Very long tl;dr essay...

[telophase]

One of my f-listers has a friend who asked for positive experiences with diet and exercise, so naturally I went on and on at tl;dr length about my own experiences. :)



I lost 50 pounds back in 2007 through sensible eating and light exercise, gained a big chunk back by following the "don't exercise and eat everything you want" diet after I fell out of the habit, and have now re-lost about 15-20 pounds since January, with (once I managed to start again) fairly little fuss - not sure of the exact amount, as I didn't weigh myself at the start. I've also got a lot more to lose, as I'm 5'2" and as of this morning's weighing, 253.

And this will probably be a lot of text because I tend to not be able to stop typing once I get going and think of things.

First, I am a firm believer in experimenting until you find what works for you. I have friends who lost a lot of weight on Atkins, who opted for gastric bypass, who found other diets and followed them, who dropped weight simply by moving the the 3rd floor of an apartment complex near downtown and started walking everywhere, and so on. None of those worked for me, and I don't consider bariatric surgery an option for me, because it won't solve the ultimate problem, which is my eating and exercise habits.

I also am coming from a slightly different angle than you, as most of my weight- and exercise-related health issues are mechanical (knee problems, arthritis in my foot, etc.) rather than blood work-related, as I got hit with the good end of the genetic stick when it comes to cholesterol. Instead, the health-related reasons I'm losing weight and increasing exercise are to put less stress on my problem joints, and because my mom has osteoporosis and has already lost a couple inches of height, so I need to increase the stress on my bones through exercise to strengthen them. However, she had high blood pressure, and after she took up exercise and lost 35 pounds she was able to go off her blood pressure meds.

From what I've been able to look at, when attempting to fight my way through the massive amounts of ridiculous hype and quite often misinterpreted science around weight loss, is that the actual FAT on your body doesn't have a whole lot of detrimental effects. It's the LACK OF EXERCISE and EATING BADLY that contribute more to the problems, and as a side effect, increase the amount of fat you have. There are people who look fat who have good cardiovascular health (as clinically tested) because they exercise a great deal, but since they are not willing to restrict their eating to the low caloric amounts necessary for their particular bodies to maintain a lower level of body fat, they're well-padded. (As far as I've found there are only a very few conditions that have been found to be directly related to excess fat tissue itself which are a problem, which includes ovarian cancer and some mechanical issues like knee problems. So if you don't have a family history of those: great!) Naturally, quite a lot of overweight people don't have the good health of these others, because if you're not used to exercise, moving that bulk around is hard.

I'm not getting into the whole psychological/cultural issue of overweight in our modern society because I think we can call agree that it sucks. If you (by which I mean any of you out there who read this) are able to accept yourself at your weight: that's awesome. I totally support you and your rights, and absolutely do not mean any of this screed to make you feel that I think you should change, because I don't. Conversely, if you (like me), just can't make yourself reach that stage of acceptance, I'm there for you also, and I'm not about to make you feel guilty for wanting to change. What I support is everyone's right to choose for themselves, and if you choose to change, to do so in a safe and healthy manner.

I'm also stressing that this is pretty much all my opinion and what I've found that works for me. Your mileage may vary.

PART I: EXERCISE

What I've found is true for me, and is probably true for most people, is that exercise alone doesn't really help that much you lose weight. The reason is that you just don't burn enough calories to make up for the natural increase in calories you take in as you increase your activity level. This does not mean exercise is worthless! By no means! It's been clinically shown that exercise helps your organ systems and your mood, aerobic exercise works your cardiovascular system, and weight-bearing exercise helps your bones strengthen. Muscle tissue also burns more calories than fat tissue to a small extent, so your RMR (resting metabolic rate) will increase slightly as you lose fat tissue and increase muscle tissue, but it's not enough to be significantly noticeable unless you lose A BUNCH of fat and gain A BUNCH of muscle.

Ignore both the people who don't know anything about it AND that tiny little voice in your head that says unless you're huffing and puffing and feel like shit, you're not getting enough exercise. First, ANY exercise is good, secondly exercise that doesn't make you feel like shit is exercise that is much easier to stick to, and and thirdly, especially if you haven't been exercising much you are probably working much harder than you think you are. There's a story in the introduction to Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (Amazon referral link), where the author is talking to a middle school coach whose school adopted heart rate monitors for their kids during P.E. The coach said that there was one girl, a bit overweight, who was much slower than everybody else and normally he'd have been yelling at her to move faster But when he checked her heart rate monitor's reading, he saw that she was working near the top of her aerobic capacity: she was working as hard as the other kids.

Once I got a heart rate monitor (I spent $50-60 on a Polaris one at Target), I found that even though I felt like I wasn't working very hard on my stationary bike, and, if the room was cool enough, not breaking a sweat, I was still within my aerobic heart rate target zone. Yeah, ok, it was at the lower end of it, BUT I WAS STILL IN IT.

I've also tried all sorts of exercise and what ended up working best for me was a stationary recumbent bike and a TiVo. I feel guilty if I watch TV when I have so many other things to do, but by exercising while watching, I was able to stop feeling guilty about TV. My mother bought herself a treadmill and a portable DVD player. (more in a bit about low-cost exercise, though!)

I also set low targets for myself. None of this ZOMG YOU MUST EXERCISE AT LEAST AN HOUR A DAY! crap that I see spouted everywhere. Yeah, I'd be better off if I exercised for an hour a day, but you know what? Aiming for 20 minutes a day, every day, worked for me. I didn't achieve it every day, and back in 2007 ended up averaging 5 days a week, but it still worked. I could exercise for longer if I felt like it - and after a while, sometimes I did feel like it - but 20 minutes was the target, and it's a doable target. I also promised myself I wouldn't exercise more than an hour a day unless I was training for something in particular, because I feel that exercising that much is obsessive and would be more of a problem than a solution. (I'm not counting things like "walk around the zoo for three hours" or "paintball for two hours with friends" as obsessive exercise, of course.)

There's a place in the world for the sort of people who exercise and push themselves until they're red-faced and gasping for breath and utterly weak, and throw up or pass out, and then get back and continue doing it, and I am not talking about eating-disordered people. It's extreme athletes of the sort who train for Iron Man competitions, or bike races that travel across the U.S., and so on. The whole point of those competitions is to test your limits. You're probably not considering exercise as a means of pushing your limits, so give yourself permission to stop when you feel bad! Yes, you could push through it, but if you don't have a psychological reason to do so, it's not going to do you any good in the long run because you won't be able to make yourself do it again.

It's been shown in studies that people are pretty good judges of their own effort. You want to aim at whatever amount of effort feels moderate to you, not strenuous. If you want more guidance, then aim for a level that allows you to talk, although a bit haltingly as you breathe, and that makes you breathe a bit heavier than normal. If you can't talk, you're probably working too hard.

If you don't have the money to drop on exercise equipment, then figure out what sort of stick-and-carrot you can use to get yourself to exercise another way. The simplest thing I can think of off the top of my head is to march in place while watching TV. You can count your steps, or get a cheapo pedometer and let it count for you, and record that as a personal way to track your exercise. If you live in a better climate than I do (Texas. Heat triggers migraines. Eek! I'm not exercising outside!), you can take walks outside, perhaps while listening to music or podcasts if you've got an mp3 player, but I know myself and TV is a way better mechanism to get me to stick to it.

Currently, I've also found that I like watching my boyfriend play RPG video games, and he's got a stationary bike also and can play them while on it (I can't - too much motion), so we're working our way through Bard's Tale on the bikes. :) If you're a video gamer and can play while biking, that's another good option.

What also helped me to stick to my exercise plan is sheer nerdiness: the Eowyn Challenge. This site lists the distances that the characters in the Lord of the Rings traveled, and you can track your own travels right along with them. :) I also record my exercise in my LJ - having it public is something that helps me stick to it, because I feel accountable to my f-list, whether they care or not. :)

You'll note that my recent entries there (er, and that I am woefully un-exercised this week) are from the Wii Fit. Now that I've got access to one, it's kind of fun. It doesn't give me long periods of uninterrupted aerobic activity, which means that The Powers That Be would claim that you're completely not getting any benefit out of it, but that's BS. It makes me move, and it keeps me interested in it and coming back. I can do random step aerobics or walking/marching/running in place for 10-20 minutes if I want, but I usually don't want. I aim for 20 minutes total in the various games (although the last time I stopped at 15 because it was making my nascent migraine worse) in a session, just like I aim for 20 minutes on the bike.

That 20 minutes is just a magic number for me. 30 seems to take too much time away from me, and 15 seems like I'm not trying. However, your magic number may be different. Even if it's just 5 minutes - as in "I feel like crap and I so do not want to exercise today, but I will allow myself to stop after only 5 minutes if I want to!" Usually, once you manage to get yourself moving, you'll keep going for a while longer provided you've given yourself permission to stop after a short period. It's a psychological trick, but it works for me and I assume it's worthy trying for you. :)

Another thing about exercise (and this works for eating, also, but that's another post) for me is: mindfulness. If I just don't exercise one day, it's that much harder to exercise the next day, and the next day. HOWEVER, *if* I make a conscious decision: "Today I've got a migraine, and I think exercising will make it worse, so I will not do so today, but I will resume tomorrow if the headache is gone" or "This week I've got four pictures to finish and will be running short on sleep as is, so I will choose not to exercise this week, and will instead re-start on Sunday, when this is over." The active choice and plan to start again on a specific day really helps.

Also, divorcing your actions from morality. I had to make a conscious choice to NOT beat myself up for missing a session of exercise - sometimes I was so busy, I just forgot! Missing a day did NOT mean I was "bad." It just meant that I missed a day. When I used to fell I was bad for missing a day, it was that much easier to internalize it and feel like crap, and when I felt like crap, it was THAT MUCH HARDER to exercise, because every second of it reminded me that I was bad and felt like crap. Actively breaking that connection was one of the best things I ever did.

EQUIPMENT

I've mentioned equipment up there before, and I don't want to give anyone the impression that you need to buy anything before you start. Far from it. I'd say the only equipment you need is pencil and paper, on which to write down your exercise session so you feel accountable for it. If you're like me and like buying toys, a simple weight set (don't fall into the trap of thinking low weights and high reps with "tone" you. Muscle gain is muscle gain is all the same, and you will take less time if you go with higher weights.) or a pedometer is an inexpensive way to play around. Next up, I'd go for a heart rate monitor to see how hard you're really working. This will also be able to give you a reasonable estimate of calories burned - which will always be less than website exercise calculators estimate. After that, or before that, if you're like me and tend to need a toy get get started :), look for a piece of exercise equipment that you think will work for you. I wanted to watch television, I needed a small thing that didn't take up much space, I needed back support at the time since I was recovering from a back injury, and I needed something comfortable to sit on because I HATE HATE HATE regular bike seats. So I went for a cheap $175 recumbent bike that mistakenly was eligible for Prime on Amazon, so i got free shipping. :) My mom bought a treadmill. I love them, but it took up way too much space. There are even cheap, cheap, cheap things like this Isokinetics Inc. Pedal Exerciser (Amazon affiliate link) that you can use as you sit in a chair.

And, of course, there's always just opening the door and taking a walk outside. If you're the sort of person that appeals to. I'm not, and I admit it.

WEBSITES

I find browing Stumptuous.com to be inspiring. It's a weightlifting site aimed at women, and the woman who runs it has resources available for people at all levels of fitness, and is delightfully snarky, too.



I knew I was going to blather on and on, but I didn't realize I was going to blather THIS MUCH. So I will save the eating section of this for another post. :)

Comments

[seryn]

Ooh. Thanks for writing all this down. I've recently started exercising after not doing anything for years because people kept telling me walking wasn't "really exercise". I guess I should have taken that as a cue to do more, but instead I started driving. If it doesn't count anyway, why bother?

I started with 3 pound dumbbells that I kept under the couch. I discovered that I could lift them through an hour-long show without noticing. After a couple months I bought 5 pound ones. After a month of that, I joined a gym with an entire weight room. I love how I feel after lifting weights. Whether it's the 3 pound dumbbells or the giant leg press machine. Everyone said you have to find exercise you like. I love it. I did find, however, that the really light weights were the right choice for me when I was starting out because I didn't notice I was exercising.

(linked here by thistleingrey)

[telophase]

You're welcome! :) Yeah, I hate the people who say that X sort of moving about isn't "really" exercise. OK, so maybe it's not efficiently aerobic exercise, but it's exercise! Your muscles are getting stronger, your lungs are expanding, and your heart is pumping!

I actually love weight machines, but the hassle involved with driving to a gym, getting dressed, then afterwards showering, getting dressed again, and driving home keeps me from doing it. My ideal house would have a room with weight machines in it, but barring winning the lottery, it probably won't happen. :)

(Also, I tl;dr about my eating plan in a post today, if you're interested.)

[seryn]

I chose a gym around the corner from my apartment. It's about 3 minutes from home, without any streets to cross. For about $1/day, it was the right choice for me.

Today the personal trainer told me I should be doing these movement based exercises instead of lifting weights. And that when I was doing weights, I should be doing it until I feel the muscles fatigue to the point that I cannot do any more. WTF. Why on Earth would anyone do something that f***ing hurts?

And the aerobics class instructor said 10 minutes a day of cardio is worthless. So I was left with this sense that since nothing I'm going to be able to do is worth doing, I should just stay home and be fat.

Luckily I'm not relying on these people to provide my motivation. They must be the kinds of ocean-scented idiots who set outrageous goals, like instead of reading 50 books in a year they say they'll read 300 and when they read 3 books, it's because they were motivated (!!). It doesn't even count as a failure to them that they can't meet those kinds of goals they set for themselves.

I read that eating plan post but I'm obsessive and would do myself a mischief if I tried to count calories. I did, actually, do quite well by making sure there were healthier choices available and eating those instead of things I knew I shouldn't. But I left you a comment there about the really interesting bit.

[telophase]

I think the only reason to do reps until failure like that is to Build Muscle in the "I want to get into competition" way - I've got a friend who's currently training for a natural bodybuilding competition (i.e. no drugs allowed and you get posted to a website and publicly shamed if they find drugs in your body), and that's the sort of exercise she does. But for everyday training, just to get a bit stronger? I don't think so! And ten minutes of cardio being useless? It's way better than zero minutes! Sheesh.

You sound quite sensible!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you want additions, but one of the things I found to be helpful myself in managing to actually stick to exercising is work-out videos. If you have Netflix, they have a pretty good selection of work-outs that you can stream, so you can try one out for a few minutes to see if you like it, and switch from one to another on a whim. Most of them require no equipment, or only one or two hand-weights. I especially like the ones that come in pre-set 10 minute segments, allowing you to combine however many you feel like on that particular day.

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

I like this addition! :) I didn't know Netflix had exercise videos, so that is excellent news. It hadn't occurred to me; I will go check them out. Thanks!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You know, I'd heard about Netflix streaming exercise videos before and forgot all about that! Maybe I'll give that a try when I've gotten bored with the Wii Fit.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

If you have Netflix, they have a pretty good selection of work-outs that you can stream, so you can try one out for a few minutes to see if you like it, and switch from one to another on a whim.

YOU ARE NOW MY NEW HERO

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

Right now I'm trying to get back into exercising more regularly to help with a severe fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue flare-up. The condo we're renting comes with a gym in the building, but because I'm in a flare, it's really hard to find a level of activity that is enough that I can believe it might help (feels like it is "worth" the hassle), but doesn't cause the flare-up to get worse. It's especially tough as I don't feel the negative effects of doing "too much" for my body until a few hours after, not while doing it, but then the increased pain and shakyness can last for two or three days.

Once I get over this current impending cold (tonsils are NOT HAPPY today, and I have a slight fever -- and this will be my 3rd cold in 6 weeks, so it seems my immune system is severely depressed on top of everything else), my newest plan is to start over with a regime of up to 5 minutes of gentle, slow, standing stretching, followed by up to 5 minutes on the treadmill or reclining bike, followed by up to 5 minutes of mat stretching -- and only allow myself to increase those times by 1 minute if the previous two-three days at the prior level didn't result in any post-workout pain increase. Once I get up to 10 or so minutes of treadmill/bike, I might alternate elliptical starting at 5 minutes, because I find it more difficult to maintain posture without causing pain on it.

Not sure how that plan will work, but I toss it out there for anyone else who's trying to exercise with chronic pain/illness.

The pen-and-paper suggestion is something I think I will try. I don't feel motivated and sometimes feel uncomfortable about posting it to LJ, but a written record for me might help. Maybe I'll get a super-cheap-because-it's-April pocket appointment book for it. And dollar-store stickers to decorate the days I've exercised. Stickers are good motivators. :)

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

I have RA and I'm doing something similar to your workouts when I'm in a flare because, like you, I don't feel myself overdoing it until after I've gone and overdone it. Which is right now, because I'm in month four of a sinus infection that starts to go away & then oozes back in.

And then when I'm feeling better, I go to the gym and workout in 15 minute increments: 15 minutes slow stretching (10 minutes at beginning, 5 minutes at the end), 15 minutes aerobic workout of some sort, then 15 minutes of limited-weight weight training (alternating days of chest/abs/back, legs, or arms).

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I have fibromyalgia too, and I absolutely love pool exercise. I've also been playing a lot on my Wii Fit.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who once told me his coach said that the rule of thumb for exercising when sick was: if your symptoms are all above your neck, then it's fine, but if they're below your neck, you need to be careful or to not exercise. He said you'll feel better right after you do it, because of the adrenaline, but you'll get sicker later. That's more for colds and the like and not chronic illnesses, but I thought I'd pass it on in case it was useful in future.

Yeah, try the pen-and-paper if you think it'll work, or Google Calendars, or whatever you've got. I've found that looking at a page that records how much I exercise keeps me mindful of it. :)

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

One more thing, I sometimes find it hard to let myself go exercise because of the time commitment (45 minutes of exercise + time for breaks + driving to/from there + showering + getting back into regular clothing & makeup = 2 hours of commitment), BUT doing 15 minutes of random Wii Fit games or wearing those weights that you can strap on to wrists or ankles while you're doing some bit of more strenuous housework (raking, sweeping, mopping) I can seem to fit into my schedule. So having a few "toys" does make all the difference, here. :)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's why gyms don't work for me. I love weight machines! There's something so satisfying about moving them and the clunk! sound they make as the weight go back down! But the time it takes from my day to go there, get dressed, work out, shower, get re-dressed, drive home, makes me fail at actually going.

In my ideal house I'd have a gym room where I had a bunch of machines and free weights to play with, but barring winning the lottery, that's probably not going to happen. :)

[goldenflames.livejournal.com]

(I'm de-lurking for this...)


I have to say, I've heard from a lot of female friends that they hate weight training at gyms because they always feel really awkward around the massively built guys who are in there huffing and puffing and lifting 40 lb dumbbells like child's play. Firstly, half the time they're too busy working out to notice that you aren't lifting as much. Secondly, you're in there. The mere fact that you're in there and you're working out gets rid of any grounds for being judgmental. Thirdly, let me just say, I can't begin to count the number of fist-bumps I get from male classmates in the weight room when they realize that I'm a regular denizen of those parts. Even if you're lifting half the weight they are, you're still part of the club. =)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

And from what I understand, half those guys huffing and puffing are lifting their weight all wrong and will probably injure themselves at some point in the future!

I know there's some gyms that are meat-markets, but any good gym will be full of people who are there to exercise, and who are happy for others to be there too. Unless they fail to wipe their sweat off the machines after using them.

[goldenflames.livejournal.com]

Oh they definitely are. I cannot begin to count the number of times I've itched to march over there and tell them that bench-pressing their body weight is absolutely NOT impressive if they're only moving the bar three or four inches.

I've had great experiences at all the gyms that I've been to, so I can't really complain. Except about the sweat-wiping thing. I've occasionally had to give people pointed looks after wiping off a machine that they just used (because there is no way in HELL that I'm putting my face anywhere NEAR their sweat-puddle).

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I remember one gym I joined back in the day when I thought that a gym membership would actually make me exercise (HAH!). It had some people there to work out, but others there to pick people up. Especially one woman. She wore an electric blue thong leotard paired with flesh-toned shorts. There was no way she was there just to work out!

[goldenflames.livejournal.com]

Oh lord, that's absolutely frightening.

Thankfully my gym is mostly for UT Houston students and faculty members (and their spouses/family members), so it's mostly full of people who are actually there to work out or are too busy to go just to pick up people. Then again, I do hear stories from male classmates about them trying to hit on attractive nursing students at the gym. Ugh. Boys.

[thedigitalkuri.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for your experience! I also have knee and elbow problems, so some of the hi-impact cardio is very hard on me. I can't run on treadmills, it causes anguish. I've found some of the elipticals to be lovely. (Feels like flying. XD) Low-weight weight lifting is a lot of fun too, as long as one remembers to not hurt themselves.

My main challenge is how to get my eating into some sort of an ordered state and get to the gym much more frequently.

Again, thank you for your thoughts. :)

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

Yes. Certain elipticals are totally fun in a way that does not make my joints scream. The other ones are evil. So if you've found evil, try a different one!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I tl;dr about eating here (http://telophase.livejournal.com/1759302.html) - and it turns out I've got one more in me, about weighing and measuring progress, that I didn't have room to fit there, so I'll post *that* one tomorrow. :)

This one on eating is even less organized than the one on exercise, because it was written more stream-of-consciousness, but it pretty much captures *why* I eat the way I do, and *how* I eat the way I do, and why I think it works for me.

[thedigitalkuri.livejournal.com]

I read it, and I think that sort of a plan is what was most successful for me. Last year I sorta got everything under control, stopped drinking sodas and the like and cut down in general on my eating, lost ten/fifteen pounds. Then I got a cock-slap from life. *laugh*

But I need to buckle down and get into that kind of mentality again.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I know how that goes! Three weeks in Japan not paying any attention to what I was eating (because, let's face it, I was walking everywhere we went) followed by the Martian Death Flu manifesting itself on the flight home, so I had no energy or will for ten days to log what I was eating or do any exercise, and then two months later the wheels were stolen from my car. I'm glad nothing else happened, because I would have exploded.

But I've finally gotten back into the habit and this time when something happens, I'm going to make the mindful choice of "I shall set [X] aside right now, and as soon as this crisis is over, I shall pick it back up," because it was actively choosing that for myself earlier in the process when my apartment flooded and alter when I ran into overwork to get ready for a convention that let me get right back into it. I forgot that later in the year.

Good luck!

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. It has definitely helped motivate me more into figuring out an exercise program that'll work for me. I really liked how you pointed out not overdoing the exercises and not beating oneself up if a day or two is missed. I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on eating.

(Random sidenote, but whenever I see your exercise post, I do a little cheer for you.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! I've just posted a highly rambly piece on eating, and it looks like I'll be doing one on measuring weight tomorrow. XD

(Yay! It does make me feel better and more motivated when someone tells me that!)

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

You make an interesting point about the HR monitor being a real tool. Where I live they seem to mostly be fashion accessories. (Unless HR elevation from coffee consumption is worth measuring.) If you think they're useful, I'd reconsider my disinterest in them...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It ended up being a useful tool for me. I was able to figure out that I was within my target aerobic heart rate zone, and it explained why I always had to lower the calorie target given me by CalorieKing by about 50-100: CK was calculating that I burned 175 calories in that 20 minutes on the bike, while I was really burning closer to 100-115. [ETA: I think CK is assuming you're pushing close to your max heart rate when exercising, and if I did that, I'd never exercise.] And I found that when I was doing the push-ups and squats, I was burning about 75 calories a session - since I eat back calories with CK to hit a particular calorie target, that's useful info for me.

It's partly a toy, too, I admit: and if I'm more likely to exercise when I have toys to play with, then it's a Good Thing.

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

I used the heart rate monitors at the gym on the machines that provide them as options and am always surprised that I barely have to move at all to get into my target zone. It's actually harder for me to stay below my maximum than to get to it at this point. (which is why I loveloveloved that bit you wrote about the chubby kid)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I have EVIL MEMORIES from elementary school of being yelled at by the gym teacher for not running faster when I was tired, in pain, breathing hard, and my throat was sore*. I now know that I was working at least at max heart rate. What that teacher did was to instill a violent hate of exercise in me, which has dogged me all my life. If only I had a time machine...



* From reactive airways, which is similar to exercise-induced asthma.