This week there has been a strange turn of events, hence the title.
On saturday morning, my weight showed an increase of 0.75kg how could this be in a week where I have played badminton twice, and had a session of indoor climbing, and no notable changes of eating habits.
A little concerned, I looked at what was different. So just to confirm that my weight had increased, I weighed myself once more, Sunday morning back down now to 80kg as I was last week.
The conclusion was, Friday night we had Fish and Chips from the local chippy, Large battered Cod and a portion of chips with a refreshing bottle of Budweiser. There was no walk before weighing myself Saturday morning, but a sit around for a couple of hours after getting up, having had scrambled egg on toast.
Today before my weigh in, I had a 64 minute street walk with Blue commencing at 7.00am and weighed myself before breakfast.
One further note after having had a prawn curry, rice and poppadoms, and a magnum for dinner the night before, a magnum for pudding, was hardly weight watcher's stuff. Then about 3 hours later a couple of tins of John Smith's beer while watching the Ender's Game on DVD.
Unpicking all of the above, it demonstrates one thing, the weight is a guide, not an absolute, and can fluctuate.
A new introduction that I am incorporating into my weight / fitness is a better understanding and use of MHR Maximum Heart Rate, which I will explain briefly.
MHR
A guide is taken from your age and sets zones for you to work in, there are a few variations but the most common is nice and simple;
220 (Men) or 206 (Women) subtract your age, this will give your highest heart rate or sometimes referred to as MHR Maximum Heart Rate. The resulting number is heart beats per minute.
A worked example for me is
220 - (Age) = MHR bpm
220 - (56) = 164 bpm
This is useful for targeting the right exercise to suit your needs, in my case burning fats.
I have a Suunto Ambit watch that with the use of the heart monitor chest strap can demonstrate a lesson which I have learnt this week.
First off, know what your MaxHR is then you will be able to work in zones, essentially there are four zones dependant that can be divided into two parts, Aerobic or Anaerobic.
These are divided by % of Heart beats per minute and divided as work zones.
60% - 70% Light activity
70% - 80% Medium activity
80% - 90% Hard activity
90% -100% Extreme activity
These are mine as displayed on Movescount.(Software for Suunto Ambit watches)
Aerobic exercise will target the 60% - 79% which will burn off mainly fats
Anaerobic exercise will target 80% upward which will burn off mainly carbs / sugars
To better understand the impact there are many examples of Aerobics Vs Anaerobic work outs, both will lead to weight loss, because the use up energy in the body and result in weight loss where it is required.
Taking this deeper, what ever you burn off during activity you will use up the opposite during the next 24 - 48 hr recovery period.
In summary when doing aerobic exercise such as walking, running etc under 79% of your MaxHR you will burn off mainly fats, and during the recovery period, you will burn off the carbs and sugars that make up muscle. The opposite for hard intense training, operating 80% and above will predominantly burn up carbs/sugar from the muscles, but during the recovery period draw on the body fats reserves.
Using the understanding of how energy is drawn from the body, I have recorded two specific polar workouts, the first is more aerobic, walking our dog (Blue)
Note; How the graph only reaches 129 bpm and the bar chart shows activity at the lower end.
Now we see an example of High Intensity workout for 17 minutes using dumbbell weights and doing press ups.
I will look further into the effects of each, but as most sources warn, consult your doctor before undergoing exercise especially if it is at the top end of your heart rate.
This week I will put together a work out schedule / programme and use this new information to do some targeted training.
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