Kameron Hurley

How I went from working out 20 minutes a day to 90-100 minutes a day (and liked it)

It’s no secret that the last year has been a rough one for me as far as getting back on the fitness train. I have a real hard time staying at my much-needed 90 minutes a day minimum workout time.

It felt so daunting this year that just getting in 20 minutes on the bike a couple times a week counted as a win. Getting in 10 minutes of weights in the morning was just… agony. Churning out 90 minutes a day in fitness, for me, was like trying to churn out three thousand words a day in writing was for me not long ago – total agony.

But over the last few weeks, all that stutter-stop finally changed. I’ve been consistently getting in 60-100 minutes of fitness time each day, at least 5 days a week, and I’ve even started putting in 20-45 minutes on the weekends.

Here are some of the tricks that helped me turn the corner:

1) I like fitness videos. I have a whole library of them. The trouble is, you do them enough and they get achingly monotonous. It’s not that I couldn’t do that 15 minute video in the morning, it was just that the thought of doing it felt like too much to ingest at 5:30 in the morning. And 30 minutes? 40 minutes? Yeah, at 5:30 a.m., that’s just laughable.

I realized a while back that because I’d done these so many times, I didn’t need to listen to the sound, so I listened to music instead. But that only worked for so many minutes, because invariably, I’d listen to the same kind of music, too. It was monotony multiplied.

Instead, I decided to try listening to podcasts while I worked out. Audio books can work for this, too. The idea was to give my mind something else to occupy itself with besides the grinding monotony or how tough certain exercises were, or how tired I was. I needed a brain exercise that could trick my mind into staying busy so it didn’t obsess over what my body was doing.

And, sure enough, I went from throwing tantrums about having to workout 15 minutes in the morning to working out 30-40 minutes in the morning with ease. Time just clipped along, and before I knew it, I was fitter and more informed. Now I’m rolling out of bed in the morning actually looking forward to the a.m. workout instead of looking at it like something to dread.

2) If you have Netflix, you can stream it on your phone. Most folks who have Netflix know this, but sneer at the idea of watching something on such a small screen. Well, guess what? When you’re working out at a gym that doesn’t have little TV’s in the readout, this is an absolute lifesaver.

I was working out at my day job gym a couple times a week for 20-30 minutes, really struggling every time. Then I remembered Netflix had come out with its Android app.

Literally overnight, I went from doing 20-30 minutes to 50-60 minutes on the elliptical each workday. There are plenty of long-running shows to choose from. Start at season one, episode one, and dig in. I’ve already started associating midday and evening workout routines with the pleasure of catching up on my favorite shows.

3) I like video games. I also need to workout. But, as yet, I don’t have a Kinect, just a Wii Fit with the same half dozen games that I’ve gotten sick of. But if you have something like a stationary bike at home (much more compact and easy to manage in a house my size than our old elliptical was), park it in front of your TV and play video games to help take your mind off the burn.

I’m slowly working my way through God of War III when I’m not ingesting massive amounts of serial TV (we don’t actually have proper TV programming in my house, just Netflix. That means I don’t watch any season of anything until it shows up there, so I tend to get it in bulk).

4) Whenever I thought “fuck, I need to workout for 90 minutes. Where the hell can I find 90 minutes? How can I keep going for 90 minutes?” I just got discouraged. Instead, I break it up. I do 30 minutes in the morning, 30-60 minutes at the day job gym, and another 30-45 on the exercise bike when I get home. By breaking it up into chunks, there’s no one workout that feels like 90 minutes of death.

This being Friday, and wanting to having the full sum of my Friday night for leisure, I already got in my 90 (30 this morning, 60 at the day job gym), so when I get home, I don’t even have to concern myself with the extra evening workout unless I feel like it.

Now, all of the above is primarily cardio work, with some strength training in the morning mixed in. When I finally get to the heavy lifting stuff, I intend for that to be on top of what I’m already doing, but I’m sure that if I can figure out how to be active 2-3 hours a day instead of just 90 minutes as a sedentary writer-type -you’ll be the first to know.

 

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When You’re Going Through Hell… Keep Going

I was never a fit kid. I started this blog in part to talk about my path toward some semblance of fitness after a sedentary period in South Africa spent sparring with cockroaches, drinking too much red wine, smoking too many cigarettes, and binge eating (a default I have fought long and hard to overcome).

Moving to Chicago inspired me to get back to the low-carb living and 90-120 minute workout days of life in Fairbanks (where there was very little to do outside the rec center in the winter). I took some boxing and mixed martial arts classes in Chicago, and started jogging (slowly and painfully, but jogging nonetheless). That little taste of physical power took a nosedive after I got sick, and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I could and couldn’t do anymore, or – more accurately – figured out how I had to manage my shots and snacks to make the best of a bad situation.

I kept up a more-or-less reasonable fitness routine from then on, and figured out a comfortable weight for myself that was both manageable and still intimidating. In December of last year, that all changed again.

I was biking 20 minutes to work every morning in North Dayton. As December deepened, so did the snow and ice, and eventually, it became too risky to navigate the roads with my current gear. Erase 40 minutes of exercise from my daily routine.

Then I started getting tired and exhausted as winter descended, and started sleeping in, effectively skipping my am 25 minute workouts on top of that. It meant going from working out over an hour a day to… nothing - in about four weeks. To add insult to injury, I ended up having to have some minor surgery in January and again in March. Both times, I wasn’t supposed to lift more than 20 lbs over my head for two weeks. By this time, I still wasn’t biking to work and I was having a lot of trouble getting into my clothes. Add to that some stress over a job transition and the full marketing onslaught and newbie terror of my first book launching February 1st (with exhausting marketing efforts on my part from December to March), and by all accounts, I was a physical wreck.

Now, here’s this thing about me. I’m one of those people who charges on through stuff. It wasn’t like any of this was horrible stuff – in fact, the book and job stuff were actually stresses that would lead to great things. But they were still things that needed to be managed. They were things that needed spoons.

And I was in short supply.

There were a lot of stop-starts in trying to get back on the fitness wagon. I’d get up early again a few days a week and work out… then stop. I’d work out a day or two after I got home… then stop. My A1c went from 6.2 to 6.5 to 7.0.

It was the 7.0 that made my blood run a little cold (it’s recommended that all diabetics – t1 and t2 – keep their A1c under 7.0 in order to prevent stuff like going blind and having your feet chopped off). I finally stepped on the scale, and realized that I was now back to my South Africa binge-eating, cockroach-swatting weight, and knew something had to change.

So it was back to severe low carb eating, this time with a cheat day once a week in an attempt to avoid the “starvation” mode that severe low carb eating can trigger. I lost weight pretty quickly initially, and my blood sugar levels evened right out. Being a little lighter, it seemed like a great time to get back into the morning workout, and for the last three weeks, I’ve consistently logged in first 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, every morning of cardio and strength training. I’ve put on weight since doing that, which is frustrating, and it’s taken every ounce of will I have to remind myself that I’m in this for the fitness and the sugar numbers, not the end number on a scale.

This morning, week four, I finally graduated back up to my 20 lb weights instead of the 10lb-ers. I’m also back at the gym at work for 20 minutes on the bike. It’s not replacing those missing 40 minutes yet (my new job is a 90 minute bike ride from my house instead of a 20 minute one. Maybe next summer!), but it’s a start.

One of the things that always frustrates me about fitness is that it’s not something you learn and then don’t have to learn again, like 5+5=10. You learn that and you know it. Forgetting that will be tough. But once you’re fit, you don’t stay that way just because you achieved it once. It’s something you have to achieve again and again and again. Off the wagon. Back on the wagon. It’s intensely frustrating, and often demoralizing.

Life has hit me in the head with a shovel a couple of times now, as far as control of my physical body goes, and the first thing that stumbles when I go down is my fitness. I have to work so hard to keep it, harder than anything else in my life – harder than the fiction writing, the day job, my relationships -  because it just doesn’t come naturally. It was never part of my experience growing up (I didn’t start getting interested in actual fitness aside from “God, I have to go on a diet or no one will love me” until I was 19, and I didn’t acquire the mindset of “Wow, the end goal of fitness isn’t weight loss, it’s making me strong and powerful!” until I was living in Chicago in my mid-twenties).

The hardest part of getting back into it? Not hating myself. Because that’s always my greatest hurdle, my biggest enemy. The hatred I have for myself for falling off, no matter what the circumstances. I could get hit by a literal truck, and I’d still blame myself for not being able to fit into my favorite shirt anymore.

The best way I’ve found to cope is the same way I’ve coped with those getting-hit-on-the-head things: the layoffs, the illness, the eviction from back in the day, all of it – you’ll get through it. It will get better. This is a transitory place. Every day you’re breathing is another day you have to completely change your circumstances. Fuck knows it’s hard sometimes. It often seems impossible. But it’s what I have.

And the alternative is to give up.

But when you give up, you may as well be dead. I tried that once. It wasn’t any fun. I don’t recommend it.

So I keep getting knocked down.

And getting up.

And getting up.

And getting up.

That’s the secret to succeeding at anything, you guys. Getting up.

Lots of other people don’t.

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Level Up

Switched from 5 lb weights during my morning circuit to 10 lb weights. Yes, yes, I can heft my 20 lb and 30 lb for limited exercises, but 3 minutes of strength followed by cardio followed by strength again is a liiiittle tougher. Two weeks with the 5 lbs was just enough for me to start getting bored. Now it’s 10 lbs and I felt like I was gonna die again.

Good times.

Hoping to max out at 20lbs with these (was doing 12-15 at the gym back when I was doing circuit, but at home, I only have 10′s and 20′s. So they’ll be another hefty level up here sometime in a couple weeks).

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Fitnessery

The long winter was rough on my fitness level and my jeans size, as I’ve noted before. When I realized two months ago that I’d gone up a size over the winter, I realized it was time to get my crap together. The problem is, it’s difficult to figure out the best way to get your crap together when you’re already working out several times a week.

For me, it’s about finding the right balance of intensity and endurance. For nearly a year, I’ve been up at 5:30 in the morning doing 30 minutes of pilates and free weights, but it was just so low intensity that about all it was good for was flexibility and casual activity maintenance. I was getting about 20 minutes on the elliptical a couple nights a week, too, but this was dramatically different to my workout back in November, when I had two solid 30-40 minute workouts through my day job fitness program every week (suspended in December), plus five days a week of pilates, plus biking to work five days a week, plus another 3-4 days on the elliptical. Good weather is good for fitness.

But if my fitness level drops, my mood and energy start going wonky, and it very quickly gets tougher to fit into my existing clothes – and we all know how much I hate shopping for clothes.

When I got on the scale a couple months ago, I discovered I’d gained a whopping 18 lbs over the winter. Seriously? I thought, in just four months? Besides the money-spend on clothes shopping (I’ve long given up hating myself over weight. It’s not so much asthetic as practical anymore), the frustration, for me, was the I just didn’t feel very good. I was having more trouble controlling my blood sugar, I was more down than usual, and I just didn’t have any energy. Going to bed at 8:00 pm sounded like a fine idea some nights. Not because I did anything exhausting, but because I felt depressed.

So, even with a modicum of fitness in the mix (30 minutes in the morning and 2-3 days in the evening), I was not at my best.

By concentrating on cleaning up my diet (oh, I do love that low-carb coffee cake, but eating one a week was a little much), I easily dropped 6 lbs in a couple weeks, but without the fitness part, I was still tired all the time, with wonky sugar, and still stuck buying new jeans.

It was time to mix up my fitness routine. The new day job was great for switching up my fitness routine, so when I started there at the end of March, I started biking six miles roundtrip. With all the lights and switcheroos, it takes about 20-25 minutes to get there in the morning and again to get home at night.

But this still wasn’t cutting it.

Pilates, relaxing as it was in the morning, wasn’t the best use of my time either. The great thing about my morning routine was that – unlike my afternoon elliptical slacking – I did it every morning without fail. So I needed something in that timeslot that was going to make the best use of my time.

See, I always put off changing my workout routines as long as possible because, of course, there are a couple days of insulin adjustment involved, and highs and lows and math and needles are always annoying at 5:30 in the morning (for those interested, the magic formula was calculating 10 carbs for breakfast instead of 12 and then rounding down the number of insulin units my meter calculated for me, unless my blood sugar is below 90 during my morning test, at which point rounding up is actually better).

So I went ahead and pulled out my copy of Jillian’s 30-Day Shred and said, “OK, it’s time.”(and if you think Jillian is like some Jane Fonda “squeeze your butt while wearing a leotard” thing, think again. Her videos are the closest thing to the tough-love circuit training I was getting at the POW gym back in Chicago, with the same immediate results).

This 25 minute cardio and strength routine regularly kicked my ass when I first got it, but I’d set it aside for awhile and moved on. So Monday morning I got up at 5:20 a.m. just to make sure I had enough time in case of sugar wackiness, changed my clothes, and got started. At the end of it, I realized that all that bike riding had indeed actually been paying off, because my endurance was much better than the last time I’d done the workout.

What I love about this routine is that the fitness, energy and endurance improvements are evident pretty much immediately. On day one I was bouncing around at 6:00 a.m. ready to start the day. By day two, I noticed a marked improvement in my bike riding and on day three the workout was already a lot easier. Last night, I noticed better definition in my arms, and this morning I stepped on the scale for the weekly weigh in and found that I’d dropped 2 lbs. Not bad for 25 minutes in the morning (and another 40-50 minutes a day of bike riding, of course, but the morning workout was the only thing I changed).

I also went ahead and took another look at my diet to make sure I’m making the best use of my calories. I made the switch from almond flour to soy flour, which has half the calories and only 4 more carbs per serving (and still less than half the carbs of regular flour). It’s also cheaper, so: win!

The last big push will be to break my new daily popcorn habit at the day job. We have a popcorn machine here at work, and I regularly eat 2 cups of popcorn as a complement to my lunch. That’s an extra 200 calories a day, which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that’s 4,000 calories a month.

It’s the little things, you know? They add up.

At any rate, this week has been bursting with far more energy and alertness, much improved sugar numbers, and a noticeable toning of my legs and arms, which has gone a long way toward improving my strength on the bike, too.

I’m still looking at trying to fit in at least two more workouts per week, preferably at the boxing gym downtown. Downsizing freed up some cash for J. and I and it looks like we’ll be able to start boxing classes next month. I figure that’s another 2 hours of fitness a week, which should be about right to get me to the level I’m most comfortable at.

It’s funny, you know, because there certainly is a genetic component to how *easily* one can lose weight. For those of us with the best of the survival genes, it’s not that we *can’t* be 150 lbs (or 185 lbs, in my case. I don’t ever want to see the tail end of 170 ever again), it’s that doing so requires a lot *more* effort than most people. In fact, I don’t expect to see that wishy-washy 185 by making these changes. What I want out of this is to get me at the fitness level I’d prefer and get me back into November’s jeans.

That’s it.

And to do that will require about 1.5-2.5 hours of exercise 5-6 days a week. That’s just how fun it is to be me. And probably another reason why I get so pissed off all the time when people assume that anybody clocking in at over 200 lbs must just be lazy and sit around eating donuts all the time. This is what it takes for me, personally, to clock in at around 200 lbs. More than that requires extreme self-deprevation of the 1400 calories per day and 2-3 hours exercise 6 days a week, and you know what? That’s not the life I want to live. I love my body. I love being big and strong and scary. If I’m too hungry to throw a good right hook, what’s the point?

I’m all about practicality, people.

Tags: fitness, health, sugar sugar
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