April 25, 2009 at 5:59 am (Diet, Exercise)
Tags: Exercise, Relay for life, Slice of life
So this past night and morning I was walking in relay for life. It was interesting and it took a little work to overcome the difficulty.
What difficulty you ask? Difficulty with my own body I reply. My back started to protest (probably left over damage from the lead brick moving combining with something from how I walk). Then my feet started to hurt. Both of these things I ignored dealing with them by taking rest breaks and ibuprofen. Then later my hips started to ache quite badly. Then one of my knees started to complain as well. Then the ball of my right foot started to scream which resulted in me walking quite funny, which is probably why a little while later my hips started to grind.
I gotta say that this all combined for a pretty horrible walking gait, limping in a dozen different ways. Despite all this I managed to go until I hit 40,000 steps, about 20 miles. I wound up getting home around 5:30 am; now that I have written this I will take some pain reliever, wrap a heating pad around my foot and go to bed.
Good night to you all.
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April 23, 2009 at 11:50 pm (Exercise, Life as a grad student)
Tags: Exercise, Slice of life
So there is a Relay for Life tomorrow night into Saturday morning on the Notre Dame campus. The walking starts at 6pm Friday and goes until 8am Saturday.
This is where the insanity begins. I am hoping to walk the whole night. I am bringing a cooler with bowls of fruit (from the Meijer fruit frenzy bowls that I like so much), maybe some carrots and dip, diet red bull, and ice. I will step off the track grab something out of the cooler, and step back onto the track and eat / drink on the fly. I think I’ll also put some ibuprofen in there or something to use should something start aching.
Wish me luck! Or even better go to my relay for life page and click donate. Thank you muchly!
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April 22, 2009 at 8:50 pm (Diet, Exercise, Food Diary)
Morning:
Healthy Choice Beef Merlot Cafe Steamer ~ 240 Calories
Banana (125 grams) ~ 96.25 Calories
Early Evening:
Healthy Choice Chicken Marinara ~ 270 Calories
Maple Vanilla Tofu Pudding ~ 423.75 Calories
Total: 1030 Calories
The higher calorie count for the pudding comes mostly from the fact that I made it with firm tofu today instead of silken tofu. The rest of the increase is my attempting to take into account the calories in the maltodextrin that is used as a filler in the bulk equal and splenda. In other news I think I have figured out the secret to lessening the discomfort in the weights. Wear boots, not shoes. The part that comes up over the ankle and the lower part of the lower leg acts as an excellent pad and shield against rubbing.
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April 22, 2009 at 8:42 pm (Advanced Laboratory, Exercise, Life as a grad student, Physics)
Tags: Advanced Lab, Exercise, Physics
So as it says at the top of my blog I am a graduate student in physics. To earn my keep until I can become a research assistant I am a teaching assistant. In my case I am the TA for the graduate lab. This is a lab that almost all first year grad students must take. It gives them experience with experimental methods and paper writing. Additionally, I figure it makes the theorists have a little more respect for us grubby experimentalists.
We use a lot of radioactive sources in the lab, the are useful for any number of experiments both those involving nuclear physics and those on things like atomic physics, condensed matter physics and basic quantum mechanical things like the statistics of spin. Anyways, we have an experiment called ACAR, short for Angular Correlation of Annihilation Radiation, I won’t get into what the experiment is about beyond this: It uses a Na-22 source which is a positron emitter. Yes I said positron. The proton rich nucleus emits anti-electrons to get rid of some of its excess positive charge. Anyways this source is quite hot. We have it shielded so that the radiation dose rates are quite low (almost lower than the increased cosmic ray dose rate that you receive in an airplane trip). But nonetheless it is quite hot.
This source is hot enough that 30 feet away we can pick up the characteristic gamma rays of the source, despite the shielding. This made us decided that the source needed yet more shielding. As it is the dose rate to students and people working on it is fairly low but the fact that we can pick it up means that it might interfere with other experiments.
“What does all this have to do with moving heavy things?” you may be asking. There is one material that physicists favor for building gamma radiation shields, lead bricks (or sometimes solid chunks of lead if need be). Unfortunately the lead bricks are stored in the Nuclear Science Lab in Neiuland Science Hall, we needed them in Jordan Hall of Science. Even worse, the bricks are stored in the room that holds the Read the rest of this entry »
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April 21, 2009 at 11:11 pm (Diet, Exercise, Food Diary)
Tags: Diet, Exercise, Food Diary
Morning:
Healthy Choice Chicken Chardonnay Cafe Steamer ~ 270 Calories
Banana (260 Grams) ~ 200.2 Calories
Mid-Afternoon:
Subway 6″ Turkey Sub ~ 280 Calories
Evening:
Healthy Choice Whiskey Beef Cafe Steamer ~260 Calories
Vanilla Maple Tofu “Pudding” ~ 240 Calories
Total: 1250 Calories
Today was a big day with respect to Calorie intake. And I haven’t felt even a mild burn from my legs today, unlike yesterday. Maybe I should look into making some lead shot / powder to replace the sand in the weights.
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April 20, 2009 at 9:24 pm (Diet, Exercise, Physics)
Tags: Diet, Exercise, Physics
It was an interesting experience, walking all day with the weights. They certainly let me know how important flexing at the ankle is. Proper padding as well.
Going up stairs in them isn’t so bad. It appears that knowing how much to raise your foot is governed by proprioception (sensing muscle and joint position) not by, how much force for how long does it take to move this. The problem is going DOWN the stairs. The foot tries to decrease the angle between its top and the shin, unfortunately the weight impairs this so going down stairs is a bit of a chore.
Anything faster than a walk with 20 pounds on each ankle is a bit of a chore. Interestingly enough it is not the increase mass disrupting the system that makes it bad (though I imagine that would come into play quickly if one actually started running / jogging properly). Nope it is the restricted play the ankle has. Once again the weights block the ankle from decreasing the angle between foot top and shin, which it turns out is CRITICAL for anything more than a walk. Maybe if I can get my hands on some sort of high friction material that also can act as a padding I can have them higher than right against my ankle, allowing the movement I desire.
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April 19, 2009 at 10:32 pm (Anime / Manga, Diet, Exercise, General)
Tags: Anime / Manga, Diet, Exercise
Yeah, you read the title right, this workout is vaguely based on something I saw in the Naruto Anime / Manga (I enjoy both). In one of the episodes in the Chuunin exam arc, the character Rock Lee is in a big fight and is in a bit of a pinch. He backs off out of range of his opponents, and pulls some weights off of his legs, and gets back into the fight again, now moving at about Mach 2.
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April 19, 2009 at 1:31 am (Diet, Exercise)
Tags: Diet, Exercise
I am kinda ambiguous to this exercise thing. I am loosing weight without it, and it takes time that I could be spending on many other things. However, I do think it would particularly stink to make it down to correct weight and still not be able to run up a set of stairs without breathing hard, and I think it would be fun to be able to run.
To be honest I don’t really know how to get started. I can’t run or jog very far without running out of steam, I can walk for long distances without much trouble, but that does not seem to help my aerobic capacity very much. I should probably go use some treadmill and find some speed that does stress me aerobically but is at the same time sustainable.
Unfortunately, we encounter a new problem here. My knees are not in the greatest shape these days. Dragging my fat arse around has done some bad things to them. I am hoping that being at a proper weight will help them get better but in the mean time I need to work around the annoyance. That means low impact aerobic exercise.
As I figure it that leaves me several options, stationary biking, swimming, and elliptical trainers. Well stationary biking doesn’t really appeal to me. I do not like getting a wedgies so I guess that cross that one out. I really loved swimming as a child and I would like to start swimming, but I have self image issues. I don’t really feel like appearing in nothing but a set of swim trunks in public, not right now anyways. That leaves elliptical trainers. I’ve never used elliptical trainers but they look interesting. But those come with a problem of their own.
Firstly, the same self image issues that I mentioned about swimming. I don’t really want to be the fat grad student in a room full of fit undergrads. So unless I can find a time when the place is relatively unpopulated that will have to wait until the end of the semester, after which the place will be much more unpopulated. The other issue with using elliptical trainers is that I don’t think my standard clothing of button down shirt on top of an undershirt plus canvas cargo pants will do for it. So I guess I need to go out and get a proper workout shirt and shorts, do they even make those in my sizes? Heck if I know. I don’t even know where to get them.
Well in addition to the elliptical trainer I am adding another form of exercise. I am going to start wearing ankle weights. Depending on how tiring I find it I will start at something below 20 pounds and work my way up to 20 pounds on each leg. Though here I might have to find some way of padding my legs depending on chafing.
That’s just about it so I will bid you all good night.
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