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How fit can I get in a month? (part 2 – a humbling experience!)

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Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

Benchmarking against the tests and metrics I chose in the previous post was quite a humbling experience!

Here are the tests/metrics and my initial test scores:

Resting heart rate.

Angelique measured my pulse on my wrist. The Mayo Clinic article suggests counting the beats in 15 secs and converting this to the beats per minute. Mine is 16 beats in 15 secs, so 64 in a minute.

Fastest time to run 1.5 miles (2.4km)

This is a key test I think as it measures aerobic fitness. Here’s a screenshot from the Mayo Clinic article that shows what different times mean:

And from the Men’s Health article on the same test:

The Scorecard:

12 minutes or more: Slow

Between 10 and 12 minutes: Ordinary

10 minutes or less: Endurance excellence

https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19534622/fitness-level-tests/

I did my initial measurement on the treadmill and I scored 13:00 mins flat. Which is slow!

Number of press-ups to fatigue

From the Coach Mag article, these are what your max press-up scores mean:

My score was 30 which puts me in the Good range. However, I revised this down after I saw a video about how the Royal Marines do their press-ups. They do ones where their hands are shoulder-width apart. I’ve always done mine a bit wider. This makes my elbows point out to the side when going down. The Royal Marine way is to do them so that your elbows stay close to your body when going down. Here’s the video:

And here’s another video confirming I’ve been doing press-ups wrong all my life!

Doing press-ups their way, I cranked out an arm-trembling 20, which puts me in the Average bracket.

Sit up test – max number in a minute

From the Mayo Clinic article:

I did 26 in a minute which is quite weak. From the table above, I should have scored around 37 in a minute.

I’ve used the technique and form that the Royal Marines use to make sure I’m doing them right:

Flexibility – sit and reach test

This is where I really struggle! My hamstrings are tight! My lower back is a bit fragile too, since putting it out a few years ago. I think my back problems stem from being too inflexible around my hamstrings, meaning that my range of movement is too limited and I instead put too much pressure and strain on my lower spine to achieve the range of movement.

Here’s how to do this test: get a tape measure and lay it on the floor. At the 15 inch point, put a pen or ruler across the tape at right angles. Sit down along the tape with your leg straight out and with your soles flush to the pen or ruler at the 15 inch mark. Reach forward as far as you can and note the measurement.

Mayo Clinic interprets the results this way:

I scored 3.5 inches, which is shockingly bad! Definitely need to improve this.

Waist circumference

This was humbling! My jeans from Uniqlo and shorts from Asos each say that I’m a 32in waist. I’ve suspected for years that brands massage our egos when it comes to waist size.

Measured at the widest point of my waist and above the hip bone and below the bottom rib, my waist measurement read……….

39.5 inches. WTF! I’m 5 foot 6! With a belly of that?!

This becomes even more pressing with the next test:

Measure Up. 

This is your waist circumference divided by your hip/butt measurement. 

From the Men’s Health article:

Take a look at yourself. If your belly is growing faster than your butt, you have bigger problems than figuring out how to get a tan without taking off your shirt. The more fat your body stores in your midsection, the higher your risk of heart disease. And this much we know: Fit men don’t get heart disease.

https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19534622/fitness-level-tests/

And this is the scorecard:

The Scorecard:

0.92 or higher: Your wife and kids are going to miss you

0.82 to 0.91: Ordinary

0.81 or less: Flat and happy

https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19534622/fitness-level-tests/

My hip measurement (taken at the widest point) is 40 inches.

My waist measurement is 39.5 inches, making my waist to hip ratio: 0.9875.

BMI

Using the NHS BMI calculator which takes into account my age and ethnicity, my BMI is 27.9 which is at the upper end of Overweight.

Touch the Rim. I’ll have to find a high thing to jump and touch. 

Plank. 

From Coach Mag:

How to do it: Hold your body in a straight line from head to heels. Keep your feet together and your elbows beneath your shoulders. Look straight down and brace for as long as you can. Focus on keeping your hips from sagging. When they do the test is over.

https://www.coachmag.co.uk/exercises/full-body-workouts/1861/6-tests-fitness
TimeLevel
More than 2minExcellent
75sec–2minGood
45–75secAverage
Less than 45secPoor
https://www.coachmag.co.uk/exercises/full-body-workouts/1861/6-tests-fitness

My initial score was 1 min and 1 second, which puts me in the average bracket.

Bodyweight Squat. 50 or more is Excellent 

1km run. 3min or less is Excellent 

500m row. 

From Coach Mag:

What it targets: Your cardiovascular system and muscle co-ordination between the upper and lower body

How to do it: On a Concept2 rowing machine, select level ten resistance. Sit upright with your shoulders back and core braced. Drive with your legs.

https://www.coachmag.co.uk/exercises/full-body-workouts/1861/6-tests-fitness
TimeLevel
1min 30 sec or lessExcellent
1min 31sec–1min 44secGood
1min 45sec–1min 59secAverage
2min or morePoor
https://www.coachmag.co.uk/exercises/full-body-workouts/1861/6-tests-fitness

I did the 500m row in 2min 08 seconds, which is Poor!

Pull-ups. 

From Coach Mag:

How to do it: Grip the bar overhand, extend your arms fully and let your body hang. Pull up until your chin is over the bar, squeezing your lats. Lower again without swinging. The test is over when you can’t maintain perfect form.

https://www.coachmag.co.uk/exercises/full-body-workouts/1861/6-tests-fitness
RepsLevel
12 or moreExcellent
8–11Good
4–7Average
3 or fewerPoor
https://www.coachmag.co.uk/exercises/full-body-workouts/1861/6-tests-fitness

I did 3 pull-ups on the initial test, which is Poor.

Next

Trying to improve these test results as much as possible in a month!

How fit can I get in a month? (Part 1)

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Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

It’s time for another challenge and life experiment. They always seem to come back to fitness.

I’ve been running about 15 miles a week for a few months now but not really seeing a difference to the belly, so I started to think about trying a different approach. I was thinking about how fit is it possible to get in one month?

What do we mean by ‘fit’? A Google search led me to a few interesting articles. This post will feature three of these articles and pick out the tests and metrics I’ll focus on:

  1. How fit are you? See how you measure up (Mayo Clinic)
  2. 10 Standards to Assess Your Fitness Level: Before you stamp yourself “in shape,” make sure you can pass these fitness tests (Men’s Health)
  3. Six Ways To Test Your Overall Fitness (Coach Mag)

Mayo Clinic

Here’s the one from the Mayo Clinic: How fit are you? See how you measure up

This article talks about measuring yourself against these standards:

(BTW I’ve written “Do this” next to the measures I’m going to use in the experiment):

  1. Resting heart rate (Do this)
  2. Fastest time to run 1.5 miles (Do this)
  3. Number of press-ups to fatigue (Do this)
  4. Sit up test – max number in a minute (Do this)
  5. Flexibility – sit and reach test (Do this)
  6. Waist circumference (Do this)
  7. BMI (Do this)

Men’s Health

Here’s the article from Men’s Health: 10 Standards to Assess Your Fitness Level: Before you stamp yourself “in shape,” make sure you can pass these fitness tests

The 10 standards of fitness MH lists are:

  1. Bench pressing 1.5x your body weight. For me that’s 120kg which is tough. My PB is around 85kg, which the article says is ‘Ordinary’. I don’t have access to gym at the moment, so I will leave this test for now and focus on the similar test of maximum pushups.
  2. Run 1.5 Miles in 10 Minutes. The article says 12mins and above is ‘Slow’, which is 8min/miles. I run around 9.30min/miles for a 4 mile run, so according to this metric and MH’s standard, I’m definietly slow! (Do this)
  3. Touch the Rim. I’ll have to find a high thing to jump and touch. (Do this)
  4. Leg-Press 2.25 Times Your Weight. My PB is 130kg so well short of this currently. Like with the bench press test above, I don’t have access to a gym at the moment, so I’ll focus on the similar bodyweight squat test below.
  5. Swim 700 Yards in 12 Minutes. Unfortunately, the pools are closed around here because of COVID restrictions.
  6. Do 40 Pushups. I think the maximum press-ups to fatigue in the Mayo article above is more interesting.
  7. Measure Up. This is your waist circumference divided by your hip/butt measurement. (Do this)
  8. Run 300 Yards Sub 1 Minute. Not sure where I’d find a flat 300 yard bit of track. That’s 275m. I’ll think about this one a bit more.
  9. Touch Your Toes. Similar to the Sit and Reach in the Mayo Clinic article above. (Do this)
  10. Toss a Basketball 75 Feet Kneeling. Not sure how to replicate this.

Coach Mag

And finally, here’s an article from Coach Mag: Six Ways To Test Your Overall Fitness

The 6 standards of fitness they recommend as a measure are:

  1. Plank. More than 2min is Excellent (Do this)
  2. Bodyweight Squat. 50 or more is Excellent (Do this)
  3. Press-ups. 50 or more is Excellent (Do this)
  4. 1km run. 3min or less is Excellent (Do this)
  5. 500m row. 1min 30 sec or less is Excellent (Do this)
  6. Pull-ups. 12 or more is Excellent (Do this)

So the tests I’m going to do and try to improve on are:

  1. Resting heart rate (Do this)
  2. Fastest time to run 1.5 miles (Do this)
  3. Number of press-ups to fatigue (Do this)
  4. Sit up test – max number in a minute (Do this)
  5. Flexibility – sit and reach test (Do this)
  6. Waist circumference (Do this)
  7. BMI (Do this)
  8. Run 1.5 Miles in 10 Minutes. The article says 12mins and above is ‘Slow’, which is 8min/miles. I run around 9.30min/miles for a 4 mile run, so according to this metric and MH’s standard, I’m definitely slow! (Do this)
  9. Measure Up. This is your waist circumference divided by your hip/butt measurement. (Do this)
  10. Touch the Rim. I’ll have to find a high thing to jump and touch. (Do this)
  11. Touch Your Toes. Similar to the Sit and Reach in the Mayo Clinic article above. (Do this)
  12. Plank. More than 2min is Excellent (Do this)
  13. Bodyweight Squat. 50 or more is Excellent (Do this)
  14. 1km run. 3min or less is Excellent (Do this)
  15. 500m row. 1min 30 sec or less is Excellent (Do this)
  16. Pull-ups. 12 or more is Excellent (Do this)

In the next post in this series, I’m going to measure where I am for each of the tests in the previous section above.

What tests would you do for yourself? How fit do you think you are right? Let me know in the comments below!

God I love Chip

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Chip is a savings app that helps you to save effortlessly. I’ve written about Moneybox before about how their app helps you save without feeling the pinch. Chip does something similar but with AI. 

You connect the app to your bank account and it looks at your previous spending history and what you’re spending currently and then somehow calculates what you could save without feeling the pinch.

You choose how aggressive you want the AI to be. I opted for the medium level at the beginning and now I play with the higher settings just to see how much more aggressive they really are. So every now and again, I get a message from Chip saying that I could save say £30 today without feeling the pinch, and that this will be moved from my bank account to Chip at 3pm. You can choose not to move it but I always let it go. 

I opened my Chip account on 19th June 2020 and as of 14th August 2020, I have £182.40 in my Chip account. Annualised, that’s would be around £1,100. Not bad at all. 

What would have happened to that money if I hadn’t been using Chip? I’d probably have spent it on some stuff I didn’t really need. With it gone to Chip, it’s out of spending reach. These apps that focus on the ‘small change’ that you wouldn’t even notice help you save effortlessly. Give it a go!

This is the home screen
This is the bot that tells you how much you could put aside
This is the accounts page. The 0.9% interest rate looks interesting on the other account I can’t yet get into.

The Fear Bubble by Ant Middleton

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The Fear Bubble by Ant Middleton

This book charts the story of how Ant Middleton climbed Everest. It also details Middleton’s philosophy on fear and positivity. And he goes deep. It’s one of the most honest books I’ve read. He tells us about all the times he’s failed. His flaws. All the times he’s messed up. But it’s his upbeat philosophy and views on attacking life with positivity that really shines through.

It all stems from a realisation that he had whilst on operations. He used to feel almost overwhelming fear long before a mission and for a long time after it finished, and he realised that he couldn’t continue like this for the long term. He deconstructed where he should really feel fear and he realised it should be where it was justified: right before the bullets started flying until the time when he was out of immediate danger. This window of time, he called the “fear bubble”.

Over time, he began to look forward to stepping into fear bubbles and enjoying the satisfying ‘pop’ of exiting the fear bubble. His contention is that the opposite of fear is not courage but instead ‘growth’ or ‘personal growth’. Not doing something becuase it involves a fear bubble stops us from stepping through new doors of opportunity and impedes personal growth.

He identifies three types of fear:

  1. Fear of suffering – manifested as the fight or flight response from deep in the amygdala. Solved by reframing the fear you feel in the pit of your stomach as your body as your body telling you to “Get Ready!”
  2. Fear of failure – Middleton says this is the Ego getting in the way. Eg Bench who didn’t want to leave his current level as a sniper to go for Special Forces selection because he feared failing and having to go back to his unit having failed. Middleton calls this having ‘sticky boots’. This is driven by the Ego and not by the healthier driver of ‘pride’. Ego is for caring about what others think. Pride is about what you think internally; you want to impress yourself and not others.
  3. Fear of conflict – “one of the greatest human fears of all is the fear of upsetting other people.” “If you fail to harness it, it will shrink you.” Middleton recommends practicing brutal honesty on yourself and your flaws and weaknesses. This will innoculate you against criticism. “There’s no way of smashing through those doors of opportunity without putting a few noses out of joint…Show me a person without enemies and I’ll show you a person whose boots are soaked in glue – a shrinking violet, a victim, a failing person, paralysed by fear“

Middleton contends that all of these fears can be boiled down to the fundamental fear: the fear of not being worthy or not being good enough. Deep AF. “I’m not good enough” is the deepest human fear. “The simple fact is you don’t know if you’re not good enough until you open that door” Keep smashing down those doors. Keep learning, keep growing.

Middleton’s leaves us with one final idea: that the opposite of fear isn’t courage; it’s growth, specifically personal growth. Carrying on down the path of popping fear bubbles, opening doors, learning will create a sense of ‘godlike’ personal responsibility, where “you’ll feel like the god of your own fate and treat everything that happens to you as if you caused it. And I do mean everything.” He gives the hypothetical example of being beaten up after a night out. Instead of looking for fault and blame (which he says is part of the ‘victim mindset’, take responsibility and respond to it as if you caused it. Think about how you can make sure it never happens again. Could you have fought back better? etc.

This is a great book. It’s full of wisdom about harnessing fear for our own growth as well as giving us a deeper understanding of what fear really is. Highly recommended.

21 days of veganism – am I iron and B12 deficient?

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“Photo by Nanxi wei on Unsplash“

I woke up the other morning and I felt knackered. I just wanted to stay in bed. I didn’t know why I felt like this as in the previous few weeks, I’d had quite a lot of energy. Enough to do a half-marathon.

Was it something to do with veganism. I checked Rich Roll’s book and yes he does mention that vegans can be iron deficient and vitamin B12 deficient if not monitored. Doh! I quickly did some more research:

Iron deficiency

From this article by the Mayo Clinic:

Initially, iron deficiency anemia can be so mild that it goes unnoticed. But as the body becomes more deficient in iron and anemia worsens, the signs and symptoms intensify. Iron deficiency anemia signs and symptoms may include: Extreme fatigue Weakness Pale skin Chest pain, fast heartbeat or shortness of breath Headache, dizziness or lightheadedness Cold hands and feet Inflammation or soreness of your tongue Brittle nails Unusual cravings for non-nutritive substances, such as ice, dirt or starch Poor appetite, especially in infants and children with iron deficiency anemia

I didn’t know that iron comes in two forms: heme and non-heme. Heme is from animal products and is easily absorbed by the body. Non-heme is from plant-based products and isn’t easily absorbed by the body. You need to 18mg of iron a day and getting that from plants alone isn’t straightforward and it’s another thing too to get that iron absorbed. Certain foodstuffs such as tea and coffee actually inhibit the absorption of iron. Other foods such as those rich in vitamin C actually help iron absorption.

B12 deficiency

Apparently a key vitamin doesn’t appear in the plant kingdom. B12 only appears in the animal foods such as meats, fish, poultry and eggs. From this Healthline article:

It plays an essential role in the production of your red blood cells and DNA, as well as the proper functioning of your nervous system.

From this WebMD article:

If you have vitamin B12 deficiency, you could become anemic. A mild deficiency may cause no symptoms. But if untreated, it may lead to symptoms such as:

  • Weakness, tiredness, or lightheadedness
  • Heart palpitations and shortness of breath
  • Pale skin
  • A smooth tongue
  • Constipation, diarrhea, loss of appetite, or gas
  • Nerve problems like numbness or tingling, muscle weakness, and problems walking
  • Vision loss
  • Mental problems like depression, memory loss, or behavioural changes

The same article also had this to say about mothers who are breastfeeding whilst on a vegan diet:

Are you a pregnant woman on a vegan or vegetarian diet, and plan to only breastfeed your baby? You should talk to your doctor before you have your baby, so that you have a plan in place for how you’ll get enough vitamin B12 to keep your baby healthy. Without enough vitamin B12, your baby could have developmental delays and not thrive and grow like he should.

Vegans and vegetarians can get their B12 through a supplement tablet or through food such as nutritional yeast (I bought some and it’s very much like fish food flakes!)

From this article from WebMD:

To increase the amount of vitamin B12 in your diet, eat more of foods that contain it, such as: Beef, liver, and chicken. Fish and shellfish such as trout, salmon, tuna fish, and clams. Fortified breakfast cereal. Low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese. Eggs.

So I’m going pause the vegan experiment and modify it

It takes a while for your iron stores to become depleted and it takes time to build it up again. So for my own health and Angelique’s health, we’re going to load up on meat and eggs for the next couple of weeks to get our iron and B12 levels back to normal. I’m going to eat much the same meals as on the vegan diet (lots of veg, lentils, rice, fruit, mung beans, tempeh etc) but also add in regular lean red meat like liver and steak, as well as eggs and increase my vitamin C intake. I’m also going to start drinking cow’s milk again so that I don’t get a calcium deficiency. I realise that means that I’m no longer vegan but it’s helped me be more intentiaonl about the meats and foodstuffs that I eat. I’m still leaning to a ‘5 days vegan/2 days not’ balance.

Update

In the 10 days since pausing the vegan diet, I’ve been loading up on liver (high in iron and B12). I’ve had this three times. Plus a couple of steaks, some eggs, some oily and non-oily fish, plus some B12 tablets with 25 micrograms of B12 (not even close to the highest strength ones you can get on Amazon). I feel a lot better, with a lot more pep and energy.

It made me think that lots of people could be wandering around with a mild (or serious) mineral deficiency and that this could impact their daily energy levels, their moods, their ability to concentrate etc. How much could change with a nutrient-rich diet as well as the right supplements to complement that?

Disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional and I have self-diagnosed myself using the internet. Please seek medical advice from a qualified professional before starting any major dietary changes. Thanks!