Having some trouble setting my goals… What’s Healthy?
What exactly is healthy? Or more exactly, what are ways to easily quantify health? Obviously, we have weight. And we have BMI from my previous post. But that still leaves out accurate fat/muscle percentage. And Cholesterol. But to accurately test these requires full submersion in water, or a blood draw. Both rather expensive to do on a weekly or even monthly basis.
So I need some ideas on ways to measure my health. What I’ve got so far is waist size (they ole’ can-I-fit-in-my-jeans test), and time to run a mile. Hah, right now it should be can I run a mile without stopping? Any suggestions?
What exactly is healthy? Or more exactly, what are ways to easily quantify health? Obviously, we have weight. And we have BMI from my previous post. But that still leaves out accurate fat/muscle percentage. And Cholesterol. But to accurately test these requires full submersion in water, or a blood draw. Both rather expensive to do on a weekly or even monthly basis.
So I need some ideas on ways to measure my health. What I’ve got so far is waist size (they ole’ can-I-fit-in-my-jeans test), and time to run a mile. Hah, right now it should be can I run a mile without stopping? Any suggestions?
April 7th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
Sorry about that - Comments are fixed! You must preview first, to help me prevent Comment Spamming. I can only buy so much Viagra a month, ya know…
April 7th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
If you can get your heart rate down to 60 beats / minute or under, that is generally a good sign of healthy cardio.
April 7th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
Make sure to incorporate weight training into whatever health routine you start. Increasing muscle will help you burn fat faster.
And if you have the means (or the insurance), have a full cholesterol test done as a baseline. (You can also do diabetes testing at the same time if you do the fasting test.) You’ll only need to do it once a year after that.
Good luck!
April 7th, 2005 at 3:53 pm
First off, I love both of your blogs. Money and health are two big priorities for me.
I recently read a book that defined “fitness” as a combination of strength, flexibility, endurance, speed, balance, coordination, and aesthetics.
I think that you can measure all of the attributes pretty well except balance and coordination.
Strength - resistance or repetitions.
Flexibility – can you touch your toes, etc.
Endurance – heart rate, distance running, etc.
Speed – sprint time.
Aesthetics – measure your waistline, arm size, etc.
You get the idea.
What is your workout regimen?
April 7th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
I’ve been reading your main blog for a while, and I’ve interested in reading more about you loosing weight. I am a fellow personal finance blogger, and I’ve also written about trying to slim down:
http://www.financialfreedomtrek.com/2005/04/trimming-fat-and-stuffing-my-wallet.html
http://www.financialfreedomtrek.com/2005/03/true-cost-of-being-overweight.html
Anyway, I’ll put a link to your main blog on my site and I’ll be reading both of your blogs from now on.
Keep up the good work and good luck!
April 7th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
Thanks everyone for the tips and encouragement! Definitely some good stuff to think about…
April 7th, 2005 at 8:43 pm
two words…”ABS DIET” by Mens Health Magazine. Go out and get a copy. You look like a perfect candidate and should see good results. The money you spend on the book ~$15 will be dwarfed by your results.
April 12th, 2005 at 6:53 am
Being an avid bootcamper for a couple of years I will give you a short list of what I think is healthy.
Try to run 2 miles under 18 mins. You should be able to do to 100 full situps and 40-50 pushups without a break.
In order to get to these goals.. you will need to do cardio 5 days a week for 30 mins (along with speed training and pace running), and 30 mins of calisthenics/weights.
Try to eat sensibly (i.e. less junk food, etc..) and keep the calorie intake around 1954 per day.
-Anusha
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:52 pm
Thanks everyone for the helpful comments, I really appreciate this. I haven’t been putting enough time and energy into this part of my life, and I still am not. But I will!
July 29th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
Just found this via frugalgirl! That’ll teach me to read MMB via bloglines
I am at the tail end of week 3 of South Beach myself (I picked it because it seemed like a normal way to eat really).
I am currently intrigued by getting a “metabolic fingerprint” which is a breath test that shows how many calories you burn at rest. Low quote so far is $49 tho…so I’m not sure it’s worth it (like am i just *curious*?)
Looking forward to catching up on the rest of this blog … good luck!