Corona Lock-down Tips: Keeping Fit, Even if You Can't Get Out

Life in the Corona Lock-down, all the restrictions we're now living in, makes keeping fit much more difficult.

Yesterday I took two "walks" to keep up my general fitness. Since, like most everyone, I can't really estimate how many steps and distance I've walked at home*, I rely on two pedometer apps on my phone.  You can see their icons on the screenshot to your right.

The pedometers I use are free. One is more sensitive than the other. They each have a purpose, and I keep the phone on me all the time, except when it's charging.

There are two ways to find icons for your phone:
1- google play store and "search" free pedometer
2-go into "chrome" or whatever you use and just google "free pedometer"
Match up the icons with those on my home screen.

On the bottom there's the icon on the far left, showing two feet. It's very simple to use and sensitive enough to most walking around the house. And Gd willing when this lock-down is over, it shows a realistic amount of steps when shopping and in museums etc.

There's another pedometer app on the second row, far right with one foot. This pedometer, even at its most sensitive is less so. I like that it shows me how much "serious walking" I've done.

After installing a pedometer, you have to personalize it. Go to "settings," and add whatever info they ask. The most important is "pace distance." You can check the accuracy of that by counting your steps as you walk and check that the app has the same number. "Sensitivity" can also be adjusted. You may need to tweak here and there. I uninstalled one, since it was horrendously inaccurate. The app on the bottom of my screen is more sensitive. I generally try to turn it off when in a car or bus.

Please tell me how you're managing. Is this helpful?

*I turned on facebook live for company. You can join in. Here are the recordings.

Trying To Analyze Pedometer Results

Just a few minutes ago, I sent a picture of yesterday's pedometer reading and complained to my walking group about how little I had walked. I hadn't even reached 12,000 steps.

But when I take a good look, I can see that I had three periods of real walking.

Granted, they weren't terribly long, but there's more serious walking in those periods than in some days which have more impressive numbers. The Pedometer record for yesterday calculated/sensed one hour, forty-seven minutes and forty seconds of activity, though most of it was just walking around inside. The three straight lines which I've circled are my actual walks outdoors.

Indoors, I walked up and down a few flights of stairs more than once. So if you add the stairs to the outdoor walking, I guess I had close to an hour of physical activity, which isn't all that awful. Now, if I could only find a way to "delete" the dessert I had last night at a neighbor's Sheva Brachot*.

*Sheva Brachot: Post wedding party, which can take place during the week after a wedding.

19,492 Plus Steps Yesterday, Fitness & Pedometer Tips

I post many of my "steps" on my instagram page,  shilohbatya

Actually, by the time I went to sleep around midnight, I had reached 19,542 steps. Yes, that may be a record number of steps for me. I use the simple "pedometer" app on my phone to keep track.

Except for when my phone is charging, I have the phone on me, so every step counts. My rationale for that is that since every sip, taste or bite of a food counts for adding calories, then we shouldn't be shy about counting those steps, whether to the laundry room, refrigerator or even the loo.

When you're setting up* your pedometer, make sure that it's sensitive enough to count all those very short "walks." Once after a few hours in a museum, I discovered that although I had done a lot of walking, my pedometer had ignored most of it, since they were short walks from picture to picture, exhibit to exhibit.

I know that the 10,000 steps a day benchmark has been pooh poohed as not very significant, but that's not really true. Once you start keeping track of your steps, you'll discover your own personal benchmarks, and for many people, davka, 10,000 steps is a good number to aim for and later top.

As you may know, I'm no youngster, and I'm overweight and not in perfect shape. So managing almost twenty thousand 20,000 steps in one day is quite impressive, as is my average, which recently has been twelve thousand 12,000 or more. Friends ask me how I do it, without damaging myself.

If you look at yesterday's record, you'll see that I was on my feet most of the day, didn't walk all that quickly and only had three "long" walks. And, thank Gd, it all added up.

Below is a more "average day," and you can see that I was quite sedentary for quite a long period of time. Two long walks of about 4,000 steps each, one at a really good pace, made up for two-thirds of the day's step total. That means that I got in over an hour of good physical activity that day.

The key to my approach is to exercise in small quantities, not to strain the body at all. If you're not in good shape, from injury, age, illness whatever, it's very important not to risk injury. But it's also extremely important to maximize activity. For many, that's a very fine line.

One of my big problems is that I hate exercising alone, whether walking, floor or more aerobic exercise. Ironically, I had once been an exercise teacher, and I know what we should be doing all too well. I just need the added socializing to do it. Listening to classes, music whatever does make walking a bit better, but I can always walk longer and more quickly with partners. To help, I opened a small whatsapp group. Our aim is to walk twice a day. Almost always I'm the nudge writing:

"Anybody able to walk tonight/tomorrow morning? Please, pretty please..."

I don't always find someone, but not only does it help me, my friends enjoy it, too. Instead of chatting over coffee and cake, or not seeing each other at all, we really enjoy our friendly walks. There are people who use the walking time to talk on the phone, but to get full benefit, swing your arms and get a "headset" if you're going to have a "long distance partner." One of my walking buddies uses walking sticks to be steadier and give more upper body workout.

What do you do to make fitness more fun and doable?

*You also must get your step length accurate. A good way of doing it is to actually count ten or twenty steps in your head while walking and then check if the pedometer agrees. If the pedometer says you've taken more steps, then increase length; decrease if it doesn't credit you with enough steps.

Too Bad The Pedometer Doesn't Count Water Exercise

As many of you know, I have my phone set up as a pedometer, and I happily show off my step count on Instagram and Facebook.

On a day like today, when it was a scorcher, real summer day, my walking partner and I walked two circuits early in the morning, and then I was home until evening when I went to the nearby pool. I exercised in the water for 45 minutes.

According to my pedometer I did a rather lazy under 9,000 steps. And no, my phone isn't waterproof.

Isn't it a bit crazy that I don't feel I've exercised if the pedometer doesn't confirm it?

Jerusalem Light Festival 2018, Rather Dull

The other night I went to the Jerusalem Light Festival 2018, even though I couldn't find anyone to go with. There were thousands of other people, and I even ran into a few friends. It is an event one can do on one's own without any problem.

I arrived before the opening at 8pm, because I had the time, and I didn't want to get back too late. But you really don't see the beauty until it's dark.

First of all, I must complain. I can't imagine why the organizers thought that they could was it save money on not having color-coded guide lights to indicate routes. In previous years we could just look up and follow our chosen route's color. This time we guessed, followed crowds, tried to understand the map wihch didn't have street names or asked the young sadranim, guides, who were stationed in some of the important locations. One tried to tell me to go back to where I had been, so I had to show him that the numbers needed to go up and not down.

I took the PINK route, which started at Jaffa Gate and ended at the New Gate. There were very long sections with nothing other than walking. Not enough for the route, and nothing spectacular compared to what I remember from previous years. No doubt I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been alone.

I got a lot of walking in, finishing the day at 20,000+ steps. Here are some pictures I took:

There was a section in a mostly Arab neighborhood that had lanterns hanging, which I presume was to guide the spectators.

Nu, And How's The Diet Going?

It's certainly no secret that I have been struggling with my weight for a very log time. A number of years ago, I made it a very public diet which you can find by using the search engine of this blog by asking for "public diet," "diet saga," "low carbohydrate" and other labels.

I did manage to rid myself of about fifteen 15 kilo or thirty plus 30+ pounds, most of which has stayed off ever since, but about a third, five kilo found their way back about a year ago. When that unwanted weight had reached three kilo, I went to war, but lost the battle and gained another two kilo. But about six months ago, after the pool closed, I tried a few different tricks, about some of which I have blogged.

Over 12,000 steps is pretty rare for me.
12,000 is now very common.

The first thing I did was to make more time to walk, since the pool had closed. Three months of water exercise hadn't reduced much, except that my body looked and felt better. And even the experts say that walking is better for weight reduction than swimming. I increased my daily steps, as I could see on the pedometer.

The second thing I did to lose weight was to change my breakfast. For years I had been eating a large vegetable omelet, but not that long ago I felt terrible sugar/fruit cravings as soon as I finished it. I took that as a hint. Maybe I need to eat fruit for breakfast, since the omelets and vegetables weren't satisfying my hunger.

Now, for the past few months, I have fruit, fresh ginger and goat yogurt for breakfast. I must admit that there are days when I crave cashews afterwards, so I eat a few. It's clear that I need more protein early in the day in addition to the sugar/fructose.

Another thing I've noticed, and I do weigh myself almost daily on the same scale, is that the fewer restaurant or catered meals I eat, the lower my weight is. It goes up a bit when I've eaten out. And it's lowest when all the food I've eaten has been my own home cooking.

My weight seems to have stabilized close to where it was post-big diet, bli eyin haraa, let's not tempt the "evil eye." I do have days when I eat things I "shouldn't," but there are diet mavins who actually  say that once a week or two it is good to go off the restrictions. It stimulates the metabolism to work harder and burn calories more quickly. Also, it makes the "diet" easier to live with, and that is a major trick/technique. If you adopt a diet you find impossible to live with, you won't be able to stick to it very long.

And how is your diet going?

Losing The Diet Battle

People who see my almost nightly post about how many steps I've taken each day as I kick off my shoes must think I'm winning the battle. But the truth is that I'm making pretty much no progress in getting off the weight that snuck on the past couple of years.

A very important diet principle I stick to is to make/design an eating plan you can live with. That's because if you have a numerical weight goal, which requires a food and exercise regime that isn't really sustainable, you'll quickly go off of it and yo-yo. We all know what that means. It means that the weight will return "with interest."

Not only are we all different, but our bodies change with time. The medical experts say that even our metabolism gets sluggish, not just our minds with age...

So far, I like this pedometer application, and it's working well. The three numbers (you can set it to do miles and inches) I follow most carefully are:

• steps
• kilometers per hour
• time exercised

I've really been trying to keep to two hours of being active each day. Now, being active also means the simple walking around the house while doing daily chores. You can also see on the graph, that I have periodic heavier active times. Now that it has been raining, thank Gd, I also walk quickly around my house to get the steps increased. 

Food is pretty easy to control, since most meals are home, but after about a decade of trying to diet/keep my weight down, it is harder to deny myself some foods. But the good thing is that smaller quantities of food like dates and cake etc now satisfy my sweet tooth.

I hope you're not bored by this, because my diet saga will continue for the rest of my life. And how is yours going?

Counting #steps and Kicking Off My Shoes

My facebook and instagram friends have been seeing my almost nightly routine of reporting how many #steps I've walked according to the pedometer on my phone as I kick off my shoes.

Even the most comfortable of shoes doesn't beat being shoeless for me, especially after a long day. In my youth and childhood, pretty much all of the dance classes I took were barefoot, Modern and Israeli Folk Dance. In those days the exercise classes I took and taught were also barefoot. This predated the "invention" of aerobic exercise. I still think that exercise should be barefoot, and it should include moving the feet around, too. You can't do it in a shoe, and trying can be dangerous. Shoes restrict us, even the softest.

To be honest, I now need something softer than Israeli floors to walk on. Maybe it's age, but when I'm out, soft, flexible shoes are necessary. This past summer I almost never wore sandals. I only wear soft flexible shoes. But after a long day, I just must get them off.

And if you're curious, I've been trying to top 12,000 steps a day. Sometimes it isn't easy. This includes walking around the house doing all sorts of ordinary things, like walking from the laundry room to the clothesline, to the kitchen and back to the den, etc. When I'm taking a "long" walk, it's rarely more than 4,000 steps at a time. I believe that it's best to break up your exercise and walking into small doses spread throughout the day. This is especially important as you get older. That's why I like the simple program/application on my phone. It counts everything, every step. I have noticed that it even counts the steps in fitness routines.  I find that very encouraging.

Do you have any tricks that help you exercise? Please answer in the comments, thanks.

Filling Empty Days- No Pool, but At Least I Walked

Here in Shiloh unfortunately the swimming pool isn't open on the "9 days," or more accurately ten days. As the "adult hours" at the pool get more and more crowded with "retirees" who swim for health and fitness, not just plain fun, we always realize much too late that as a community we must have the local rabbi posken (make a halachik/rabbinic decision) that the pool should be open this week.

Besides the fact that most of us go to the pool for health reasons, there are many members who are ethnically "Edot Mizrach" and even their children are permitted to play in the water during the 9 days, until the week of Tisha b'Av.

Considering that the pool season here in Shiloh is only three months, the ten days- barely eighty days when you subtract the Shabbatot and the 9-10th of Av, those nine, sic, ten days make up a hefty proportion of the available swim days. This year we lose five days we could have benefited from the pool if the Rav would decide that certain categories of adults may use the pool.

Yesterday I found myself without any plans at all! It was horrible, and the weather was hot, too. I did force myself out for walks, twice on my own and once with a friend. I could easily have wasted the day eating and playing computer card games like, freecell, spider solitaire and pyramid, besides reading. And I must admit that I did waste most of the day. Regardless, I did walk, and my phone pedometer proves it.

You can see that I walked 12,640 steps, which was just short of two hours, though if you add my indoor walking when the phone wasn't on me, I certainly passed that benchmark. Ditto for nine kilometers, and my pace was an impressive 4.5 kilometers an hour, at least that last hike when I was out with a friend.

As you probably know, I'm trying to get a few or more kilo off of me. Gd willing this will help. I've been tweaking my food routine and hope it helps. The extra five kilo that has been sticking causes pain. It's just not good for me. I'm trying really hard to get back on the diet wagon.

Baile Rochel and Me, Too, Dieting Blues, Burnout

The weight has been creeping up. Not all of my clothes fit all that well anymore. A few things are no longer even wearable. Yes, I need to somehow re-energize, re-motivate myself to stick to the "guidelines" that got 15 kilo, over thirty, yes, 30 pounds off less than a decade ago.

Yesterday I was at our local clinic for another stage of the usual, not quite, annual check-up. After relaxing a few minutes, Blood Pressure was fine, Baruch Hashem, bli eyin haraa sans medication. But then I had to be weighed... That is not my favorite thing. OK I do weigh myself at home almost daily, but here the numbers are between me and my scale. At the clinic there was this super skinny, anorexic-looking nurse who not only saw the number, but she recorded it for everyone who can access my file, which is computerized, to see.

As if my weight wasn't bad enough, it calibrates some body-fat index according to recorded height, and mine was too high. Thank Gd she didn't recheck my height. At my age one does not get taller, and it's not just that more of my grandkids are taller than me, but my grown daughters seem to be getting much taller than they used to be, too. That index may possibly be even worse.  A few days before at the "slam a heavy door on a sensitive part of the body from all different angles test" I had written my highest remembered height on the form I had to fill in.  Ignorance is bliss, or at least makes it all seem better.

The nurse very gently tried to recommend that I contact their dietician, but I refused. I tried to explain how nothing makes me hungrier than being told what to eat. Also, she didn't know me when I was really obese and then managed to get the weight off. I told her that I could lead a group myself. Years ago, I had even taken a coaching course.

Then she asked me if I exercise and looked rather doubtful when I said "yes." So I whipped out my cellphone and showed her the Pedometer. I had to explain how it all works, also on a one day page. It gives amount of time physically active, distance, pace and steps. This is the type of thing I teach when I tutor Computer and Cellphone Tips.

Maybe the time has come to call our accountant and open my little "free lance" business. Diet Coach is what I need to be. And a group would be nice. I did it a number of years ago...

And it's certainly the time to restrict my "treats" to Shabbat and work harder to get the weight off again. I guess it's "Public Diet" time again. But I'm not telling you my weight. Some things must stay between me and the scale.

An Advantage of "Pedometer" as my Smartphone Step Counter

Soon after I got my new Samsung J7 smartphone, I began looking to install a better pedometer than I had been using. I'm sure I'm not the only person who sometimes paces at home to reach a "step goal," and since part of the "system" that many of the pedometers use are attuned to distances, they get "confused" when we pace.

With the "app" I had been using, walklogger, I'd find it losing steps when I paced. I'd have to keep stopping to try to trick it. That was a big problem when the weather was bad and I'd want to reach a specific goal at home. It really hated a friend's apartment. It would outright refuse to count the steps I walked there. It also took ages/many steps to start counting, even when I adjusted the sensitivity. I could spend hours walking around the Israel Museum and I'd be lucky if it credited me for 150 steps. Once I was with a friend who had an iphone, and we discovered that although I'd been walking a lot that day, and she had hardly walked at all, our phone apps gave us the same count. Then we walked around together for about twenty minutes. My app added about 300 steps and hers added over a thousand!

Now I use one that simply calls itself "Pedometer," and it counts steps, even if I'm pacing or walking up and down stairs. It doesn't beep me when I've achieved any goals, but I can survive without a pat on the back. It's easy to check my progress over the day, and it doesn't claim I'm riding a bicycle when I walk downhill quickly, which a different app did. And like the others I've tried, it's free, of course.

I hope this helps.

I just wish it could keep me from eating too much...

Jerusalem Walk, Old Train Tracks

Yesterday was a very long and busy day for me. It started just after 4am, and I finally crawled into bed close to 1am. I got to Matan twice! 

For some strange reason, when I posted the pictures from my phone to Blogger their order was reversed. So my destination is above the path I took.

I took the 6am bus from my Shiloh neighborhood to Jerusalem, and there was no traffic at all. After taking the light-rail at Ammunition Hill to Safra Square, Jerusalem Municipality WC, it was only 7:15 which gave me a full hour to walk to Matan, which I did! It was one of those perfect for walking days, which are a special treat mid-winter. Also, I was trying out my third pedometer app. Now I'm using one that is simply called Pedometer. After a bit of tweaking and getting used to, like having to turn it off when in a slow-moving vehicle, it's doing its job better than the others I have tried. And yes, that is how much I walked yesterday!

When I got to the Emek Refaim-Pierre Koenig-Ben Zakkai junction, I realized that this was a perfect day to walk the "track park" to Matan. It's full of "fitness playgrounds" for people of all ages, toddlers to adults. But I didn't have time to stop.

And this photo, below, is what I used for yesterday's 365project!

Old Jerusalem Train Tracks
I took a walk there this morning.

If you don't have the opportunity to walk, cycle, run/jog or skate it, at least enjoy the pictures.

PS All of the photos of the walk were taken with my new smartphone, Samsung J7.