Geek Out Your Summer Fitness Activities

0 CommentsTuesday • July 5, 2011 • by Imei

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There is nothing that shouts the reality of your fitness than a photoshoot and a copy of your labs from the doctor’s office. A photographer has tips and tricks to make you look great, but an unretouched photograph speaks unavoidable truth about your appearance that a spray tan can’t hide. My labs at my last doc visit came back good, but I was recovering from Bronchitis. Being forced into a sedentary lifestyle for almost two months, it’s amazing what happens to the human body. Dancers can’t afford a lot of downtime, so post-Taiwan, I started my summer fitness strategy to get back into shape and increase my stamina. Here are some ways to geek out your summer fitness activities so you can reach your goals.

Check in. Checking in means taking objective measures of your current health so you can set goals. Clock yourself running a mile, measure yourself with a tape measure around your arms, chest, waist, hips, and thighs, and take a picture wearing slim fitting clothing, front and back. You don’t need to share them with anyone else (and in fact, I’ll be addressing this point later in this post) unless you want to inform a friend, partner, or fitness buddy on how they can support your goals.

Check up. When’s the last time you had a physical? Take a physical stress test, get your blood labs done to check for fasting blood sugar, lipids (cholesterol levels), vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and even your sleep/wake cycle. All of these items contribute to your overall sense of well-being, vitality, energy, and health.

Educate yourself. There are any number of books and online programs to help educate yourself about particular health challenges you may have. For example, if you’re older and prone to low back pain, you might want to look at exercises that strengthen the core, stretch the back safely, and aid recovery. I’m reading The Four Hour Body by Tim Ferris, because I’m intrigued to see what he learned about diet, exercise, and “what works” through his own guinea pig experiments and interviews of experts in the field.

Get moving. After you create a plan of action, you need to execute it. As my friends closest to me can attest, once I put a plan into place, I become very focused on executing it 90% of the time like clockwork. If jumping on my Air Climber six days a week in the morning at 7:15 am is the goal, then you’ll see that stepper laid out the night before in front of my Google TV, with shoe and socks placed next to it. I can’t even make it to the bathroom without seeing it, and the action of physically putting it in front of me makes it a part of my morning routine. If dance practice in the evening is the goal, I lay out the dance shoes and have my music queued up. At the end of the week, I’m jotting down a few notes about how I feel and what difference it makes in an Evernote. Anyone can institute these same changes: put the weights by the TV, throw the gym gear in your bag the night before work and head there after work, and wear comfortable walking shoes so you can sneak in a walk during the day.

I identified muscle atrophy and weakness from the two month’s of inactivity when I was sick, and then I created a plan to increase muscle mass, increase fat loss, and rehab atrophied muscles. What that means for me is that while I might see changes in musculature (and yes, my ab work is starting to pop!), I won’t see dramatic weight loss (muscle weighs more than fat), if that was the goal. If you understand the math, let science inform what kinds of activity is best for your specific goals. In my case, I’m doing more air squats, jumps, and ballet training to strengthen and lengthen my leg muscles back into dancer condition. It’s like I’ve created my own “Imei Cardio-lates” [tee hee]!
Video about Fitbit from 24HourFitnessInc, where I’ve been a Group X instructor in 2010.

One way I’ve started keeping track of my physical activity is a geeky gadget called Fitbit. It clips onto your shirt, underwear, pants, or even a necklace, and it wirelessly syncs your tracked information to your computer. While you can record data about everything from eating to sex, Fitbit users can choose what information you want to track and/or share.

You might recall in February 2011, I recorded my friend talking about Fitbit, but it’s taken me until last month to finally get one of my own. While I admit I don’t track every piece of data religiously, what the Fitbit has done for me is heighten my awareness of just how active or sedentary I am compared to my dietary intake on any given day. Walking to work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and noting that scoop of delicious sorbet turns semi-conscious routines and behaviors into conscious choices. This is especially helpful for those of you who have challenges requiring moderate to severe lifestyle changes. By putting the choices into subjective and conscious choices, you are back in the driver seat of your life.

One caution about Fitbit: TechCrunch recently posted an article about Fitbit information showing up in Google feeds because users did not realize the privacy settings on their devices default to “public”. Users may have unknowingly posted their sexual activities – and the dates and times – wherever Fitbit defaulted that information to be sent, and in many cases, that was Twitter or Google. When you set up a user account on the Fitbit website, you should take the time to manually set your privacy settings the way you want them. For example, I have chosen to share my weight goal, but almost nothing else. I don’t shout out my activities to Twitter and Facebook; I don’t even share my activities with any groups within the Fitbit community as of this writing (although I could see a day where I might like to do this for fun).

Personally, the Fitbit is so small and light, I forget that I’m wearing it. Potentially, I could easily lose it to the wash! Since I don’t record my sleep on the Fitbit (or sexual activities, for that matter!), it makes more sense to get into the routine of taking it off before I put C-M, my geeky Applehead Siamese to bed with an episode of Battlestar Galactica on the iPad (we love Netflix Instant Queue!).

I have many more tips on weight loss through an eBook I’m selling through my counseling and coaching practice if this is the issue you’re most interested in. During the year, I get a lot of inquiries related to keeping in shape, and being healthy is directly connected to your artistic lifestyle. You are your body.

And now it’s your turn. What are you doing to increase your stamina, health, and overall satisfaction this summer? What technologies do you use to track calories, record weight and activity levels, or develop more conscious routines that help you reach or maintain your fitness-related goals?

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