One Life to Live
Monday, February 28, 2011
It's a Baby!
Sorry about my lack of posting lately. My wife went into labor last week Monday (5 1/2 weeks early) and we have been spending all of our free time at the hospital with our new son. Even though he is currently in the NICU he is doing good and we expect him to come home with us soon! While you wait for my next wonderful post, please feel free to surf through some of my most epic topics. Take care.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Diet and Workout Programs
I recently emailed a co-worked with some advice on various workout programs and diets. After I finished it, I realized that it would also make a great post. So here you have it. Enjoy.
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When I first started at my job 5 ½ years ago, I was tipping the scales at around 230lbs. Being someone that has always had an interest in working out and eating “right”, that was a tough weight for me to swallow. I knew I had to change. What I started to do was pretty simple. I joined the 24 Hour Fitness up the street from my office and I would go workout 3 times a week before work. It took some dedication and a few hours of missed sleep but I knew that I had to do it. For the first month, I only did cardio (elliptical mainly). I then gradually added in some weight training and altered my diet by eating less food at each meal and adopting the philosophy of eating 6 small meals a day. I ate mainly fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains. I think portion control was my biggest benefactor and the weight slowly started to come off. What I did back then may have worked for me, but I now have a lot more knowledge about different programs out there and I think I could have taken what then took me almost year to accomplish and could now do it in months. Below I have outlined some programs that I consider to be very effective. Some are hardcore and others, not so much. Just remember that the best diet is one that you can stick with long term. It needs to be more of a lifestyle change than a diet.
Leangains – this is the program I am doing right now. It involves fasting daily for 16 hours and then an 8 hour feed window. I work out fasted not including the ingestion of 10grams of BCAA. It allows some freedoms in eating habits to a certain extent but it does take some planning. On workout days (lifting), you would make carbs your primary macronutrient followed by protein and then fat. On non-workout days, you eat more protein, then fat, and then carbs. It’s a method of carb cycling. It works very well for a lot of people and is growing quite a bit in popularity. This would be a great program if you plan on doing some heavy lifting and want to stay away from the intense cardio.
Primal/Paleo – All my Primal/Paleo peers would shoot me if I didn’t recommend this. I do this program along with Leangains. This is about low carb eating via all natural foods. I have never felt better then when I eat like this. Some good reading material on this would be MarkDailyApple.com and a book called Primal BluePrint. Both are excellent resources and I highly recommend them both. Mark Sisson advocates eating like our primitive ancestors and doing basic exercises in moderation. You wont find any grueling 5 day a week workouts here. I think this is a great program for people that have busier lifestyles but it does take some commitment in the eating aspect. Meat, fruit and vegetables are the primary staple of the Primal/Paleo diets. Can’t go wrong with that! If you like carbs and sugar, it will be a hard one to follow but if you can stick with it, you will feel much better. I can attest to that.
Visual Impact – I am currently doing this workout program. It’s a great program to get that Hollywood look instead of the over bulked look of body builders. All though this program is mainly exercise based, Rusty does offer some solid advice on eating with his primary dietary focus being on calories consumed vs calories burned. He also just released a female version of his program that looks to be equally as promising.
Low Glycemic – Low Glycemic diets are what you see a lot of on TV where they ship you the food: Medifast, South Beach, etc. The idea behind them is that certain foods have a great effect on blood sugar levels and thus insulin secretion. The more insulin that gets created and secreted, the more fat that will get stored. If you can eat foods that have low glycemic indexes, you can keep your insulin levels low and lose body fat. I have never tried any of these (with the exception of a small stint with South Beach) but I am guessing they are a lot like low carb diets but with a little bit more freedom in some of the foods you can eat. Go to the book store and you will find countless books on the GI diet as well as many recipe books. Might be the easiest one to follow. Something like this would work good with the Visual Impact program above or even P90x below.
Weight Watchers – Up until a few months ago, I didn’t know anyone that had tried Weight Watchers. Recently, however, I have had a few family members try it and all have had great success with it. All three have lost double digit weights in a very short amount of time. From what I can tell, none of them had to really give up the foods that they enjoyed, just limit the quantities and frequencies a bit. The new Weight Watchers Plus allows zero point deductions for the consumption of fruits and vegetables. How awesome is that! Weight Watchers also has some great apps for the mobile market so you can always stay accountable regardless of where you are.
P90x – I have done this program about 6 times and its one of the best exercise programs out there in my opinion. One thing that many people don’t realize is that the workout program is only half of it. They also have a very extensive dietary program included and without it, the results you see on TV, would not have been achieved. It’s pricey but if you can make it through the entire thing and follow the diet exactly, there is no reason why you wont be in the best shape of your life. This fall Tony Horton and Beachbody are releasing a follow up series called P90x MC2. You can bet that I will be purchasing that as soon as it comes out!
I hope some of this helps. If you have any questions about any of the stuff I listed above or if you have found other diets/programs that you want to ask me about or suggest for my list, please feel free to send me an email or leave a comment below.
*********************
When I first started at my job 5 ½ years ago, I was tipping the scales at around 230lbs. Being someone that has always had an interest in working out and eating “right”, that was a tough weight for me to swallow. I knew I had to change. What I started to do was pretty simple. I joined the 24 Hour Fitness up the street from my office and I would go workout 3 times a week before work. It took some dedication and a few hours of missed sleep but I knew that I had to do it. For the first month, I only did cardio (elliptical mainly). I then gradually added in some weight training and altered my diet by eating less food at each meal and adopting the philosophy of eating 6 small meals a day. I ate mainly fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains. I think portion control was my biggest benefactor and the weight slowly started to come off. What I did back then may have worked for me, but I now have a lot more knowledge about different programs out there and I think I could have taken what then took me almost year to accomplish and could now do it in months. Below I have outlined some programs that I consider to be very effective. Some are hardcore and others, not so much. Just remember that the best diet is one that you can stick with long term. It needs to be more of a lifestyle change than a diet.
Leangains – this is the program I am doing right now. It involves fasting daily for 16 hours and then an 8 hour feed window. I work out fasted not including the ingestion of 10grams of BCAA. It allows some freedoms in eating habits to a certain extent but it does take some planning. On workout days (lifting), you would make carbs your primary macronutrient followed by protein and then fat. On non-workout days, you eat more protein, then fat, and then carbs. It’s a method of carb cycling. It works very well for a lot of people and is growing quite a bit in popularity. This would be a great program if you plan on doing some heavy lifting and want to stay away from the intense cardio.
Primal/Paleo – All my Primal/Paleo peers would shoot me if I didn’t recommend this. I do this program along with Leangains. This is about low carb eating via all natural foods. I have never felt better then when I eat like this. Some good reading material on this would be MarkDailyApple.com and a book called Primal BluePrint. Both are excellent resources and I highly recommend them both. Mark Sisson advocates eating like our primitive ancestors and doing basic exercises in moderation. You wont find any grueling 5 day a week workouts here. I think this is a great program for people that have busier lifestyles but it does take some commitment in the eating aspect. Meat, fruit and vegetables are the primary staple of the Primal/Paleo diets. Can’t go wrong with that! If you like carbs and sugar, it will be a hard one to follow but if you can stick with it, you will feel much better. I can attest to that.
Visual Impact – I am currently doing this workout program. It’s a great program to get that Hollywood look instead of the over bulked look of body builders. All though this program is mainly exercise based, Rusty does offer some solid advice on eating with his primary dietary focus being on calories consumed vs calories burned. He also just released a female version of his program that looks to be equally as promising.
Low Glycemic – Low Glycemic diets are what you see a lot of on TV where they ship you the food: Medifast, South Beach, etc. The idea behind them is that certain foods have a great effect on blood sugar levels and thus insulin secretion. The more insulin that gets created and secreted, the more fat that will get stored. If you can eat foods that have low glycemic indexes, you can keep your insulin levels low and lose body fat. I have never tried any of these (with the exception of a small stint with South Beach) but I am guessing they are a lot like low carb diets but with a little bit more freedom in some of the foods you can eat. Go to the book store and you will find countless books on the GI diet as well as many recipe books. Might be the easiest one to follow. Something like this would work good with the Visual Impact program above or even P90x below.
Weight Watchers – Up until a few months ago, I didn’t know anyone that had tried Weight Watchers. Recently, however, I have had a few family members try it and all have had great success with it. All three have lost double digit weights in a very short amount of time. From what I can tell, none of them had to really give up the foods that they enjoyed, just limit the quantities and frequencies a bit. The new Weight Watchers Plus allows zero point deductions for the consumption of fruits and vegetables. How awesome is that! Weight Watchers also has some great apps for the mobile market so you can always stay accountable regardless of where you are.
P90x – I have done this program about 6 times and its one of the best exercise programs out there in my opinion. One thing that many people don’t realize is that the workout program is only half of it. They also have a very extensive dietary program included and without it, the results you see on TV, would not have been achieved. It’s pricey but if you can make it through the entire thing and follow the diet exactly, there is no reason why you wont be in the best shape of your life. This fall Tony Horton and Beachbody are releasing a follow up series called P90x MC2. You can bet that I will be purchasing that as soon as it comes out!
I hope some of this helps. If you have any questions about any of the stuff I listed above or if you have found other diets/programs that you want to ask me about or suggest for my list, please feel free to send me an email or leave a comment below.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Protein and Carbs
Had a great meal today. Let some Cornish Game Hens cook in the slow cooker overnight. The meat pretty much fell off of the bone this morning.
Food
- 2 Cornish Game Hens
- 3 cups sweet potatoes
- 1 cup onion and pepper mix
- 1/4 beef broth
- 2 T tomato paste
Vitamins
- Omega3's
- Multi Vitamins
- B12 Complex
- Vitamin D
- Kelp
Nutrition Stats - (stats include my afternoon protein shake as well)
- 1429 Calories
- 26.6g of Fat
- 172.8g of Protein
- 126.3g of Carbs
Monday, February 7, 2011
This Weeks Fitness Goals
My goals for this week are as follows:
That about wraps up my week in health and fitness. What are your plans to make this week the healthiest it can be?
- Come up with a new workout structure for the second half of Visual Impact Phase II. I believe in both muscle confusion as well as not getting bored so I like to change up my workouts every 4 weeks. I also have a hard time coming up with my own routines so this has proven to be a bigger chore than I thought it would be.
- Eat better. I just came off of a 30 day Whole30 challenge where I only went off track 3 small times. In the last week I have binged twice and felt the effects almost immediately. This week I really want to get on track with some good healthy eating.
- Fine tune my leangains cut. I have been doing a lot of research over the last week on leangains. As many know, I have not had the best success with it over the last 6+ months. I have decided to do a cut first. Therefore, I am going to go into a daily deficit with at least one day a week as a refeed. I hope this finally gets me to where I want to be.
- I am working on something exciting but I wont be able to announce it until the end of May.
That about wraps up my week in health and fitness. What are your plans to make this week the healthiest it can be?
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Whole30 Challenge Review
Yesterday marked the completion of the Whole30 challenge that I sponsored at my office. Overall I think it went very well and I consider it a mild success. I, personally, lost 5 lbs and I know of others that lost weight as well. I felt great, had lots of energy and overall maintained a very positive attitude. On the downside, not many other people actually completed the challenge in the manner that I was hoping. I was hoping everyone would really commit 100% to the challenge and not break from the acceptable list of foods. But no one really did for the whole thing. I, myself, lost 3 points based on my eating habits. Those 3 points came from some BBQ sauce on some chicken I ate and some peas that were in some stir fry that I made. Oh well, I still consider the challenge a success and I look forward to sponsoring another one soon.
Here are some things I learned about myself during the last 30 days.
I have not decided if I will continue the challenge into February. I already had some banned foods last night but have been clean all of today. I think I probably will go as clean as I can and see what happens. I think in March I will sponsor another challenge for my entire company and see where that goes. Stay tuned for details!
**Update** - Found out that 2 of the people that I thought gave up on the challenge actually just stopped logging their daily points. In actuality, they actually completed the challenge and are still eating Paleo. In fact, he has lost 25lbs so far and his wife is down 15lbs. What a great testament to this challenge and how it can really help people to lose weight and feel better.
Here are some things I learned about myself during the last 30 days.
- Protein Shakes - I really enjoy protein shakes and not having the ability to have a quick shake to increase my protein intake drove me nuts. I miss the shakes so much that I went out and bought a new tub of protein powder last week in anticipation for this challenge being over.
- Coffee – I thought I really needed coffee but it turns out I really don’t. I tend to get so focused on needing coffee for energy that I always find myself pouring a cup. In the last 30 days I have not had any coffee and have felt great. For those mornings its cold and I wanted to drink something hot, I found some great naturally flavored non-caffeinated teas that I enjoyed.
- Soda - I broke the habit of needing diet soda. This was a bad one and I am really glad that I didn’t cave on it. Diet Mt. Dew was my favorite.
- Cheat Meals - I miss having the occasion cheat meal with my family. There were nights were I only ate meat as I didn’t want to deviate from the challenge. Normally I allow myself some deviations from the diet. I really like the 80/20 rule. It’s been my friend and helped me (and my family) keep sane.
- CrockPot - The CrockPot is the best cooking device. I have been able to put stuff in it before I leave for work and have it ready when I get back. Love that!
- Sugar – It’s really hard to find products that don’t have sugar in them. Really hard. Even some spices have sugar in them. That surprised me.
- Dairy – I think dairy was the thing that was keeping me from losing weight. I tended to put cheese on everything.
I have not decided if I will continue the challenge into February. I already had some banned foods last night but have been clean all of today. I think I probably will go as clean as I can and see what happens. I think in March I will sponsor another challenge for my entire company and see where that goes. Stay tuned for details!
**Update** - Found out that 2 of the people that I thought gave up on the challenge actually just stopped logging their daily points. In actuality, they actually completed the challenge and are still eating Paleo. In fact, he has lost 25lbs so far and his wife is down 15lbs. What a great testament to this challenge and how it can really help people to lose weight and feel better.
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