Month: November 2018

The shoes to wear

On November 4, 2018

I started my walking and jogging in some cheap Walmart shoes. At first, it didn’t seem to have a big impact as I was going slow and short distances, however, when I started increasing the distance and pace, it didn’t take long for the foot and leg pain to begin. I had a difficult time looking at the price of proper running shoes. I probably hadn’t paid more than $30 for a pair of shoes before this, now I was supposed to drop 80+ dollars!?!

I did it, I spent around $90 on my first pair. After much research and trying on shoes I selected the ASICS GT-2000 2, and I’ve remained with the brand and series. I’ve tried a few other shoes but keep coming back to the ASICS GT-2000’s. I can get about 750-1000 miles out of a pair of shoes, which is around a four-month cycle. If you use a GPS tracker like I mentioned in my Garmin post, you can track your shoe-miles easily.

: October 2017

: June 2018

: September 2018

When I remember, I take a picture of the new shoes as a reminder of how they look before I wear them out. I keep 4-5 pair of shoes available for those rainy weeks where a different pair is needed each day. Once they are soaked it takes a good three days to dry out. I learned early on not to run with moist shoes, the blisters come quickly when the skin gets soft from the moisture. The most I ever had in use at one time was four pair during an excessively rainy period.

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My current “primary” runners are on the right in the photo above. As the inventory gets too large, I clean up the oldest shoes and donate them to a local thrift store with the hope that some other new runner can get a no-or-low cost opportunity to try the shoes and the difference they make.

I wear out the heels first, then the ball area, but for a beginner, these would still be beneficial. The shoes generally still look good and are quite serviceable, the soles are just worn down like tires with a lot of miles.

I purchase my shoes from a local sport supply store called Body-N-Sole or through Amazon, if I cannot get what I need locally.

Do your feet and legs a favor, find supportive and comfortable shoes.

A Garmin GPS Watch

By Jerry Schotz

On November 3, 2018

In Blog

A few years into my running, my adult kids purchased a GPS watch for Christmas 2015. The chart below is the stored running data (in miles) from the last few days of 2015 through October 2018.

Distance vs. Time Period

As of this post in early November 2018, Garmin has recorded 9,000.85 miles ran. Wow! In 4 months or so it will be over 10,000 miles logged! I’m guessing I’m already over that as there were three years before getting the GPS watch. LoseIt says I started with them in April 2012 and ended in October 2016 (I’ll explain in a different post). The LoseIt chart below reflects the calories burned per month, and I’ve consistently been over 25k per month since April 2014. The point being… blah-blah-blah… it’s over 10k miles. Sheesh, so wordy!

Screenshot from 2018-11-03 15-27-25

I have a Garmin Forerunner 10 which has held up very well. It’s not a fancy model, but it has been reliable. It doesn’t have Bluetooth, so I plug it into the USB cable each day when I return, it syncs up, and the battery is charged and waiting for me the next morning consistently. Thank you, Garmin!

I know people with fancier models that sync with your phone as they go, but I don’t see the need for the bells and whistles as this model does all I need. Keep it simple!

Where to begin?

By Jerry Schotz

On November 2, 2018

In Blog

It wasn’t difficult math – consume less, burn more.

Sometimes the hardest things in life are simple… but not easy!

Over the years I halfheartedly tried some dietary changes which usually ended silently when a convenient excuse arose. The determination was real this time, it was “do or die” (literally). On a podcast, I had heard Michael Hyatt mention an app he was using called LoseIt which helped him manage his food and exercise. I found there was a free version for the web and mobile devices, so I created an account to track my intake and outflows. It’s a great tool that provides a composite of your health efforts, and I became a zealot user, it was always in use.

I really didn’t get down to the minutia of tracking every carb, sugar, or salt, but I was tracking the high-level calories in and out.

Of course, I was hungry all-the-time! I found low-calorie foods to help me curb some of my cravings. While the sodium levels probably went too high, I found beef jerky, pickles, and of course veggies could help with the need to chew on something yet keep the calories fairly low. I switched to almond milk. I found a low-calorie bread that didn’t taste like cardboard (which I still eat years later) and had light mayonnaise with thin deli ham or turkey. Cereal was fairly easy to measure and in a large variety and was often used as a meal other than just breakfast. I found that wrapping a quarter of a boiled egg in a slice of 15 calorie thin deli ham was a delightful treat. Pretzels were a lower fat filler. And so on I went, recording everything I consumed. There were no restrictions other than the calorie count had to stay on target.

On the calorie burn-side, I knew I had to get moving in order to burn something more than the basic metabolic rate, so I started with walking. I walked two to three times a day. I walked a few blocks at a time at first, then kept adding distance as time and energy allowed.

After a few weeks of walking, I tried jogging. Here is this overweight late forties “plumpkin” trying to jog around the block. I couldn’t do it! I could barely jog one side of a city block, so I’d keep walking the block until I got the energy to jog a bit more, then continue walking and so on. This seemed to go on forever, but I’m guessing it was less than a month now looking back. When I had the jog-mostly-around-the-block thing under control, I opted to try longer walks.

On the south-side of our community is a 2 mile square around some farmland, this became my new workout course. First to walk it, then to jog between power-poles, and alternate jogging and walking around this square. Again, this took time and repetition, but eventually, I could jog one side of the square (.5 miles) walk one side, jog another, etc. I remember seeing a runner out on a country road beyond the square and wondering if I could ever get strong enough to go beyond this track I had yet to conquer. All in time and all with effort…

Are you sick?

By Jerry Schotz

On November 1, 2018

In Blog

When you lose a lot of weight in a short period of time, you can make people wonder if you’re sick or dying. It’s true, I had the bold-folks come right out and ask, others would seek out a family member and ask with concern. I get it, when your skin starts to loosen and your body definition starts to alter, it can look like you may be getting treatments for something.

Your clothes start to get baggy, and your belt starts to get longer, you look and feel less than stylish, but it’s part of the process. I found Goodwill to be my friend. It doesn’t pay to buy new clothes that fit during this time, you’re a work in progress. I found a lot of clothes that helped me transition from XL to Medium and some small clothing at very reasonable prices.

On the flip-side, we found ourselves eventually donating hundreds of dollars of oversized clothing back to our local Goodwill and similar charities.

Don’t give away your large clothing until you’ve been your “new self” for at least six months! Your new lifestyle should be a routine and not just another goal. We can fall off the wagon, we can get tired of the work, our emotions get the best of us, stuff happens! Hopefully, you have a new-you, and you are stable enough to comfortably clean out the closets and purchase some right-sized outfits.