Healthy weight loss for geeks.
Steven
(13 comments, 60 posts)
This user hasn't shared any profile information
Home page: http://www.geekfit.com/
Posts by Steven
GeekFit.com Podcast #50
0Two shows in as many weeks? Say it isn’t so. Yes yes it is. Kayla and Steve hit record again and talk about what’s been on everyone’s mind: the dreaded resolution. Have you made any? Have you already called it quits for some of them?
- Kayla and Steve hitting the weights.
- Zumba, the elliptical, and long walks to Target?
- Food logging and clean eating, does it help?
- Weigh-in results from this week.
- Steve talks about a book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister &John Tierney.
- Body Fat goals – what’s healthy?
- Jenni from Facebook asks about eating on the road.
- StickK, Gym Pact, Bee Minder – Kayla’s got the lowdown on incentives for workouts.
GeekFit.com Podcast #49
0It’s been a minute since the last episode but get ready for a barrage of content – we’re going to be posting a new one now every couple of weeks at minimum. Long live the GeekFit podcast!
- Kayla joins the GeekFit podcast!
- Steve wakes up at 4:30am on Christmas like he’s a 3 yo.
- Steve & Kayla are on Weight Watchers – counting points!
- Activity Point consumption; why is it so hard to stop eating?!
- Lifting weights Mon/Wed/Fri and Zumba® whenever we can!
- Kayla has three clean PET scans, so her cancer has been beaten down.
- Steve mentions Android phones for some reason? And Ada, OK?
- Steve & Kayla using JeFit (web-based and android/iPhone based) weight lifting tracking.
- The inquisition of Kayla – are you or are you not from Sacramento… ?
- Kayla plays yo-yo with the same 30 lbs, has 86 lbs to lose.
- Tucker busy with his new consulting and will join us when he can.
- Kayla can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/holdingthestars.
- Steve can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/mrxinu.
- Steve’s Zumba® information can be found at www.mrzumba.com (class schedule, etc.).
GeekFit.com Podcast #45 – (360) 450-5026
0Jason and Steve are back in front of their respective mics again this morning. This show is dedicated to @JessicArchitect who goaded us into getting up this morning and knocking it out. There were lots of fun things to talk about this time including some new product reviews, personal updates, and a little bit of tech thrown in for good measure.
- Steve and Jason talk about the usual; weight lost, if either of them got taller, etc.
- Steve and Jason review the New Balance 1210 Cross Trainers from different angles.
- Steve talks about his experience with BondiBand sweat bands.
- Steve and Jason talk about National Breast Cancer Awareness month and Susan G. Komen.
- Steve talks about the Zumba in Hickory (hereafter referred to as ZiH) crew and their trip to Everett, WA in October.
- Steve talks about his defection to DroidX and Verizon.
ZiH Crew video after the jump.
Nutrition Terms
0You think you understand all that marketing hype printed on products? Laila Facusse talks about the common terms found on food packaging in her article titled Understanding Basic Nutrition Terms.
GeekFit.com Podcast #44 – (360) 450-5026
1Steve and Jason hit record again and this time they talk about Zumba on the road. Until a recent trip to San Antonio, TX, Steve hadn’t been trying to find classes while he traveled. Introducing: Studio VIDA! Dance Fusion Fitness.
Laila Facusse (left) was one of the instructors Steve met while taking classes there for 2 weeks. You can read more about her background on her Zumba profile. She also posts to her fitness blog talking about nutrition, dance, weight loss, and general well-being.
Other awesome instructors at Studio VIDA! included Gabi Mendez, and Carla (CarliBoom) Aranguren. Also, during a quick weekend in Austin between jobs he took a class with Laura Battle.
Letter to My Trainer
0I’ve been working out with a personal trainer (I haven’t gotten permission to use her name, yet). We had a debate about whether the Body Bugg (BB) or a heart rate monitor (HRM) is a better judge of calorie burn.
If you’re not familiar with the BB, it’s a unit that you wear strapped to your upper left arm all day long. At the end of the day you plug it into your computer, upload your data, and the website will present a graph with your calories burned throughout the day. A HRM is more straightforward – you wear a strap around your chest just under your pecs and it transmits your heart rate to a wrist watch (or other device).
My Polar FT7 came in the mail today. I read the manual, configured it for my weight, height, age, and gender and it dutifully reported that my max heart rate was 188 beats per minute (BPM). You can find yours by subtracting your age from 220. I ran the center portion under water, attached the WearLink® unit, and headed to Zumba. The results are in a letter to my trainer; Jason Tucker; and of course; my Zumba instructor, Kelly Emerson of Vancouver Zumba.
========================================================
Hi [there],
Today I wore a Polar FT7 during an hour of Zumba and came up with the following: 619 cals burned, 59:53 duration, 146 average bpm, 161 max bpm, 10:36 spent in fat burn range, 49:17 spent in fitness range. I uploaded my Body Bugg data and selected the same ~1 hour period and it reports 784 calories burned.
The Body Bugg site says the skew is due to having multiple data points instead of a single data point “which is what other calorie estimation devices such as pedometers and heart rate monitors rely on.” So, is an HRM inferior technology for measuring calorie burn? Maybe, but it’s possible it’s marketing hype. For me, it’s all relative. Whether it’s the scale, Body Bugg, HRM, or Omron body fat tester – their efficacy isn’t in question because as long as you’re using the same device to measure each data point you can tell when it’s going up and down.
I’ll continue to wear the Body Bugg to collect the waking-hours data and the HRM for workouts where intensity is something I’m interested in maintaining. That would be anything other than kickboxing and Zumba since I don’t have much control over the routines. I always squat a little bit lower and squeeze the abs a little bit tighter because I know that’s what is going to get me the most bang for the buck, but I don’t need an HRM to tell me that.
I’m looking forward to hitting the elliptical and seeing how consistently I can keep my heart rate in the fat burn zone. From what I’m seeing from the Zumba data my cardio fitness time is already covered.
/sk