Category Archives: Diet and Exercise
Most Popular Search Term–“How to Lose Sixty Pounds”
Based on the analytics built into WordPress, the most popular search term that lands people on this site is something along the lines of “how to lose sixty pounds” or “I need to lose sixty pounds”.
So I thought I would recap the posts I’ve put together in the last year to make it easy to navigate the articles I’ve written.
- I started telling my own story of weight loss with How I Lost Sixty Pounds in Six Months, January 2010. I shared my story with the community that helped support me along my journey and wrote about it in Success Story Featured on Calorie Count, March 2010.
- After talking with some work friends, I realized that I would do things differently if I started all over again so I wrote If I started my new lifestyle now, April 2010.
- A key motivator for my weight loss was improving my cholesterol which I detailed in Cholesterol Progress, May 2010.
- Beyond weight loss, I’ve embraced exercise as part of my lifestyle and shared my plans in Only If I’m Being Chased, May 2010, detailed my first race in Great Race for a Great Cause, June 2010, and chronicled my biggest race yet in First 10K Finished on the 50 Yard Line!, July 2010.
- I tried working out at home and explained my plans in Taking the P90X Challenge, August 2010 and then explained why P90X didn’t work for me, despite being a great program, in P90X- Not the Right Fit, September 2010.
- I ran one more race before the year ended and described in Race Report- 2010 Lt. William C. West Jr. ALS Memorial Road Race, September 2010.
- I talked about my clothing challenges in Goodbye 38!, January 2011.
- I gave some advice to a friend pursuing his New Year’s Resolution in It’s a New Year and the gym is crowded… for now!, January 2011.
- I reviewed one of my favorite products in Review- BodyMedia FIT Armband Advantage, February 2011.
- And most recently, I shared my point of view in Starting Weight Training–How Long Does It Take to See Results-, March 2011.
Writing articles for this blog has been helpful in keeping myself on track because of the feedback I get from friends and co-workers who read the articles and mention how my story helps motivate them or simply compliment me on the progress I’ve made in the last 21 months.
For people that I don’t know in the real world that find this blog and my articles through my favorite search engine or the other search engines out there, I hope this information helps you and that you find the motivation you need to make the changes to lose sixty pounds or whatever amount is right for you.
Thanks for all of your feedback and best of luck with your own healthy pursuits.
Starting Weight Training–How Long Does It Take to See Results?
As the late comedian Robert Schimmel joked, some gyms can make you feel like you need to work out somewhere else to get in shape enough before you can go to the real gym.
But I think many gyms realize that this feeling keeps many people away from the gym and some companies like Planet Fitness are confronting the issue in a humorous way.
But after working with a trainer at Fitness Together for about three or four months, I started to notice results… not the kind of results that will have me getting oiled up and posing on stage somewhere, perish the thought, but the kind of results where you feel a muscle where you previously didn’t feel one. Or a muscle that you can flex a bit where you couldn’t before.
In fact, I think that the first few months of weight training are all about developing basic muscle tone to activate your major and minor muscles so you can begin to target them with more specific exercise. My personal trainer put me through a couple of months of full body workout exercises before we ever started breaking up my workouts into upper days, lower days, and full body days and I think that was the right approach.
So for anyone just starting out or considering a weight training program, I’d encourage you to consider the following:
- Commit to at least four months of training for at least one-hour 3 days a week since I suspect it will take that long to see some real results. If you’re anything like me when I started, your skeletal muscle percentage is likely so low that you need to get to a normal level before you can really build.
- Feed yourself – don’t starve your workouts since it takes a good diet rich in protein to repair the muscles your ripping during your workouts. I like GNC’s Amplified Wheybolic Extreme protein. Protein is an important supplement to a well-balanced diet.
- Follow a plan – I love the Men’s Health Big Book of Exercises. It has great pictures and explanations of over 600 exercises and it organizes them into simple-to-follow exercises. I type the workouts into a Word document, print them, and carry the book and my worksheets at the gym to track my workouts and refer to the book to make sure I have good form. It’s also inspiring to see a guy I went to school with as the model for the Shoulders chapter. He was always a fit kid but it’s great to see the results Damon Weeks has achieved as an adult. If he can do it, so can I, though it might take me ten years to get into amazing shape like Damon. But I can live with that. I need something to work on so why not my health?
Despite what some people may think, people who carry a book at the gym and write down their workouts are cool, in my opinion, because they are the ones seeing results. By tracking your exercises, weights, and repetitions, you can keep pushing yourself and make sure you’re doing balanced workouts. And that leads to great long-term results.
The people who walk around without a plan and notes do the same workout every time I see them and the repetition isn’t necessarily bad for them but it’s not as helpful as changing things up every four weeks since your body won’t see the same benefit if you don’t change things up. The Men’s Health book is smart since it changes your program every four weeks so your body never gets bored.
In my own experience, the fun doesn’t end after the first few months. I still find myself noticing something new every four to six months. For example, my triceps are really starting to pop out a bit in the last few months. Seeing the results inspires me to keep up the work knowing that I’ll see other noticeable results in another six months or so.
Having faith that hard work and commitment will produce results in time motivates me and I hope it does for you, too. Hang in there, commit to four months, and then you’ll begin a great cycle of improvements.
Review: BodyMedia FIT Armband Advantage
Disclosure: I have not been compensated in any way by BodyMedia. I paid full price for the product and ongoing subscription service.
Since April of 2010, I’ve been wearing the BodyMedia FIT Armband Advantage, a product more commonly known as the BodyBugg (the 24-Hour Fitness brand name) as seen on the Biggest Loser television show.
I bought the product to better understand how much I burn so I could better plan a diet to support my strength training and weight loss goals.
It’s basically a sensor you strap to your left tricep using an included armband as you can see in the picture here.
On the product’s website, they explain that the sensor and associated website help you monitor:
- Total Calories Burned
- Total Steps Taken
- Total Time Spent In Physical Activity
- Sleep Duration and Efficiency
Using the Sensor
To use the sensor, you wear it all the time, even while sleeping, and only take it off for the shower since it’s not waterproof. And then every couple of days, you use the included cable to connect the sensor to your computer to download the data and charge it’s rechargeable battery.
Uploading Your Data
Uploading your data is easy. When you setup the sensor initially, you install their software on your computer and setup a user account for the website. There is a monthly fee for the website but you get the first three months free and there was a discount because I signed up for a year’s service ($6.95/month).
Using the Website
The website is terrific. As you can see in the screen shot, the left column shows my goals, all of which are customizable at anytime. In the right column, it shows my actual performance for the day. Since I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill for a bit, I did well that day.
You can expand any or all sections of the data to show you detailed performance throughout the day. That’s been really helpful for me since I can see the spikes in calorie burn, recall what I did at the time of day, and understand how well I’m doing in my workouts or everyday actions like working in the office and what each activity contributes to my daily burn.
You can see in this screenshot that the sensor monitors your steps by hour. How many steps should you take in a day? Opinions vary but 10,000 steps has become commonly accepted as a good, active number for each day. For me, that translates into around five miles of walking a day.
As mentioned earlier, you should wear the sensor to sleep too since it provides feedback on your amount of sleep and the quality of your sleep. Not feeling rested when you wake in the morning? The monitor will tell you how long you actually slept versus just laying down and how many times you woke during the night. It’s not as detailed as a sleep study (which I’ve had when I was diagnosed with sleep apnea) but it will give you a good sense of whether or not you’re getting enough sleep.
Food Logging
There are other features on the site like a Food Logging tool. I don’t log my food at this point. I have in the past using Calorie Count on About.com. I’ve also used the Food Logging tool on the BodyMedia website. If you use this feature, which they’ve greatly improved in the last year, it will plug your total calorie amount into the calculations on your daily activity page so you know what your real caloric deficit is each day. Since I don’t log my food, I use an estimated number of calories consumed each day.
Using the Information
Measuring each day is helpful but I think taking a longer look at what you’re doing helps guide your decisions. Are you active enough? Are you walking enough? Do you get enough sleep? There is a 28-day view shown here that helps you look at your performance over time and I think that’s the right time period to consider as you continuously evaluate your health.
What have I learned in the last ten months?
- I probably didn’t eat enough in my first 9 months of training since I thought I only burned about 2,200 calories a day so I tried to eat only 1,600 – 1,700 to lose weight. I likely could have built more muscle as I trained if I fed my workouts since I was closer to 3,000 calories burned most days.
- I need to walk more. I’m only averaging around 3,500 steps during the last month. I need to spend more time on the treadmill.
- I’m sleeping well. I wish I had used the sensor before I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and started CPAP so I could see the difference in what the sensor reports. At this point, I get a solid 8 hours a night, occasionally a little less, but usually right on which is what my body needs to heal from my workouts and keep my body healthy and fresh.
Conclusion
The sensor is a constant reminder that I’m focused on my health. After the first day or so you forget that you’re wearing it most of the time, but in the moments that I feel the armband there, I’m reminded why I wear it and what I’m doing for my health. It’s a good feeling. It was also a good feeling recently when I ordered a new, larger armband. The medium armband that comes with the sensor became too small thanks to the arm workouts I’ve been doing. It was getting a bit like a blood pressure cuff so I went to the next size up. So it will be fun for me to see how much I need to keep letting out the strap as I keep working at the gym.
You can buy the product on the BodyMedia website or from online retailers like Amazon.com for about $200 plus the website subscription. For me, it’s been a great investment in my health since I have some great information to use in my planning. People focus so much on what’s going in (food/drink) but they completely guess about what you’re burning which is a huge miss! This product takes the guess work out of it. I would recommend this product to anyone focused on their health whether you are at your goal weight or not.
Please feel free to ask questions if there’s anything I haven’t covered.
Why I Use a Standing Desk
I don’t travel as much as I used to so I’m typically in the office five days a week, sitting at my desk, working away, hunched over like most people who work at a desk. It’s no wonder that I’ve had lower back pain for years. With the work I’ve done over the last two years to improve my health, I’ve focused a great deal on strengthening my core but the back pain has persisted so I started investigating different options.
I saw an orthopedist, a physical therapist, had a few cortisone shots and finally saw a spine specialist who told me there was nothing structurally wrong with my back so I had no need for surgery. Relieving the activity that was creating the pain and building my core would be the plan for me.
About two years ago, I brought a balance ball to work. Most days, I would replace my desk chair with the ball for an hour or two so I could sit up straight and focus on keeping my back upright. It’s good for a while but you can only hold your core tight for so long.
More recently, I did some research on standing desks. You can find 39,000,000 results on Bing for standing desk so clearly there’s no shortage of information. Most articles will tell you that our bodies were not designed to sit all day but they are more conditioned for standing. So I decided to mock-up a standing desk to see if I might like this setup. You can see how I used the boxes from Halo 3 and Halo: Reach legendary editions to put up my monitor and keyboard.
After feeling confident that this setup would work well for me, I investigated getting a true standing desk through Microsoft’s ergonomics program. I learned that I needed to complete an online ergonomics assessment and get a form signed by my doctor in order to initiate the process. After completing those steps, the order was placed thanks to the support and encouragement of my manager.
My new sit and stand desk arrived this past Monday. As you can see in the picture here, the legs are telescoping so I can lower the desk if I choose to sit or raise it for standing which has become my default position. For reference on just how tall the standing desk is, you can see the far desk with the filing cabinet underneath it is at normal desk height.
I’ve also acquired a Bluetooth headset that works with Microsoft Lync so I’m now able to stand up and walk around while on the many conference calls that consume my afternoons.
It’s been a great week with the new setup and I’d encourage anyone who’s tired of hunching over to mock up a standing desk as I did to give it a try. There are a number of options out there for standing desks, some not quite as high-tech as my desk so they’re much more affordable, especially for the many people working from a home office where you likely have to buy your own furniture. A number of the desks from IKEA adjust to a standing height.
Let me know if you have any questions or want to know if my enthusiasm for this setup lasts!
p.s. – I took both pictures with my Windows Phone 7 device, an LG Quantum… pretty good quality, eh?
CPAP Key to Success: Finding the Right Mask
When I first started CPAP more than two years ago, it was difficult to adjust to having air blow into my nose continuously as I tried to fall asleep. But I figured it out and made things work as I described in a previous post.
But for me, finding the right mask fit has been an evolutionary process.
| I started with Nose Pillows that apply directly to the nostrils. As you can see in the picture, the nose pillows are held in place by a head strap.
The key to making this mask work is keeping your mouth closed while you sleep. I was fine for the first couple of months but then started waking up with my mouth open. The CPAP technician had me try a chin strap to keep my mouth closed but that ended up being ridiculous and ineffective. So I went back to Sleep Health Center to see what other options there were. |
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| After talking with the CPAP technician, I elected to go with the Full Face mask since it covers both the nose and the mouth so the open mouth issue is irrelevant. The mask can maintain the continuous positive air pressure for the nose and/or mouth. Yes, you wake up most days with a dry mouth but at least the CPAP is effective in maintaining the airway.
My problem with the Full Face mask developed because I sleep on my side or stomach and the mask was biting into the bridge of my nose and causing pain, redness, and irritation. So again I went back to Sleep Health Center to see if there was a better option. |
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| Next I tried the Full Face Gel mask which was similar to the previous Full Face mask but I had the same problem as the last one, even after trying different sizes. It rubbed and irritated my nose and just didn’t seal right for me. |  |
| After one more trip to Sleep Health Center, I settled on the Hybrid mask. It combines the nose pillows with a mouth mask and it doesn’t have anything that contacts the nose. After experimenting with different size nose pillow inserts, I’m quite happy with this mask. It gives me the coverage I need (mouth and nose) to maintain effectiveness and it also fits comfortably enough that I don’t wake up with a red, painful nose. |  |
So the moral of the story is that CPAP is incredibly important for people living with sleep apnea. It’s not always easy to live with a mask but you owe it to yourself to find a mask that works for your body, your sleep position, and your needs.
If your mask isn’t working for you, look at the options online at places like The CPAP People and talk with your doctor or CPAP technician to find something that will work for you.
It’s a New Year and the gym is crowded… for now!
Image via Wikipedia
It’s a New Year and many people have resolved to be healthier in the new year… so the gym is a little more crowded and people have health on their minds…
While I do have to occasionally wait for equipment, I’d be fine if it stayed that way. I like being around other people who are working on their health. I see many of the same people there and it’s been a year since the place opened. I’m inspired by their dedication.
But what keeps some people going and causes others to revert to their old habits? For me, my decision to change didn’t come with a new year, it came because of blood tests.
I heard from a friend after my last blog post. He told me that he’s tried to lose weight and get healthy before but this time, he feels ready to make the change and wants to stick with it. He was looking for some tips so this is what I wrote back to him.
From: Michael Moore
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2011 5:57 PMAll the typical disclaimers that I’m not a doctor, dietitian, or personal trainer….
The basic premise of weight loss is to reduce by 500 calories a day – either by eating less or by upping your activity or both. So if you eat 250 calories fewer a day and burn 250 calories through exercise every day, in one week you’ll lose one pound. 3500 calories equals one pound.
For food, be careful not to starve yourself. I’d recommend creating an account on http://caloriecount.about.com/ and using their food logger to journal your food and try to make sure you’re eating enough. I’d also recommend subscribing to their email newsletters. I find them to be good daily reminders and they have some inspiring stories to keep the daily motivation going. I actually think I ate too little in the first six months of my weight loss and could have built more muscle as I trained if I ate more.
At night, you may want to pick up a thing of Casein Protein. You can drink a shake of this slow digesting protein and not feel hungry all night. This is the one I use – http://www.gnc.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3513377. Sometimes I blend it with some fruit to make it like a smoothie.
For breakfast, my dietitian recommend starting with some protein. Every day I have a Fiber One English muffin with crunchy peanut butter and a Chobani Greek Yogurt…. Very good protein and lets me get 2-3 hours into the day before I feel hungry.
For exercise, I highly recommended finding a personal trainer and committing to six months of training. I went to Fitness Together in Waltham. They have them all over the place. It’s small, one on one, private, and they can help you develop a workout routine that is safe yet challenging. If you’re like I was 18 months ago, you probably need to build more muscle. Muscle burns calories so weight training is actually a great way to lose weight. If you can find a trainer who’s a good personality match for you (motivating, not annoying or too peppy) then you’ll come to love training sessions. They’ll probably get you drinking protein recovery drinks like this one which is great for post-workout – http://www.gnc.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3509954.
If you do this, it’ll be $50-60 a session and you’ll want to do 3 sessions a week but it’s so worth it. You’ll accomplish so much in six months you won’t believe it and then you’ll be confident and strong enough to go to a gym on your own. You’ll also stick with the workout since you’re paying for it. Just book it like a business meeting on your calendar and do not let people book over those sessions. You’ll spend about $4,680 total but can likely buy blocks of 30 sessions to save some money and get the per session price down. But think of it like this – if your car was broken or your wife’s car was broken and it cost $5K to fix it, you would do it without a second thought…. So why not invest the same in yourself to fix your body? That’s how I thought about it.
If you’re not ready for the trainer option, check out the On Demand workout sessions on cable and challenge yourself to do 2 or 3 programs a week in addition to your walking. Or if you have an Xbox 360, the Kinect games are awesome and fun to do.
Let me know if any of this sounds good or if you need more ideas. If I can do it, so can you!
I’m posting this in case anyone else would find this advice helpful. I don’t have all the answers for every situation but I know what worked for me and I suspect it will work for my friend too.
Goodbye 38!
No, I didn’t just turn 39… the 38 I’m referring to in the title of this post is the size 38 pants that I packed up to donate this past weekend.
Here’s an update on my weight loss and healthy lifestyle, if you’re interested…
After losing more than sixty pounds a year ago, I’ve spent the last year continuing my healthy journey and working to maintain my current weight. I actually said goodbye to the size 38 pants a little more than a year ago buying size 36 in some pants and 34 in others. But I didn’t get rid of the size 38 pants and shorts. I kept them around. I don’t know why. I suppose some self-doubt still remained even after I had accomplished so much so I think it was safer to keep the big pants around in case I needed to get back into them.
But during the holiday vacation time off, we spent time cleaning the house, like grab the black trash bags type of cleaning, and as I began to tackle our bedroom I started to make a pile of clothing to donate. I didn’t have this big moment of revelation where I decided to get rid of the big boy pants. I just grabbed things I knew I wouldn’t wear again and tossed them into the pile. The pile grew and grew until I had filled a black trash bag and really had to stuff things in to make them fit. I packed size 38 pants and shorts and the size XL shirts that I hope to never need again.
The size 38 pants and shorts were an easy decision since I’ve managed to keep my waist line under control. The shirts were a tougher decision since I’m a bit in between sizes but this is kind of a good problem to have. In the last year I’ve continued weight training at Anytime Fitness and things have gone well enough that the size large shirts I moved into a year ago are getting tight across the shoulders, back, chest and upper arms. I am in no way pumping up like Lou Ferrigno but the hard work is paying off as I work to build more lean muscle. My waist is staying the same so I could theoretically move back up into XL shirts to fit my upper body but then I’ll have too much material gathered at the waist. I think I need to investigate some shirts for work that are cut and sized for someone in my situation.
At my lightest (April 2010) I was at 197 but I’ve come back up to around 210 to 214 with a body fat of 23% so I still have more work to do. I was in Seattle at a team meeting in April 2010 and when I went back to Seattle for another team meeting this past September one of my colleagues told me that I looked good and healthy at present but that I looked too skinny last April. This was reassuring and made me feel better about not continuing to shred and get under 200 and stay there.
I really don’t care what I weigh right now but I do care about decreasing my body fat percentage either by shredding fat or by building muscle. I’m pretty focused on building muscle at this point since having more muscle increases your metabolism and burns more calories all the time. I’m weight training three days a week (still using the Men’s Health Big Book of Exercises) and following a pretty good regimen of supplements. The GNC store at the Burlington Mall has been a good place for me to get supplements and advice from the workers there.
All in all, things are going great. I feel better. I’m stronger. I’m enjoying the training. I eat well. My family and friends are incredibly supportive. (thanks, peeps!)
Next up for me is finding a race or two to get on the calendar for this spring so that I have a cardio goal to make my treadmill time more focused.
Best of luck with your weight/health goals in 2011! It’s a new year and time for a fresh start! … and no looking back to size 38 for me!
p.s. – we’re very into recycle/reuse so I took the bag of clothes to the St. Vincent de Paul drop-box at St. Theresa Parish where I’m sure they’ll put the clothing to good use for the needy.
Race Report: 2010 Lt. William C. West Jr. ALS Memorial Road Race
Great race day today – beautiful weather, well run event, and a great cause!
This was my third race this year. My goal was to finish in around 30 minutes. My official time was 31:06 so I was pretty pleased, especially since this race course features a crazy hill. The chart below shows the changes in elevation. You can see the hill at the 1K mark and then again just before the 4K mark. The hill made the race tough but it was a lot of fun.
The race was put together by the family of a Billerica Police officer. They linked to this video from their Facebook event page. It shows just how devastating ALS can be for a person and their family.
Denise and the girls were there to capture my finish (wearing my Anytime Fitness t-shirt). Danny fell asleep so my mother stayed inside the building holding him.
After the race, the organizers served burgers and hot dogs and had a DJ playing music which the kids really enjoyed. Overall, a great day and I look forward to participating again next year.
Not sure if I’ll race again in this calendar year but I’d love to do another 5K if I can find one that fits our schedule.
Almost Two Years of CPAP
Image via Wikipedia
As I approach my two-year anniversary of using Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) to treat my case of severe obstructive sleep apnea, I thought I’d share my story and what I’ve learned along the way.
“Tell Him You Snore”
About two years ago, I was getting ready to go to my annual physical and I told my wife what I was planning to bring up with the doctor. I asked her if there was anything else I should mention and she said “Yes, you should tell him about your snoring.” But it was actually not just snoring that would keep my wife awake at night. There were times when she would notice that I would stop breathing and then I would suddenly take a big breath and then breathe normally.
So I went to my physical and mentioned to the doctor that I snore. He asked a few questions and then recommended that I go for a sleep study to get some real data on exactly what was happening to me at night. Within a few days, I heard from Sleep HealthCenters and scheduled my sleep study.
The Sleep Study
I didn’t really know what to expect for the sleep study so I showed up at the night entrance to the clinic at the appointed time with a little anxiety. The sleep study technician was super friendly as he checked me in and showed me to my room. He had me watch a video about snoring, sleep apnea, and Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP). The video explained that sleep apnea is a very dangerous condition because your body doesn’t get enough oxygen which can cause a whole host of health problems including terrible strain on the heart – that’s why so many people have fatal heart attacks in their sleep.
After the video, the technician had me come out to a prep area where he literally wired me up for the study. I had electrodes on my face, scalp, eyelids, and it was a bit crazy. When I got back to my room, I took a picture of myself with my cell phone thinking that the kids would get a kick out of seeing me wired up.
While getting wired up, I asked the technician how he got into doing sleep studies. He told me his story – he was a patient who came in for a study, was diagnosed with sleep apnea and starting using CPAP nightly. He became such a believer that he decided to become a sleep study technician. He told me that he had been using CPAP for five years and loved it! I remember questioning his sanity, thankfully with my internal voice.
As he helped me get setup in the bed, connecting me to the plugs in the room, he explained that we’d start the test by having me sleep normally and then if he noticed signs of sleep apnea, he’d wake me and connect me to CPAP. So I fell asleep around 11:30 pm and at around 2:30 am, the technician woke me up. He was seeing enough activity that he knew CPAP was needed so he fitted me with the mask. He explained that we’d use the rest of the night to adjust the pressure of the CPAP to determine the right level needed to keep me breathing right.
The Diagnosis
A couple of weeks later I had a follow-up appointment with the sleep doctor to learn the results of the study. I was relatively sure he’d want me to start CPAP based on the study but I didn’t know how good or bad of a case of sleep apnea I had. Well, it turns out that I wake/stop breathing an average of 46 times an hour which he told me is a case of severe obstructive sleep apnea. The doctor explained that I stop breathing/wake when the soft palette and related anatomy close off the airway because of sleep position, weight, or just the way my anatomy is configured.
The doctor recommended CPAP therapy with a pressure setting of 11 cm H2O. I was ready to go but they didn’t have an appointment for me with the respiratory therapist for another week which was a bit frustrating since I was hoping to go home with the gear.
Starting CPAP
After my appointment with the respiratory therapist, I went home and setup my CPAP. If you’re not familiar with CPAP, there’s the control unit which is basically a blower with a little computer built-in to track usage and control the pressure. There’s a hose that connects the control unit to the mask and then there’s the mask or as my 3-year-old son calls it “Daddy’s snorkel.” As I prepared to put on the mask, I thought about the respiratory therapist telling me that she would download the data from the smart card in the control unit to see how much I was using the CPAP. She told me that the insurance companies want to make sure people actually use the units since they’re pretty expensive. So as I put the unit on and it begins blowing air into my nostrils, I felt tremendous pressure to make things work and to wear the mask for the entire first night.
I also felt freaked out! I had air blowing into my nose so I felt like I was fighting to exhale against this force of air blowing it back in… it’s a difficult feeling to articulate but I’m sure you can understand it’s very unnatural. And as I wore the mask on my first night of CPAP, it was hard to imagine that it would ever feel natural. I ended up wearing the mask for about an hour before taking it off, cursing that the insurance company could have the thing back if they wanted it, and laying back down to sleep feeling like an utter failure. I did try again the next night and wore the mask for longer but it took a couple of months before I’d really get used to it and figure out some tips.
CPAP Tips
The key to CPAP is to relax and breathe normally which is the thing that seems most impossible when you have the mask on so the key for me has been taking the focus away from my breathing so that I can relax and sleep. To do this, I simply listen to the radio as I fall asleep at night. This is likely common practice for many people but it wasn’t for me. In fact, my wife had always listened to the radio before bed until we got married and she stopped because I wanted a quiet room at bed time. So after ten years of marriage, I suddenly wanted the radio on and she, of course, was okay with that. Yes, she’s a very patient and understanding woman, to say the least. So now I listen to the radio and put it at a volume that I can hear it over the CPAP machine and after a few minutes, I drift off to sleep.
It also takes time to get used to the pressure level so most modern CPAP machines have a ramp feature that starts the pressure low and eventually increases it to the proper level. I used the ramp feature to get accustomed to the air but now don’t even need it. Now I can turn the machine on and deal with the full pressure without any problems.
Present and Future
I’ve been focused on weight loss for a year now and have made a lot of progress. I talked with my sleep doctor about whether or not I still need CPAP or could use some other therapy for my sleep apnea. After discussing options, I did explore the possibility of a dental appliance that would pull the jaw in a direction to open up the airway. I don’t think this option is for me based on how it pulls the jaw all night.
So for now, my plan is to continue CPAP. I may do another sleep study in a few months to see if my situation has improved enough to let me drop the air pressure down but I’m pretty used to using the machine each night now. I can’t say that I love CPAP but I certainly can appreciate the contribution it makes to a good night’s sleep.
My Advice
If you snore, stop breathing, etc. you owe it to yourself and your family to have a sleep study, figure out what you’re situation is and to make a plan for how best to deal with it. You can adjust to life with CPAP if you just relax, give yourself a break, and take the time to adjust to sleeping with the mask on. It could save your life!
P90X: Not the Right Fit
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After four weeks of P90X Lean, I’ve decided that I need to revise my approach and get back to the gym.
Prior to starting P90X, I had a solid schedule of going to the gym three days a week and running a couple of days during the week. I started P90X to try and switch up my routine, get some different cardio, and just generally work on being crossfit.
When I started P90X, I stopped going to the gym and running and just did the DVD’s. If I had to miss a day because of my schedule, I would make up the workout by doing two on one day. I bought some weights and resistance bands which were needed for the P90X workouts. I enjoyed the workouts. Tony Horton is great and does a nice job keeping you going during the routines.
But rather than keep going for another nine weeks, I’ve concluded that I need to make some changes because:
- Exercising outside of the house is easier – I’ve done more than one workout with one or more child watching me or even worse, climbing under my downward dog… not safe or effective. It’s easier if I’m at the gym where I can do my workout and not be interrupted.
- It’s hard to fully extend upward in a finished basement. Our family room is in our finished basement and it’s quite roomy with the exception of the ceiling which is probably around seven feet high. There are plenty of motions in P90X where you are supposed to fully extend your arms and fingers skyward and I just can’t do it in this room. And the other rooms in the house would put me more in the middle of the kid space so the previous item would be even more of an issue.
- I’m often using the wrong weights – to really do P90X right and get the most out of it, you really need a good range of weights on the ready so you can grab 15’s for one thing and then 35’s for the next. I’m not willing to buy a full set of weights and the quick-adjust ones don’t have good reviews. So I’d end up using too much weight for some exercises and too little for others – just not getting the most out of the exercises.
So I’ll get back to my gym – Anytime Fitness in Billerica, MA. They have everything I need and then some. I can exercise in peace on my three day schedule and I’ll then use the P90X DVDs for my cardio workouts on in between days – things like Cardio X, Kenpo, Plyometrics, Stretch X, etc. – all good workouts to compliment the weight training I’m getting back to.
If I had more space, more alone time, and more equipment this would have been a great program for me. But it’s just not right at this time. I went back to the gym today and it felt great – a little shaky because I started an intense program – but great nonetheless.
