I can and will turn my interests towards other things.

So for beginners. Do some exercises in the morning and at night. Start out with crunches, pushups, squats, backward lunges, jumping jacks, and maybe some yoga Sun Salutations.