Are you ready for the Zombie Apocalypse? #ZAP

My friends Anna Meade over at Yearning for Wonderland and Emmie Mears drew my attention to Zombie Apocalypse Preparation (ZAP).  In order to be ready to survive the zombie apocalypse, you have to be fit, able to run, leap and survive on only the food that's necessary to keep you strong. I have some friends doing #ZAP, and I think I am going to join them.




Here are some key points to achieve for your Zombie Apocalypse Preparation:

1.  Ability to run long distances at a decent pace. Good endurance.

2. Ability to lift yourself over walls or to climb up the sides of buildings. Good strength.

3. Ability to survive off of only food that is necessary to your continued health. Good nutrition.


Here are some ways that you can gain these abilities:

1. The best way to build up endurance is to practice. Participate in aerobic exercise for long periods of time. Start slowly but build up your endurance over time. Running is an excellent way to build up your endurance. Start by running for 10 minutes straight. When that becomes comfortable, start running for 15 minutes straight and so on until you can run for at least 30 minutes. It's even better if you can train until you can reach an hour of running.

2. There are many ways to build up your strength. Lifting weights is one way, but sometimes, you can replace weights with other things around the house. (If you're a mom of young children, you have an edge on others as you can practice lifting your children while doing other activities. It's a great way to build up strength.) Another excellent form of resistance training is swimming. My 19 year old daughter has found an excellent form of training for Zombie Apocalypse Preparation; she has taken up parkour. In parkour, she is training to do somersaults off of buildings, climb many different structures and run and jump over obstacles. It's a more extreme form of training, but might be an excellent and fun way to prepare. Doing push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups are also good methods for building your strength.

3. In order to be eating for optimal nutrition and health, it is necessary to give up junk food. Sweets, chocolate and sodas are not going to do your health any good. Carbohydrates will only slow you down. You only need healthy carbohydrates such as whole grain breads, whole grain pasta and whole grain  rice, to help with some of the burn-off during your aerobic and endurance training. Protein is excellent to help with your strength training. And you need to stick to monounsaturated fats. You need fat to help you when times get lean, but you don't want the unhealthy saturated fats that will harm your heart. Eat things like fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, lean meats, eggs, fat-free yogurt, beans and legumes. Limit your breads and cereals. Get used to drinking plenty of water.


Now, I must admit that I will probably not be doing everything on this list. My endurance is already high as I have been doing a large amount of daily aerobic exercise for years now. But I do need to increase my strength training, so I am implementing this plan by adding strength training to my weekly exercise. Whether that means I will be lifting weights, training using a strength training video or taking up swimming, I don't know yet.

As most of you know, I lost over 145 pounds through healthy eating and exercise, and I maintained it for years. Recently, I have gained back about 15 pounds. This is due to old bad eating habits creeping slowly back into my daily diet, which includes a strong sweet tooth. I intend to go back to writing down my daily food intake and reducing the amount of chocolate and other junk food that passes my lips. I also intend to drink more water (something I have never been very good at) and upping the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables I eat.

I've been debating taking some form of karate classes. I haven't taken karate lessons since I was a teenager. Back then, I trained in Shotokan, which is a style that is a combination of several karate fighting styles. My eldest daughter is taking Taekwando, and my second eldest is taking a weapon's based form of Kung Fu. I will have to see what is available to me here and what the costs are before I decide what to do.

I'll be ready for the Zombie Apocalypse in no time!

Who is with me in joining in with #ZAP (Zombie Apocalypse Preparation)? Ready to become a ZAP warrior?

P.S. Another ability that is a good one to have in preparation for the coming zombie apocalypse is the ability to make lethal weapons out of common household objects. But since this is a fitness and health blog, we'll save that training for someone else's blog.


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Running

Robert and I recently took up running. We chose to start running because we already do a lot of exercise and consider ourselves fairly fit, and also because we needed a new challenge.

We spent four weeks running. For the first two weeks, we ran a mile every evening when Robert came home from work. It took us about 10 minutes, occasionally just under ten minutes.

For the next two weeks, we ran two miles every evening when Robert came home from work. It took us about 20 minutes, give or take a half second, to run two miles.

Even our eight year old daughter Gabriella started joining in. She'd run about a mile with us before it became too difficult for her, but she loved being a part of our running. And even though she dressed in crazy, bright colors and in patterns that clashed, we enjoyed having her company for the runs.

Running outdoors is very different from running on the elliptical crosstrainer. I can run 12 miles and spend an hour and ten minutes on the crosstrainer without getting overly tired and without any residual muscle pains.

When we started running those first one-mile runs, for the first week, my muscles screamed agony at me. In the second week, the muscle aches started to dissipate, but I still found it exhausting to do the running and ended my runs gasping for air every time.

And I found out something; I am not a lover of running. It's great to know that I can do it. And I even think I can handle running a 5K run without too much trouble. But I do not LIKE running. And if I don't like doing something, then it is not an exercise form I will be using for the long-term.

I didn't run last week. I'm going to start running again, only because I want to run the three miles and prove to myself that I can run a 5K and in a decent time. But then I doubt I will run much more after that.

Robert has gone on to run almost three miles now. He even runs sometimes on days when I don't. He started running because I wanted to try running, and it was something we did together. But now, he runs because, well actually, I'm not sure why. Maybe he likes it. Maybe he just thinks it's good for him. Maybe it's just a convenient and inexpensive extra form of exercise for him. And maybe he runs because he prefers it over using the elliptical crosstrainer. (He's never been a fan of that machine.)

The reason I am writing about this here is to point out that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what form my exercise takes, as long as I am getting some exercise. It doesn't matter if I continue running, because I do a lot of other exercise each day. And it's important to do the things we love. Our daily exercise doesn't always have to be a chore. Isn't it better to look at it as something fun and invigorating? You are more likely to stick with it if you like it than if you hate it and look at it as a chore.

So what exercise do you enjoy? Swimming? Bicycling? Inline skating? Horseback riding? Running? Walking? Weight lifting? Tennis? Gardening? There are so many ways to get some exercise. What's your favorite? Ever thought of trying out something new?


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