Day 1 – Beginner Cardio and Nutrition Tracking

INTRODUCTION

Day 1 of this fitness transformation program is all about creating a baseline from which to understand the starting point of the subject’s current fitness level, including performance metrics and health metrics. Each day is considered for its structure, regarding:

• Nutrition
• Supplements
• Exercise

Mobile applications create the structure of the tracking system, and each performs its own function as well as integrates with other applications to create a cohesive structure form which to base data collected in a way that is useful to continued progress. After the first day, the exercises were performed, nutrition tracked, and subjective observations were recorded to submit the following hypothesis: Is the structure of this program sufficient enough to be able to effectively replicate daily and provide enough scientific evidence to make inferences about how human performance can be reliably improved in the majority of clients in a similar age group?

METHODS

The methods section is divided to 3 parts: fitness performance, nutrition and supplements, and health metrics. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses are performed and detailed within the data collected by the mobile apps before, during, and after exercise. Some data are continuously collected all day, such as glucose, and all night, such as sleep. Qualitative analyses include mental health questionnaires and journals which record opinions on results and subjects answering of questions that do not fall within the quantitative parameters. Quantitative analyses include most everything else, including times such as length of time an activity is performed, and units such as outcome measures such as calories or weight measures such as grams. Each of the tests are outlined below along with a description of what it measures and why it is important to the research project.

Performance

Walkfit is a mobile app that contains the cardiovascular program of choice for this project as well as the performance goals, and the test subject’s actual performance compared to the goal. It was used today as the sole workout; no resistance training was performed today.

Everfit is a mobile app that contains the resistance training program of choice for this project as well as the performance goals, and the test subject’s actual performance compared to the goal. It was not used in today’s workout; no resistance training was performed today.

Glo hosts Yoga and Pilates-style trainings for daily use to provide stretching, core engagement, and body weight work. It is used as an adjunct program to facilitate another dimension of fitness: overall flexibility and mobility improvements.

Nutrition and Supplements

MyFitnessPal is the nutrition tracking app that will be used for the duration of this program. It has all the possible tracking features one would need to create and maintain an excellent nutrition program.

Lingo Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) is installed on the test subject’s right triceps, and continuously tracks blood sugar all day long, and provides meaningful data on how foods eaten and exercise specifically affects blood glucose levels. Data provided by Lingo’s mobile app allows the user to make informed decisions on what foods to include with daily meals for specific outcomes.

Currently, the test subject is on the followign supplements (subject to change):

• Vitamin B12 5000mcg: Due to low concentrations on last blood screen. 30 days only, almost finished.
• Qunol CoQ10 100mg: circulatory Health, generating ATP
• Nordic Naturals Omega-3 690mg: cognitive performance, joint health, heart health, immune support
• Vitamin C 500mg: Immune System Health
• Creatine 20mg: Energy production, cognitive performance, muscle contraction, recovery boosting

Health Metrics

Fitindex Body Composition Scale is being used to monitor body composition metrics. The Fitindex Digital Tape Measure also keeps track of circumference measurements as well. Both sets of data are input into the Fitindex app and can be measured as often as needed and provides trends in data to show changes between points of time.

Apple Health connects to the Apple Watch as a data collection device and the Apple Health mobile app as a data storage and display center. Many metrics such as oxygen use and cardiovascular data are collected among many other parameters of physical health and stored within the app, and other apps contribute their data for seamless integration in one location. It also provides alerts if any preset metrics fall out of range so immediate action can be taken to stabilize the subject’s health in any situation.

Summary

While at first it may seem like there are a lot of tools being used, and most programs don’t require such in-depth instruction or complicated means, this program aims to collect data on as many data points as possible to provide the most complete body of work possible for a transformation program. Transformation is more than just improving physical health and performance, but changing the way a person thinks about their health is the only way to maintain results for the long term, so attention and care must be placed on mental health and emotional stability during this long period of what can be perceived as stressful, painful, and otherwise unpleasant feelings that are experienced during a program of this nature. So space is created in this program for plenty of time and energy to be spent on introspective topics designed to fortify the mind and create mental toughness and emotional resilience as part of the overall journey.

RESULTS

Fitness Performance

Treadmill Walk via Walkfit

Action	Steps	Distance	Time	Calories
Goals	6000	3.1	60 mins	370
Actual	13780	6.5	100 mins	1010

Resistance Training via Everfit

No data.

Yoga/Pilates via Glo

No data.

Nutrition Metrics via MyFitnessPal

Glucose Monitoring via Lingo

Average Daily Glucose	Lingo Count: (Goal: Under 60)
95 mg/dL	49

Body Composition via Fitindex

Weight 203.4 lb	BMI 29.8	Body Fat 27.2%	FF Weight 148.2 lb
Subcut. Fat 23.5%	Visceral Fat 12	Body Water 52.6%	Skeletal Muscle 47.1%
Muscle Mass 140.6 lb	Bone Mass 7.4 lb	Protein 16.6%	BMR 1820 kcal
Metabolic Age 51

Circumference Measurements – Check twice a month

Neck	16.69 in	Shoulder	48.61 in
Chest	47.81 in	Waist	49.07 in
Abdomen	40.36 in	Hip	41.64 in
Left Biceps	14.07 in	Right Biceps	14.30 in
Left Thigh	23.50 in	Right Thigh	23.42 in
Left Calf	16.50 in	Right Calf	16.69 in
Waist-Hip Ratio	1.18	———-	———-

DISCUSSION

Exercise Prescription

For fitness performance on day 1, the focus was on cardiopulmonary work. The intention was to create a baseline data collection from which to start on cardiopulmonary work. The overall goal for the subject’s endurance fitness is to be able to walk the Florida Trail, which is a minimum of 1,108 miles in under 60 days. All exercises and intensities will be chosen with this goal in mind, and walking is one of the best cardio exercises for fat-burning, endurance activities, cardiovascular optimization, mitochondrial health, and ease of performance both in the gym and outdoors. Intensity can be increased in predictable margins, risk of injury is low (and injuries that might occur will heal quickly), and energy can be effectively produced by the body due to mitochondrial growth and repair or sloughing off of damaged organelles. Other cardiopulmonary exercises will be used in this training program, and routine stress testing for VO2 max evaluations will also occur to evaluate the effectiveness of this aerobics program. However, much of the cardio training will be walking/running to match the specificity of the activity he wishes to excel at: thru-hiking.

Resistance training will begin on day 2, so there is nothing to report here for day 1 resistance programming. Also, due to the nature of being the first day of this program, no yoga or pilates was introduced yet. All of the subject’s energy and focus was to establish a solid baseline for cardio work.

Nutrition Prescription

The test subject’s target calories per day are 2,130 kcal, which is calculated by multiplying his weight (202 lbs.) by (13) and subtracting 500. [202.3 x 13 = 2629.9 – 500 = 2129.9 or 2,130].

Macronutrients are calculated as follows:

Protein is the most important factor to get correct for optimal recovery during times of intense exercise, so we calculate that first. [202.3lb = 91.95kg. Estimated 1.75g per kg to start, may increase as resistance work increases. 91.95 * 1.75 = 160g (rounded to the nearest whole decimal)]. 160g per day, or 30% of the total daily intake of food should be protein.

Fats are the next, and they should just be around 50g per day, and at 2,130 kcal per day total, 47g of fat come out to 20% even. So this is where we start our fat intake.

Carbohydrates take up the remainder of the intake, which is 50%, or 1,065kcal, which at 4 calories per gram, equals 266g grams per day of carbohydrates.

This first day, the test subject ate much less than the daily total, which is okay to start, but in order to have energy for the entire day, and for the body to have all it needs to recover properly, the total food intake should be closer to the recommended totals. While a large deficit might encourage faster weight loss, it could come at the cost of muscle tissue being lost in the process which not only keeps the muscles form strengthening but also from being able to repair, making recovery periods take longer.

The Lingo glucose monitor kept a running total of all of the movements of glucose levels throughout the day, and came out with an average total of 95 mg/dL, which is much less than the recommended <117. The Lingo count was 49, which is recommended to be <60 which is good. Improvements can be made to stabilize the blood sugar even further. The count represents how how of a spike occurred and for how long, and a total of those counts all day is considered the Lingo count. This is the main area where glucose monitoring is useful for non-diabetic exercisers; less spikes equal better metabolic health and less likelihood of storing glucose as fat.

Body composition readings are input into the chart in the results section. All of the readings can be improved, either by decreasing or increasing the numbers, depending on what reading it is. One of the main goals of this program is to improve health as well as performance and looks. As health improves, so will the body composition numbers. These will continue to be added into the results each day so we can see how these numbers change over time, and compare it to the work being done within this program.

CONCLUSION

This program takes advantage of periodization in an attempt to group goals into sensible action plans. The periods are as follows:

Microcycle: 1 week increments, 52 microcycles in the complete program.

Mesocycle: 12 weeks or 90 days, 4 mesocycles per year. Each mesocycle will contain one week of scaling back to active rest before next cycle begins.

Macrocycle: 26 weeks, 2 macrocycles total. First macrocycle is about dialing in all aspects of health including, strength, size, fitness, nutrition, flexibility, balance, etc. The second macrocycle will have a specific focus to be determined at the end of the 26-week mark.

Each day will contain similar content as this post. Things will change as the needs of the program arise. All data is being recorded in tracking apps, and information published on this blog are summaries to see progress in a digestible form.