Tag Archives: life

Little Bird Fly

Posted on by • Posted in Blogroll, Uncategorized, writing • Tagged , , • 2 Comments

On a field in Warner Robins, Georgia this Sunday past a group of thirteen 12-year-old girls from Charlotte, North Carolina made a date with destiny. The newly crowned state champion, Rowan County All-Stars were 2 and 0 in the Little League Softball Southeast Regional tournament, set to play the returning championship team from Tennessee, also undefeated in the tournament so far.

Solid, back and forth play from both teams found the score tied, North Carolina at bat in the bottom of the sixth and possibly last, inning with two outs and a runner in scoring position. At bat was my grand-daughter, number 16. Lovingly referred to as ‘the softball warrior,’ she ate, slept and bled softball, playing basketball, volleyball or anything else at a high level to kill the time in between softball seasons.

Living as we did a laundry list of interstate highways apart I seemed to retain the images of our last meeting several years back even in the onslaught of hundreds of social media posts and regular barrages of school portraits and sporting events. She ever remained the small, slender waif with round, rosy cheeks and long, beautiful, brown hair, the apple of her papa’s eye. Watching her team progress through this tournament showed something new, something unexpected.

This wasn’t a child with a bat, a ball and a cherubic smile, but a practiced team player, snagging string-straight liners and making 6-3 putouts with ease. She took practice cuts with the bat as she settled into the batters’ box, ignoring everything around her except the pitcher, 43 feet away. If I was guessing, she never heard the contact but felt it as the ball sailed over the first baseman’s head, landing in fair territory several steps in front of the right fielder. The runner on third had scored well ahead of the fielder’s throw to home and she looked at the crowd gathering around the plate as they and the rest of her team began running towards her, not yet realizing that her hit had won the game.

I stared blankly at my TV as an epiphany began to wash over me. At that moment she would never again be thought of as a child. She had led her team that day, led by example, with singular purpose and fervent resolve. I would forevermore be the student, she was now the teacher. She had flown high up into the clouds and would never be satisfied with the ground again. I chuckle to myself when I think of her older brother’s one word summary of his little sister’s performance, ‘Clutch.’

Crunching the Numbers

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health • Tagged , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

306.4

runners

 

Rule 34 states that ‘If it exists, there is porn of it.’  I believe that in the realm of health and fitness, if one person has had an idea, two other people have figured out how to count it, collate it, and quantify it.  One such idea is the Banister Impulse/Response model.  The idea was at first to figure out if, by recording all training efforts, an increase in fitness could be calculated by means of an ordinary differential equation and the answer given in the form of positive training effect, or PTE.  It almost worked.  For every positive training effect there is a negative effect, that being fatigue.  Rather than shoot down the original hypothesis however, this little fact seemed to have perfected it.  When the PTE is plotted against the NTE over time along with actual performance an interesting and quite repeatable effect is shown.

F6.large

Skipping all of the math, we see that at the beginning negative effects, basically fatigue, outweigh the positive effects of training.  As performance starts to improve the positive effects become substantially greater than the negative.  This model has been tested for many endeavors, running, cycling, swimming, and seems to work similarly in all of them.  More here.

 

I have a confession to make. I fell off the wagon, yes, stopped making fitness a priority and forgot about eating right and it got me. On top of not making weightloss goals and feeling pretty low from the lack of endorphins, I got a chronic hip pain. So I am back at square one, actually square zero, I have lost the ability to squat temporarily. I am slowly rehabbing the range of motion while I try to catch up in other areas.

It is iced tea season once again, there is 3 gallons of the stuff in the refrigerator right now, good hydration is one of the very basic things I am concentrating one as the summer progresses. Purging useless carbs, refined flour and sugar, and getting back to fresh greens and such. Baby steps, the goal is not a ‘diet’ but a lifestyle change, a permanent one.

Prying myself away from the computer screen is underway. Walking the dog a mile at a time, up to 3 times a week now to mobilize the hips and get the wind back. Weight training again starting with Bench, Deads, Lat pulldowns and Power cleans until the squat comes back.

Workout:

Dog walking= 1 mile, large dog, his pace not mine.

Food:

8 oz, sausage, 6 eggs Calories 1376 Protein 81.8 g. Fat 95.8 g. Carbs 0 g.

10 oz. Grd beef+ 2 med onions 518 cal Protein 45 g. Fat 31 g. Carbs 11 g.

Chinese buffet Don’t judge me.

 

Cardio-Like it Or Not

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health • Tagged , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

bann1305#

As I have mentioned before, respiration is the primary mechanism for removing fat from the body. Cardio training is the best way of elevating respiration to a level that will effect this removal.

The best method I have come upon is HIIT, High Intensity Interval Training. The acronym may be new but the general principles remain the same, small sessions of extreme effort broken up by short rest periods. How does this work? A story to illustrate…

In 1954 Roger Bannister had decided to break the 4 minute mile. To do this he broke the race down into laps, 4 quarter mile segments. Each day that he trained he ran 10 quarter mile laps at a pace just under 1 minute each. By doing this he, in effect, ran two sub-4 minute miles every day for a month or more. His purpose in doing this was to engrain in his muscle memory the pace that he needed to maintain in order to achieve his goal. At a track in Oxford on May 6, 1954 he finished the mile in 3:59.4.

HIIT works by elevating resting metabolism beyond the amount of time that you actually exercise. If your workout is 30 minutes long you don’t have to workout at maximum intensity for the whole 30 minutes, the work/rest cycle follows the formula ‘2x’ on/’x’ off, typically 30 seconds work followed by 15 seconds rest repeated 10 times without stopping or some variation. Movements that lend themselves to this model are sprints(run a distance and walk back), burpees, box jumps, jump rope, bear crawls, tire flipping, you get the picture.

My workout today was a 1 mile run, in 15:38. Before you average guys(5’10”, 150#) start talking smack, think about this, I weigh in at 305, if you think you can run a quarter of that with a 155# barbell on your back then good on you. Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was my ‘ab’ but I’m working on it.

Day 49- New Training Challenges

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health • Tagged , , , , • Leave a comment

284.7

bulgarian-split-squat-zapoli

One way to fix an imbalance in the core area is one-leg bulgarian split squats.  Adding these into a weight session will help train the quads without adding dangerous stresses to the back.  If you train a back squat of 200 lbs. your split squat can be done with 100-115lb. to great effect.  Over the course of several weeks most athletes will even see a gain in standard two legged squat numbers.

You are working the quadriceps group(vastus medialis, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis and rectus femoris), the gluteus maximus, soleus, adductor magnus with the gastrocnemius, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus and hamstring stabilizing the movement.  Quite an impressive group for a simple exercise, this is why compound exercises are so good for you, full recruitment of the posterior chain.  The basic movement can be varied by utilizing a front rack, resting a barbell across the back, holding dumbbells in each hand or even weight plates.

 

my food

4 eggs(320 cal.)P28F21.2C1.6
1 can tomatoes and chilies(50 cal.)P2.5F0C10
1 tsp. coconut oil(40 cal.)P0F5C0
total=410 cal. P 30.5 F 26.2 C 11.6

16 OZ. chicken breast(496 cal.)P104.4F5.6C0
4 jalapeños(16 cal.)P.4F0C4
1 onion(64 cal.)P1.4F.1C15.5
1/2 cup lentils(339 cal.)P24.8F1C57.7
4 tbsp. sweet chili sauce(400 cal.)P0F0C100
total=1315 cal. P 131 F 6.7 C 177.2

2 clif bars(480 cal.)P20F12C86

total=2205 P 181.5 F 44.9 C 274.8

my workout

5 minute trainer hill climb

10 minute trainer hill climb

 

 

Day 10- Knowledge Is Power

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

296.6

Muscle fibers and how to maintain them

We have two kinds of muscles involved in physical movement, fast twitch and slow twitch. Put simply muscles we use for strength and muscles we use for endurance. Slow twitch, or endurance muscles, rely on our cardiovascular system, fuel and oxygen in the blood keep them working. To train endurance, these muscles are stressed over and over so that the number of blood vessels or capillarity is increased and the efficiency of the actual transfer of oxygen and fuel to the muscle fibers is increased. With fast twitch muscles, adaptation occurs once a stimulus or load on the muscles is so great that all muscles of a given group are recruited for the movement. These muscles grow in size as a response. This is a really simplified explanation but I will go into detail later. Basically when it comes to training, bodybuilders don’t run and marathoners don’t deadlift.

So what does that have to do with anything? Being older, my body reacts to stimuli a lot slower than it used to. I recover a lot slower and I need more time for muscle growth to catch up. The thing is, the body will still atrophy at the same rate unless you exercise regularly. In order to keep the type I muscles healthy, cardio has to be done on a very regular basis. Training the type II muscles has to be done as well but scheduled around an extended recovery schedule. A regular endurance program should keep the type I system at a high level of fitness and at the same time optimize the pathways that will lead to growth in type II muscles whose training is properly adapted for effective recovery.

HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) should be ideal as it tries to operate at or close to VO2max, the limit of the bodies ability to supply oxygen to the muscles. At 40% of VO2max, you would have to workout for 2 hours or longer to get the same stimulus as you would by working out at 100% of VO2max for 15 minutes. The thing is, very few people can get to VO2max much less maintain it for any appreciable amount of time, but the closer you get the better. When Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile, he didn’t train by running the mile over and over, he did it by running a series of 10 sub-minute quarter miles every day for months. At the end he was able to mimic his stride and cadence in the quarter for four consecutive quarters, and become the premier miler of his time.

My food:

Breakfast Rellenos

4 eggs(320 cal.)P28F21.2C1.6
1 can tomatoes and chilies(50 cal.)P2.5F0C10
4 oz. queso fresco(353 cal.)P22.8F27.4C0
4 Anaheim peppers(21cal.)P4.5F.45C21.3
total= 744 cal. P 57.8 F 49 C 32.9

Roast chilies whole under broiler, turning once. Slit longways and seed, reserve, do not remove stems. Finely crumble cheese into eggs and tomatoes, scramble egg mixture as desired. Stuff peppers fully with egg mixture, enjoy!

Chinese for lunch

1/2 cup rice(90 cal.)P6F0C72
1/2 tsp. Turmeric
1/2 onion(32 cal.)P.7F0C7.8
10 oz. chicken thigh(590 cal.)P73F30.8C0
2 Jalapeño peppers(8 cal.)P0F0C2
2 tbs. peanut butter(180 cal.)P7F16C6
2 tsp. coconut oil(80 cal.)P0F10C0
1.5 oz. sunflower kernels(250cal.)P10F21C7.5
total=1230 cal. P 96.7 F 77.5 C 95.3 2 portions/660 now

Rest of chinese for dinner

1 can Dr. Pepper(150 cal.)P0F0C40

My workout

1 mile walk
100 single-unders

 

For those following along:

one mile walk for warm-up

25 single jumps with jump rope

 

Day 9- Motivation

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , • Leave a comment

297.4

Motivation is so much more than ‘I want to.’ Motivation is doing, it is taking the action, it is moving forward. Motivation is a habit. To always act with motivation makes you a force, it makes you powerful. One interpretation of Newton’s first law is that once moving it takes more energy to stop than it does to keep going.

I  f I allow myself to think about something too long I will end up not doing it. This has been proven by me over and over. I truly believe that no one can change another persons thoughts and actions but by small, subtle pushes in the right direction, I can change the way I think about and do things. Sometimes I have to trick myself.

One morning I woke up and was going to go for a run and was sitting on the end of the bed and caught myself thinking about running. I realized that the more I sat there the less likely it was that I would ever get out there and run. instead of sitting still I began to get ready, putting on socks and shorts, finding a t-shirt, putting my shoes on, grabbing my stop watch. Now, even though i was still thinking instead of running, my little ruse had allowed me to be in a position to simply walk outside and start running. It worked. Many times since then, when I don’t really feel like working out, I will get dressed to work out and more often than not, I go on out there and get my sweat on.

Motivation is where you find it. More often than not, it is right there inside you.

So what are all of the extra numbers about in the food lists? The protein, fat and carbohydrate numbers or PFC’s are what are referred to as macronutrients. When you zoom out on what you are eating, say in an entire week instead of just one meal, you can get a good idea of where your calories are coming from. Once you know that it can be easier to make small changes that will add up down the road. For instance, I notice that I use a lot of oil when I make eggs. I use the oil to keep the eggs from sticking, to a teflon pan! I eat eggs about 5 times a week, using no oil saves me 200 calories and 23.5 grams of fat a week. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but if that becomes a habit, I consume over 10,000 calories less a year, that’s 3 pounds or 12 chocolate milkshakes.

Small changes over time make a big difference as you can see. Changing the way that we look at what we eat and making little tweaks here and there will bring us closer to the goals we seek. Does the notebook begin to make more sense now?

I am going to start making up recipe cards for some of my favorite meals. That way I can concentrate more of the calorie and macro information in one spot and spend less time writing everything down and figuring it out over and over. But until then:

Breakfast
4 eggs(320 cal.)P28F21.2C0
14g. coconut oil(40 cal.)P0F4.7C0
1 Can tomatoes and chilies(50 cal.)P2.5F0C10
Total=410 cal. macros P30.5 F 24.9 C 10

Lunch salad
9 oz. imitation crab(330 cal.)P18F4.5C54
4 oz. spinach(28 cal.)P3.2F0C4
green apple vinaigrette dressing(399 cal.)P.3F35.5C4.9
total=757 cal. macros P 21.5 F 35.5 C 62.9

chicken and rice
7 oz. chicken thigh meat(413 cal.)P52.7F21.7C0
1 1/2 cup rice, boiled(90 cal.)P6F0C72
sweet chili sauce (300 cal.)P0F0C75
total=803 cal. macros P 58.7 F 21.7 C 147

My Workout

Jump rope 100 singles
Push mowing 2 hrs.

Your workout
If you want to get to wearing out that new jump rope, walk a mile to warm up and try doing 25 single jumps today. Jumping rope is a very complex movement that happens so quickly that to do it well you have to use muscle memory, that is the body needs to be able to do it without thinking. This takes practice. It feels like it will take forever to learn, it will not, trust me.

If you have questions you would like to ask or a blog topic you would like me to take a stab at, feel free to message me.

P.S. The CrossFit Games are now streaming live on YouTube, check these people out, they leave it ALL on the field.

Day 7- Limits, Expectations and Goals

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

300.2

Limits, Expectations and Goals

Let’s talk for a moment about limits. I know that I am getting older, I get it, I don’t like it but I know that there is nothing that I can do about it.  I take that back, I can’t stop getting older but I can change the definition of aging as it pertains to me.  ‘Old people can’t’, ‘People your age shouldn’t’, these are artificial restraints that may apply to some, but do not necessarily define me.  I don’t view life and a continuous, inexorable crawl towards the grave.  Life is for living and for the living.  I don’t view limits as absolutes, I see them as challenges.

My expectations likewise are constantly changing.  As I grow I see new opportunities every day. Things around me change and I try to change with them.  To resist change is to be left behind.  I like to think of change as adaptation, of better fitting in with new surroundings.

I try to set realistic goals.  Goals that can be reached maybe not today or tomorrow but within reasonable times.  Time is on our side if we learn how to use it as a tool instead of an impediment.  When we were younger we thought, “I can’t wait to be older,” because age was a limiting factor in the way we viewed what could make us happy.  Now we wish we were younger, I wish I would just make up my mind.

Back when I started going to the gym there was a sign posted on one of the walls titled, “Benchmark Movements.”  There were things listed there that most of the people in the gym could do some if not all of.  I could not do any of them. I was too fat or too out of shape or too inflexible.  Always some reason and that bothered me.  It still does.  These things are some of my goals.  Pistol squats, pull-ups, double unders, hand stand pushups, all of these things that fit people should be able to do.  These things are going to be addressed in upcoming installments, they are achievable goals.

Using What We Learn About Ourselves

My workout today involved two concepts, moving explosively and moving with strength.  The first part of the work is a variation of a CrossFit ‘girl’ workout called Grace.  A classic rX Grace is a 135# barbell floor to locked out overhead, 30 times for time.  My best PR is 9:10.  I haven’t done Grace or any Oly lifting in a while so to get the benefit without potential for injury I’m doing 1/2 Grace, rX weight, 15 reps for time.  That is the explosive movement portion.

Overall strength is expressed in the squat.  It uses the most amount of muscle you can recruit in a single, compound movement.  One of the first ‘programs’ I followed when I started training myself is called 5×5.  5 Basic lifts, 3 per day, 3 times a week using a linear progression.  Each time you do an exercise you add 5 pounds more than you lifted the last time, easy.  If you are 25.  My squat stalled out at 175# and I stopped for a time rather than risk injury.  This is smart.

I am starting this series of lifts again but this time I am going to allow for a longer period of recovery by altering the progression.  Instead adding 5 pounds each time I squat I am going to a weekly progression.  Starting today at 20# off of my last weight of 175#, Monday will be 155#, Wednesday will be 160# and Friday 162#.  The following week, Monday will go down to 160#, Wednesday 165# and Friday 167#.  This will allow me to progress at 5# a week and really modify the recovery process.  My thinking is this, by allowing the recovery to catch up to increased stress more adaptation or growth of new tissue can occur as body resources that were used for recovery are freed up.

Do not attempt anything like this yourself, yet. The workouts I post are ones that I have personally done, I only record them here to document my progress.  There is a substantial learning curve both physically and mentally involved in doing this sort of workout.  I have been doing CrossFit for four years on a daily basis, I have done several versions of Grace at least 8 times and have been coached in the specific movement many hours by professionals, thanks John.  The weight that I am using in the squat was worked up to over a seven week period by squatting three times a week, you simply cannot jump into a weight like that without getting hurt.  I personally have hurt myself weightlifting, using too much weight while doing a movement that I did not understand.  It took three weeks to recover from that injury and I was very lucky.  I would not wish that amount of pain on anyone, please be careful.

WORKOUT
1/2 Grace

135# Barbell Floor to Overhead 15 Reps for time 4:36

Back Squat

155# 5 sets of 5 reps

FOOD
Eggs and Chorizo with Cheese
3 eggs(216 cal.)
4 oz. chorizo(285 cal.)
2 oz. queso fresca(160 cal.)
16 oz. 2% milk(244 cal.)
total=905 cal.

Post Workout Recovery drink
2 granny smith apples(206 cal.)
1/2 cantaloupe(75 cal.)
1 cup water
total=281 cal.
Recovery Protein
1 can tuna, drained(90 cal.)

This combination supplies 74.3 g. carbohydrates and 20 g. protein to aid in recovery.  Recovery drinks/foods need to be consumed within 1/2 hour of the end of the workout for maximum effectiveness.  Do not forget to hydrate before, during and after your workout.  This particular smoothie has a lot of fiber in it.  Metabolizing this amount of fiber may take additional fluid, keep this in mind during the day and drink some extra water to compensate.

Lunch Salad
4 oz. spinach(28 cal.)
5 oz. cucumber(16 cal.)
1 avocado(180 cal.)
1 oz. sunflower seeds(165 cal.)
2 Tsb. thousand island dressing(90 cal.)
total=479 cal.

Dinner
Chicken and peppers(447 cal.)

For those of us just starting out, today’s workout is:
1/2 mile walk, this is the warm up, then
Burpees-Stand up straight with hands at your side. Get down into the pushup position and then get back up and clap your hands over head, that’s one.
3 sets of 10 Burpees

Links:
Grace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydeCu7W1VRc
Burpee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhJ3nQH-y9M
5×5 System in all it’s glory: http://stronglifts.com/5×5/

If you have any questions please ask, I would be happy to answer them if I can, or suggest someone who is smarter and better looking than I am to give you the answer you are looking for.

Day 5- The Low Down On Low Impact

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

302.6

Let’s talk about buzzwords, specifically these two words, low impact, as they relate to exercise and fitness in general. Low impact refers to an activity that will not sever your spine, liquify a kidney or cause one or both legs to fall off. I’m kidding there, a little, but seriously there are really 3 low impact exercises: walking, swimming and cycling. Without the interference of an outside force it is almost impossible to hurt yourself doing any of these activities. As long as you start slow and work up gradually to the level you wish to achieve. Let’s say on day one you walked 100 yards and every day after that you walked an additional 100 yards. You would literally run out of daylight before you reached the limit of your endurance. It would take you two and a half weeks to get to a mile a day, which would take you about 20 minutes. At the one year mark you would be walking about five hours at a time, probably less because you will be walking faster now. I don’t know how slow you would have to start out swimming to do the same, maybe 20 or 25 yards but it is interesting still.
I know for a fact that cycling endurance has one limiting factor above all others, that is how long you can stay in the saddle, that can only be trained so much. Cycling uses fast twitch and slow twitch muscles, fast twitch for slow, out of the saddle climbing and slow twitch muscles for the continuous quick pedal turnover of long, flat stretches and down hill portions of the ride. Early on I thought that it was peculiar that fast twitch muscles were used in the slower uphill parts of the ride but it was explained to me that out of the saddle stomping on the pedals was similar to weightlifting in the method of muscle recruitment. Rapid pedal turnover is accomplished by simultaneously pushing one leg down while pulling up with the other, neither one a maximum effort, just quick and repetitive, therefore the recruitment of only slow twitch muscle tissue. Here is the key to longer(more fun) bike rides: if you have to climb a hill, stay in the saddle and get a slower gear, more pedaling less rolling, rather than coming out of the saddle. When you stay in the saddle you force your body to use slow twitch muscles which recover quickly, when you use your fast twitch muscles, they only recover with sleep, once they are gone, they will stay gone until morning. As long as you keep the blood flowing through them by pedaling, the slow twitch muscles will recover with a minute or two of reduced effort or coasting. I don’t like to stay on a bike more than 10 miles at a time, I take frequent breaks, and then I can enjoy the ride. In my favorite ride of the year, the HH100, there are 14 rest stops in the 100 mile course and I stop at every one. It is a major rush to finish this ride but there is no prize for ‘died trying’.

Temperature during this ride was 95F/35C. This is training for the epic HHH century ride at the end of August.

Can-appl-oupe smoothie

2 granny smith apples(206 cal.)
1/2 cantaloupe(75 cal.)
1 cup water
total=281 cal.

Put water in blender. Core apples and blend on medium until you have an applesauce consistency. Halve the cantaloupe, scoop out seeds, cut in slices and then peel, make chunks and add to blender. Another 20 seconds on medium speed and you should be ready to go. This will fairly fill the blender jar. I usually drink one large glass of smoothie right then. I keep 2 quart plastic cups in the freezer with about 3 inches of ice in the bottom for ice water during the day, filling one of these up with the rest of the smoothie mixture makes a brilliant agua fresca!!

Tasty Salad

4 oz. fresh spinach(28 cal.)
4 oz. avocado(180 cal.)
5 oz. cucumber(16 cal.)
1 oz. sunflower seeds, finely chopped(165 cal.)
4 Tbs. Italian dressing(120 cal.)
total=509 cal.

I am here to tell you, this is yummy!  I split the avocado and then scored the inside, turned the skin inside out and viola! Repeat for other side and you’ve peeled and sliced an avocado and not made a big, green mess. I have a cutter for shoestring potatoes, I used the smallest blade and made spiral spaghetti out of the cucumber, it looks really cool. 4 tablespoons is too much italian, maybe half that next time.

Dinner-bad example

8 oz. cooked chicken thighs(472 cal.)
2 Tbs. Sweet Chili Sauce(200 cal.)
total=672 cal.

Had to cook off chicken thighs for coming week, too lazy to actually put together a meal. On the up side, the chili sauce is amazing, it really tastes good on lots of stuff. A note on chicken thighs: the place I shop has chicken thighs for $1.27 a lb. in 5# plus trays. The yield on skinning and boning your own thighs is right around 3:2, for every 3 pounds you bone, you get 2 pounds of boneless which works out to just less than $2 a pound, much better than the price if the store does it, $3.68/lb.

A quick tutorial on deboning chicken thighs. Pull the skin off one side. With a thin, sharp blade follow the attached skin and cut away the extra fat on both sides of the thigh. Next, there is a small piece of joint and tendon left behind when they separate the joint on one end, that end is usually flat. Looking down at the flat end place the point of the knife to one side of the small piece next to the bone and with the blade facing away from you cut under the piece at an angle outwards. Do the same on the other side of the joint and you will have cut out a triangular bit with the small bone and most of the tendon, pick it free and discard. Run the knife blade down the thigh from one joint to the other and with the tip of the knife, start scraping the meat off of the bone until it all comes free. You may have to cut around one of the joints to free the thigh entirely.

Late night snack
chicken, peppers and rice(leftovers)(447 cal.)

Take that dog for a walk, do about a mile and relax, you’ve earned it.

Day 4- Taking A Better Look

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , • Leave a comment

302.4

Now that we are developing better habits, what are these habits going to do for us? I for one am becoming very aware of what I eat and what is in it. It helps a great deal that I make almost all of the food that I eat and that that food is very basic, that is, not processed in any way. Raw chicken, raw vegetables, of course the sauces and dressings are premade but you draw a line for time and your own ability. I personally would love to make my own salad dressings but I have not one clue how to start doing that just yet. I said ‘yet’. The reason I would make my own dressing is not to reduce calories per say, more to change the type of fat and really, the taste. After all, if I like it, I am going to eat it.

Let’s talk about dietary fat for a moment. Fat is an important part of a healthy diet, the fat that you eat allows your body to function properly. Without going into specifics let me say this about what dietary fat does NOT do. When you eat food with fat in it, that fat does not pass through the stomach lining as fat, enter the blood stream as fat and travel to your hips/butt/abs and get deposited there unchanged. I am no expert, so I am going to stop there, just don’t fear fat, that’s all I’m saying.

BMR-
Basic Metabolic Rate. This is the rate at which your body processes the calories in the food that we eat. Below you will find a calculator that will take your height, weight, age and gender and give a basic number of calories that your body needs every day. But wait, there’s more. Once you have that number, go to the link that’s right below the form you just filled out and do the Harris/Benedict calculation, which takes into consideration your level of physical activity to more acurately predict your daily calorie needs.
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

This number is just a guide. It was developed by people doing research that have never met you so it is at best, a guess. Calorically speaking, one pound of fat contains 3500 calories, if you eat 3500 calories less than your body needs to maintain your current weight, you should weigh one pound less. Here is a better idea of why your daily weight number is really just a number. You eat 3500 calories less, your weight did not go down 1 pound, why not?
1)Water retention: You should be drinking between a half and one gallon of water a day. Your bodies biological machine uses water for everything, energy production, food synthesis, it is the oil for the engine that is you. When you dehydrate, it takes more energy for the heart to pump blood, other processes become more difficult, etc. Hydration is not perfect, water in equals water out for the most part but there is no perfect way to tell when that time is.
2)Solid food elimination. Enough said.
3)Muscle building: When you force adaptation through exercise, your body builds/rebuilds muscle fiber, which is considerably more dense than fat. If you eat less and are more active you may gain weight even though you are consuming less calories because the fat you are burning is being replaced by muscle fiber.

My breakfast, lunch and dinner breaks down like this:

Chicken Omelette
6.25 oz. chicken thigh meat, roasted(354 cal.)
4 eggs(288 cal.)
1 tsp. coconut oil(40 cal.)
12 oz. 2% milk(183 cal.)
total 865 cal.
Just something easy that also gets rid of pesky leftovers in the fridge, win/win.

Salad for lunch
5 oz. spinach (35 cal.)
4 oz. tuna, canned (90 cal.)
2 Tbs. parmesan cheese (60 cal.)
4 Tbs. ranch dressing (260 cal.)
total 445 cal.

Lazy dinner
chicken, peppers and rice(leftovers)(447 cal.)
This is from the recipe the other day, tastes great the second time as well.

I spent an hour in the gym doing upper body movements. I call any day without squats a light day. This workout is designed to preexhaust the muscles that assist the pecs in the bench press, so that I can get an adaptation response with a lighter weight and fully work the arms and shoulders at the same time.

3 sets 10 reps French Curl 65#
3 sets 10 reps Reverse Curls 65#
3 sets 10 reps Bicep Curl 65#
Main workout
5 sets 5 reps Bench Press 135#

This took around an hour, got a good sweat on, it was easily 100 degrees in the gym.

Try this, you can hate me later.
Take a one mile walk and after you are warmed up:
Lunges 3 sets of 10 reps(5 each leg)
Step forward and kneel with the rear leg until the knee just touches the floor. Recover and repeat on the other side. Do not try and do all of these at once, take at least a minute rest between sets.

Day 2- A New Body The Hard Way, Marking The Trail

Posted on by • Posted in Personal health, Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , • Leave a comment

301.6

Keeping track of the things that you do and the foods that you eat are important to building new, better habits. To use myself as an example, I put my lists out there, not as some shining beacon of perfection but rather as the tool that it is meant to be and to show you how to use it to your advantage.

My foods yesterday:
Roasted chicken thighs, 14.35oz.(847 cal.)
popcorn w/butter, 187g.(984 cal.)
tuna salad w/ crackers, (925 cal.)
2 bananas, (210)

The first thing I would like to point out is, all of the food was prepared in my kitchen, no microwave popcorn was harmed in the making of this list. Chicken thighs are cheap, they have plenty of moisture and don’t dry out in the refrigerator. I get thighs in 5lb. packages and cook them all at once, roasted in the oven, never fried. I like to mix it up with chicken, this batch was seasoned with some hoisin sauce and a little extra spicy barbeque sauce but you can use anything really.

One thing you are learning with me right now is how many calories are in popcorn! It used to be my go to snack until now. Writing down the calories for the first time really drives home the point of this list, not so much eating only certain foods but being able to see in black and white what the calorie impact of each food is on your body. I’m still going to eat popcorn, not every day, and probably not with the butter either.

As well as writing down your food, make a note of your fluid intake, just to make sure you are drinking enough water. Mine was 3 qts. water and a couple of diet cokes, don’t judge me.

I have a small digital food scale I got at WalMart for $15 to measure my food, and I use a couple of different websites to look up calories:

http://www.calorieking.com/
http://nutritiondata.self.com/

…anything you can’t find there, google ‘calories from food’ or go to the mfg. website. You don’t have to break everything down to weights and calories right now, just look at the foods you are eating and see where you can make changes, it is a marathon, not a sprint.

As far as exercise goes, yesterday was my ‘rest’ day, I try to maintain a day on, day off schedule. I did manage to take my bestest buddies for a dog walk, 1 mile=152 calories burned, sunshine, fresh and happy dogs=bonus! To track the exercise that you do you can go to one of these websites to figure out how you did;

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/lookup
http://calorielab.com/burned/

To fill up the blank part of yourpage today, think about things you enjoy doing, or would enjoy doing, walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, etc. Use this list when you feel bored and don’t know what to do, maybe one of these items will bring you an exciting day.