Christine Burke On The Radio

After some walking at Palomar College when I picked up my son, I found that Christine Burke had asked through email if I could be a backup speaker tomorrow at Toastmasters. Of course I said yes and then we emailed further about getting together at her Fitness Together in La Costa to measure my fitness progress. Here's our brief exchange:

> Is Tuesday 7:30 am ok?


I am on the Radio next Tuesday! KCEO AM 1000 9AM.



She's not available next Tuesday morning because she's on the radio! Listen Tuesday morning at 9 Pacific Time. Then come by and see Christine's Fitness Together.

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Click on the title of this post to see Christine Burke.

65 Miles In First Half Of January

I'll bet you can walk more if you can walk at all. I wear a pedometer and some of my walking is incidental to my life. I walk miles a little at a time. I also go out with purpose and walk one, two, or three miles or sometimes less. Soon I hope to walk more than 3 miles in one walk. I wear my pedometer after I wake up, as soon as I put on my pants, 98% of the time. All my walking, incidental or purposeful, during the 1st half (15 days) of January, 2008 totals over 65 miles, which is an average of 4 1/3 miles per day. You can check my totals each day at Lime.com by clicking on the title of this post. You can also record your walking (or running) miles at Lime. I am walking. You can walk. Please walk today. No matter what.

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Lime.com's motto is "healthy living with a twist". I think it's a clever motto and I like keeping track of my miles there. It's part of a bigger program to enlist people to walk as a form of eco-friendly transportation, so they're keeping track of all the miles of everyone who joins that program together as one big total. The program is called Live The Change And Walk It Out! and at this posting all of us together have walked over 16,000 miles. John Lennon sang, "I hope someday you'll join us" and I hope you will. I haven't quite gotten far enough in most cases to replace my car, but soon I'll be walking enough miles to walk down to the store or Fitness Together if I choose. John Lennon also sang, "We're all doin" what we can." I also like Lime.com's "Rooms" where you see images and listen to music or sounds. The other day I listened forestroom while I was working on the computer and today I tried out floralroom. I find both helpful and so far I prefer forestroom. Try it out by clicking Lime "Rooms".

Six miles before dinner

After talking with Christine Burke from Fitness Together early today I got inspired and walked with my dog, Mellow, almost 2 1/2 miles this morning. With that and incidental walking and another 2 mile walk a little while ago, I am at six miles before dinner and there's probably more to come!

I got new shoes at Movin Shoes in Encinitas and my feet definitely feel better. I haven't talked about it before now, but my feet do get a little sore with all this walking. I asked Matt at Movin Shoes if that was due to my body size or my shoes and he said that my shoes can make a big difference. They do. This is more walking than I've done for a while [ever?] and I expect some soreness. My new pair of Brooks have lessened the intensity of that soreness. I was impressed with the knowledge of guys at this shoe store. Matt watched me walk and noticed that I was overpronating and then suggested appropriate shoes. I don't recall ever dealing with people who understand shoes, feet, running, and walking like these guys do. In fact, I don't remember any shoe store employees ever mentioning anything like overpronating. I recommend them highly. The guy from Yelp.com was right about their excellent service.

Another new thing I'm doing to feel better is stretching after walking, which Christine mentioned to me today. She taught me to do what I call a bendover and hang down and then the stretch that makes you look like you're pushing/holding up the wall. She said this helps alleviate tightness and I remembered that a chiropractor once told me I was one of tightest people she had ever met. (I assumed she wasn't making a comment about my wallet.)

I told you my weight at Fitness Together was 276 this morning. What I got at home before I left was 122.6 kilos which is around 270 pounds. I have lost .3 kilos in two weeks, but I DO think I gained weight the first week because I didn't pay attention to my increased appetite and as a result, I gained weight the first week. I'll keep reporting both as I assume the discrepancy will remain constant, so it will be no big deal in the end. Also, I definitely had more clothing on at Christine Burke's establishment.

Lastly, other measurements were chest - 48.5, waist - 50, bicep - 16, thigh - 23 (6 inches up from kneecap). My resting heart rate was 79 and blood pressure was 136/88. Incorporating my lose 50 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle goals, my goal weight by December 31, 2008 is 236 with 18% body fat, which puts me right at the upper end of optimum. I am walking! You can walk! Please walk today!

Christine Burke fitness

I Googled Christine Burke and found that there are a number of Christine Burkes, including one who was in a Twilight Zone episode in 1963. MY Christine Burke can be more easily found by Googling "Christine Burke fitness". So, if for some reason you can't Google right now and you have no pen, pencil, stone tablet, etc..., you can keep thinking "Christine Burke fitness, Christine Burke fitness, Christine Burke fitness" over and over until you get somewhere to write it down or key it in. Of course, that's really aimed at those of you who live within whatever distance you consider reasonable from Carlsbad. (Though I'm sure if you want to fly in or take the train, Christine would be ok with that.) I did see the first two entries for FTNorthCounty.com when I Googled, but I was surprised to find my blog entry from last Friday in third place for that search! The heading looked like this:

Big Man Walking: Christine Burke on goals

Sometimes I really love the coolness of the internet.

This morning I visited MY Christine Burke at Fitness Together in La Costa, which is a community in the city of Carlsbad, California. Fitness Together's motto is emblazoned on the Body Fat Analysis form Christine filled out for me and that motto is:
1 Client 1 Trainer 1 Goal

She weighed me and on her scale I weigh 276 pounds.

My body fat percentage is 33.9 and that's pretty high. 33.9% body fat puts me into the obese category, which starts at just over 25% body fat. Average body fat is from 18-25% and Optimal Fitness is 13-18% body fat. My BMI or Body Mass Index is 35.4 and the obesity category of the BMI starts at 30. Overweight BMI is 25-29.9 and Normal Weight is 18.5-24.9. Whether you're looking at body fat or BMI, I'm in the obese category and that is a wake up call. If you are in similar shape, one reason I'm blogging is to encourage you that you can get to a more desirable size and weight. If you're better off than I am right now, that's great. I encourage all of you who can walk to walk and walk more frequently.

I'll go over more in the next post. Right now I'm going down to Movin Shoes, which is one of the stores recommended by Christine Burke. I Googled and found a review of Movin Shoes. Their website is MovinShoes.com.

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Click on the title of this post and automatically be transported to the Google search "Christine Burke fitness".

Christine Burke on goals

If you've been reading Big Man Walking, you might remember that my two goals are to lose 50 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle by December 31, 2008. My first strategy is walking. An expert promised to help me. At my Toastmasters club today two members covered areas I'm really interested in. One spoke on Nonviolence and I will contact her for a future post. Christine Burke, the other speaker, is owner or part owner of two fitness clubs called Fitness Together. Christine spoke about goals and her example had to do with losing weight. I was definitely paying attention. She has a style of goal setting called S.M.A.R.T. goals and I promise to share more about it after talking with her further. I Googled S.M.A.R.T. goals and what I found sounds very close to what Christine shared earlier today. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely. Do you have goals? Are they S.M.A.R.T.?

Whether or not you have goals, you can still walk starting right now.

Whether or not you have a pedometer, you can still walk starting right now.

Whether or not you have the perfect gear, you can still walk starting right now.

If you're already walking, congratulations! If you're not walking yet, what are you waiting for?


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Click on the title of this post to see Christine and her Program Director, Mike Deibler, in one of her Fitness Together locations. You can also click here - FTNorthCounty.com to visit the site of the Fitness Together where I will see Christine on a regular basis starting Monday. I copied the following information about Christine Burke, Fitness Together owner, from one of her websites.

Christine hates exercise, and feels if she can keep up her fitness program, so can you. Christine weighed around 170 pounds at her heaviest, and her cholesterol level was at 240. Unlike her co-workers, Christine prefers to sit still while reading books, watching movies, and playing with digital photos. Despite this, she now maintains her weight under 135, her blood pressure is 110/70, and her last cholesterol reading was 160. Her athletic achievements include being the Slowest Kid on the Swim Team and accumulating many bruises while competing for the UCLA Fencing Team. Christine has a BSEE and MBA from UCLA, and she actually does enjoy roller blading and boogie boarding. She motivates herself to work out by hanging out with the best personal trainers in San Diego.