Get Fit Slowly

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!My sister-in-law called the other night. “Make sure to watch NOVA this week,” she told me. “It’s about the science of marathons.” So I watched. And took notes.

NOVA’s Marathon Challenge didn’t contain a lot that was new to me. […]

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Because I didn’t want to bore you guys with yet another marathon training report, this week I decided to bore the readers of my personal site instead. Quick summary: yesterday

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At her personal site, Mac’s wife — Coach Pam — has the story of her recent 20-mile race. She’s a life-long runner. Reading her story gives me insight into the mind of a veteran. I particularly like her approach to the end of the race, where she keeps telling herself she can walk in a […]

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It was “lower body day” at the gym this morning. Methodically, I worked my way through the major muscle groups:

Quad: Leg extensions (from 12×50 to 6×80, with a peak at 12×70) and leg press (12×180)
Hamstrings: Lying leg curls (from 12×40 to 6×80, with a peak at 12×50) and straight-leg deadlifts (12×25)
Calves: Seated calf raises (from […]

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Want to see what I’ll be doing at the end of the summer?
From Septemeber 6th to September 13th, I’ll be joining 2,000 other cyclists for Cycle Oregon, a week-long tour of rural Oregon. For years — for over a decade — I’ve wanted to do this. This year I’m going to. This is the second […]

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This is a guest post from greenman2001.
For people who are sedentary and overeat, learning to eat properly and exercise are new skills. Diet books and the media don’t usually describe exercise and eating in this way: they’re often described as “lifestyle changes,” as though one could simply substitute one set of behaviors for […]

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Motivation is tricky. Sometimes a carrot works best, but sometimes it takes a stick.
Make no mistake — I have the best of intentions. I do intend to get fit, but left to my own devices I’ll do more talking than moving. And I’ve been doing a lot of talking lately.
Then on Sunday an anonymous […]

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Right before our trip, the scale read 201.0. I’m half way to my goal of 40 pounds. My clothes are looser, my body is firmer, and my face is thinner. I’m really happy with the weigh things are going. Here are some stats for the month of February:

I lost 6.8 pounds
I […]

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This is a guest post from greenman2001.
Several times a year, People magazine publishes a “Half Their Size!” issue (most recently on 14 January 2008), in which they profile people who have literally reduced their weight by half.
This is certainly a karmic act since People is the worst offender in perpetuating the cultural norm […]

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The last few days have been kind of a struggle for me. I haven’t seen the numbers drop on the scale like they were doing in the beginning: -.5/week instead of -1.5/week. The second workout cycle with my trainer is a little bit more like the workouts I remember when I was younger: […]

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