Archive for April, 2004
Message Boards
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That Crazy Pedometer
Micro post. Today? I walked/jogged or otherwise 11 miles today (20,000 steps). Woo!
Core: Week 2 Thursday
On the menu tonight:
Physioball
Shoulder & Hip Prehabilitation
ESD1 (12 minutes of cardio)
and AIS stretching (stretches assisted by rope)
For my ESD, I threw on my running pants and went out for a 10 minute mile, plus two more minutes. My heart rate was up too high too often, but I felt nearly good. My breathing was off still, but I don’t have a doctor’s appt for a little while to come.
What was really cool was that I sprinted twice for 30-60 seconds. Just flat out bolted. Man, I felt strong! In days past, I would’ve felt ruined right out of the gate, but I’m starting to get that magical second wind kind of feeling somewhere near the end of my 12 minutes, and I used that.
I’m eating a serving of protein after my workouts now, because that’s supposed to be very important, timing wise, for building back lean muscle tissue. I’m hoping that the calories burned during my cardio efforts balances that off.
Oh, and I got just under 7 miles today on my pedometer. There’s a little rule of thumb I read somewhere that if you can do 10000 steps a day for 10 weeks, you’ll lose 10% of your bodyfat. I’m trying to keep the 10000 step part of that equation just for goodness.
How are you? Why aren’t you writing me?
New Mag
I finally found a fitness magazine where I appreciate every article. I picked up a copy of Experience Life magazine for Kat while she was in the hospital, and ended up reading it cover to cover within minutes.
What I liked about it was that it focused on athletic-minded people looking to get more fit for a further function and not just for aesthetic reasons. In fact, especially NOT for those reasons. I liked that it focused on training questions, mindset questions, and other issues around how to lift a bar. The workouts in the book worked neatly with what I’m doing with Core Performance. And there weren’t any sensational grab articles about getting the best bikini body by June.
Man, I really hate the typical men’s offerings. I get Men’s Fitness (weak moment with door-to-door sales types), and there’s usually a *few* okay things in it, but essentially it’s Maxim with metal. I think the new staff are trying to shed that image a little, but time will tell.
Oh, and Oxygen scared me.
Great mag, that Experience Life. Check it out. It’s fairly cheap to get a few year’s worth, too. Twenty clams brings it all home. That’s the same as buying five issues off the newstand, only you get 20 or so… (I sounded like an ad, didn’t I?)
Core Performance, Day 10
Ring Ring
Ring Ring
Me: Hello?
Voice: Is this Chris Brogan?
Me: Uh, yes it is.
Voice: Here’s that ass kicking you ordered.
I feel thrashed. It’s kind of my own fault. Because I didn’t get yesterday done, I doubled up. Can you say, ’stupid idea?’ I knew midway through the official Wednesday of Week 2 workout that I was asking for the pain. And then yet again, Tuesday (what I was making up for) kicked my ass plenty fine on its own.
There’s an exercise in there that I can do, but that whooped me. It’s dumbell curl to press, split leg. You basically put one leg up high on a step (I used the arm of our living room chair), then curl your dumbells. Then, from the top of the curl, twist the weights around, and then press them up over your head (shoulder press). Finally, bring it all back down in the reverse order, nice and neat-like. Do this twelve times for one leg, and then switch to the other leg.
Yeah right. I did the 12. Did other stuff that was equally painful, and then did the other 12. In between was a combo move where you lie on a bench (or a swiss ball for me), then press a weight up over your skull. Bend your arms to 90 degrees, and then lower that whole assembly down past your head until your elbows are hugging your ears. Repeat in reverse, 12 times on a side. I did *that* in between the other thingies. With two other things in there, too. It was called a circuit.
So yes, already on week 2, my ass feels effectively thrashed. But, I did it. I did what I had to do. I skipped a few reps here and there where I thought I might injure myself from being a little tired, but I got through it.
Long story short: I rock.
Discussion List
I started a yahoogroups discussion list for Core Performance. Hopefully, I’ll have some decent discussions with people doing the workout, and that might promote better understanding of the workout, while also discussing other workout tips and information similar to the system in Verstegen’s book.
Core Performance, Day 9
No workout today. Kat had to go to the hospital. She’s fine now. I did, however, walk nearly 7 miles today, according to my pedometer.
Core Performance Day 8
Week 2, Day 1 — I was kind of dreading this one, because it looked like a lot more things to do than the first week. Well, it’s not that the program isn’t kicking my ass, because it is, but it wasn’t all that bad.
I was home today, because Kat’s got something medical going on, and I really didn’t want to work out. I was tired. I was grumpy. And I’m really not exceptionally self-motivated when given the opportunity to slack off. But somehow, I managed to dig in there and do it.
Glad I did. Things were great, and I didn’t feel too bashed by the workout in the end. Mostly, so far, it’s been stretching and physical therapy-type stuff, combined with a 12 minute cardio portion where you keep your heart rate in zone 1 (For me, 112-135 bpm). That wasn’t all too hard.
So yeah. I’m still here. Still working this business.
I started a food journal today, to make sure I’m keeping honest about my food consumption. I’m a little more hungry than I am on normal days, so I’m a little suspicious. Food journals are good, I’m told. Seems like that’s true.
A Growing Unease
Recently, I’ve been falling into a strange awareness. I’ve been noticing the way we all look in this country. I’m talking about that statistic we hear about in the news: about 1 in 3 of us being considered very obese. This is usually something we see, we nod about, and then carry on with our day. I am this statistic. And so are a lot of other people.
Three kids playing in the church parking lot near my house, and all three are very overweight. These kids are maybe 10. I’m at the grocery store tonight, and there are people with over a hundred pounds to lose wheeling monster carts of food down the aisles, piled to the top with Coke Classic, Oreos, pork chops, and she’s trying to get a big mega bag of chips onto the top without it falling off (I’m not making this up).
I started my fitness and nutrition efforts last August. On my Mom’s birthday. I had 100 pounds to lose, according to the various measures of obesity that I could find online. (By the way, some of these are ludicrous, and I don’t count the BMI as a decent measure). So far, I’ve got 50 pounds gone, plus or minus, and I’ve got a lot more to go. And it’s not easy.
Fitness for me includes a six day workout program that started with only eight minutes of working out in the morning, and has grown to about an hour a day. It takes me a lot of exercise and eating well to move that scale. More so, I couldn’t even stay with the same program. I’ve had to change it up twice already. Thus, the Core Performance workout I mention below.
Now, I’m a desk jockey by trade. I work in a mostly sedentary role. When I come home, there’s not a lot of motion required, either. Even with a nearly-two-year-old. If I were the majority of America, I’d plug into television or my computer as a release from the stresses of the day. This, of course, after my nearly two hours of commuting time each day.
We put our television away for the spring and summer. This forces us to come up with creative ways to entertain ourselves in the evenings, and for the most part, this now revolves around physical activities. Even using the computer is somewhat restricted by its current placement in the apartment. It’s just another way to try and stay moving.
Where I’m going with this is: how is America coping with this? Did you know that complications from obesity and poor dietary habits is almost ready to surpass smoking as the number one preventable death in America?
Walk into your super-sized grocery store and go to the book aisle. Find just one diet book. Then look around on the shelves around it. There are more people telling you what to eat than you can listen to at one setting. And, if the stats are a good measure, no one’s listening.
Obviously, someone is. There are 2/3rds of the country still not obese. And there are those of us who have found reasons to change their ways and lose the weight.
In an article in this month’s Fit Body magazine, you can read about how exercise affects you as you age. In your 20s and 30s are obvious the prime times. In your 40s, you can’t do as much about weight loss (it says), but you need the workout for your energy. Into your 50s and 60s, it’s about quality of life. The work you do in that time frame determines your future. This stuff makes me wonder about it all.
But what then? The weight loss industry is this massive machine. It’s a great place to make a buck, because so many people know they’re going to have a rough time of it. But man, isn’t there some other measure one can take? I feel like making up big “the sky is falling” placards and putting them around my neck. I want to shout out: hey, if I can do this, YOU can do this.
And yet, it’s all about me. I have to just do my thing and not pay attention. Because I can’t lead people there. It’s not about that. You have to go because you want to go. It’s nothing to do with what I want. It’s nothing to do with my perceptions.
Bleh.
Diet News Feeds and Commentary
I just checked out a site called diet blog. It’s more or less a news feed for diet information, but it’s pretty entertaining. Better than reading more about your reality show of choice.
