This aint a scene, it's a arms race

I heard this song on the radio and I can't stop playing it inside my head. I am getting the song so I can add it to my collection of tunes to lift to.

This song is by Fall Out Boy. Great fast beat.

I am still trying to figure out how I can place my play list on the site that everyone can benefit from. Does anyone have any ideas?

Whole Foods Diet

My wife is currently on a diet that was needed because our new daughter, Kiana. She is having allergies which are related to foods that my wife is eating. My wife is nursing so that means what she eats passes to my daughter as-well. The diet that we are on (my own choice) is an elimination diet. The foods that we can eat are potatoes, rice, turkey, and one or two different fruits. The full diet after the elimination phase (2 weeks) consists of adding two different foods every week and see if a allergy breaks out. If it does then you have to start all over again, and that sucks. I am doing this because I want to try to eat more whole foods which ultimately means less chemicals in my body.

My wife has allowed me to go outside the diets specs, just for the fact that I need more protein than she does and in order to stay within our budget I am eating a lot of tuna.......a lot...I like tuna.....a lot. :)

Racquetball Rules!

Today was the first day in a long time that I played racquetball. I was able to win the first game as 15:10, but the next I lost 13:15. It was a great game and I was glad that I was able to find someone to play racquetball with. I wanted to get some cardio into my work out and was able to find something that is going to stimulate my mind but also give me a hell of a cardio run. You know it was a great workout when your right rib is hurting.

Under the Weather Sucks!

I have not made a single post in the last week. I had some kind of illness that kept me dehydrated and also very weak. It started with me on Monday and it was not until Friday (today) that I felt better.

This thing hit me hard. I mean my burps smelt like rotten eggs and if I thought I was going to sneeze or pass gas, I ran to the bathroom. I could not do any lifting at all because I was worried about the effects. So I stayed away from the gym and I tried to go to bed early every night. It is sometimes hard to because I have kids and I try to keep up with my chores around the house.

Some of the other symptoms were gas and a poor appetite. Like I said, this thing sucked.

Don't Skimp Out On The Work

The title should say it all. The one thing that I see in the gym that people lack in is, work. I see people on the elliptical machine going at a relatively slow pace. Then I see others on the tread mill just walking the entire time at, again, a slow pace. In order for your body to actually burn fat and calories, the person needs to actually perform some harder work in order to get the heart rate up. If you are not getting the heart rate up, then you might as well just stay home and sit on the couch.

I caught myself starting to take the easy way out and just do some little walking here and there and also do some lifting at a relatively slow pace. Last Monday, I started to kick it back in gear again and I actually feel pretty good from it. I have a pain in my right heal so I am not able to get back into jogging but I can still do cardio on the elliptical machine.

Just remember, do the work and the rewards will be overwhelming.


5 Related Articles:

1. Devotion To The Need.html
2. Ma Huang What's The Deal
3. What Is The Point
4. Glycemic Index
5. Spoil Yourself

Succeed through substitution

I have been having a hell of a time trying to stay away from sugary foods like ice cream or candy or anything else that you can think of. Whenever the situation arises or the item is placed in front of me, I cannot help myself and I indulge in the treat. I know this is no excuse but my wife is pregnant and we both saw a commercial of McDonalds and we started talk about the French fries. I love the things and so does my pregnant wife. So what do we do about it? I hop into the van and drive over to the fast food establishment and buy two orders of medium French fries and one medium chocolate shake (I dip my fries into the shake…very good.). In the hope of dumping some but not all of the calories, my wife suggested to have half, or so, of my shake. Granted I was not very happy about that but in the end, it was for the best.

So what do I have for a suggestion in trying to stay away from crap like that? Substitution! Whenever you have the urge to indulge your taste buds, try to find something else that you like very much and eat or drink that instead. My substitution is coffee instead of a sugary treat. I love coffee, one would think that I would have a blog on that instead of losing weight and gaining muscle. Every time at work that we have donuts or some sort of treat, I will make a cup or two of coffee with my French press mug. I have come to own a French press mug so I can make my own cup of coffee and not have to worry about the crap that they serve at work.

I have already used the substitution method earlier today. I had two cups of coffee today because someone brought in some candy which ended up in the possession of a coworker. I have to say that the new method of substitution really worked nicely.

5 Related Articles:

1. Devotion To The Need.html
2. Ma Huang What's The Deal
3. What Is The Point
4. Glycemic Index
5. Spoil Yourself

Counting Calories

I had a hit to my ego yesterday. I have been lifting for along time and have had some results to losing body fat. The only thing that I have not done to lose weight is to count calories. I know that calories can prevent, lower, or increase weight. This is one avenue that I have not yet tried so I am going to try this and see what happens. I hope it will allow for my stomach to shrink a little bit because I can eat a lot of food and not gain any weight...as long as I hit the gym every other day of the week. I will keep you posted on the subject.

5 Related Articles:

1. Devotion To The Need.html
2. Ma Huang What's The Deal
3. What Is The Point
4. Glycemic Index
5. Spoil Yourself

Workout Music

This is another ring on music that I wanted to bring up again. I wanted to create a website that has music linked to iTunes and/or another music supplier to common music that other people use for their work out. But once I got into it again, I lost motivation. I have several lists of songs that other people use to workout too and I need to find a better way to display them. I am thinking about using Google spreadsheet to achieve this because I can then transform my spread sheet to that and also include the links. I think that would work.

To Much Water Can Kill

How in the hell can the giver of live, found in all living things, be able able to kill a person because they drank a lot of it. You would think that it would simply just go through your system and come out in your urine....kinda. The body can only get rid of the water at such a rate. Please review this link for water intoxication.

The reason why this post has come about is because a local radio station had a test for the listeners and that was to drink two gallons of water the quickest. A nurse called the radio station to warn them of this terrible challenge and how deadly it was. They said that they were legally secure so the person can perform this challenge. The lady was married and had children and once she got started on the challenge and was almost done, she died of water intoxication. I guess the story of too much of a good thing is not good...actually pertains to this person.

For the pregnant women

I have a friend who is currently pregnant and she was wondering about exercising. Her question was, "Can I still exercise now that I am pregnant?" With all of the doctors that I have talked to and all of the documents that I have read, the answer is yes. You can still exercise but you will start slowing down as you get bigger. One exercise that a pregnant women should stop doing is jogging, because the jaring might hurt the baby. Otherwise exercise equipment that is low impact on the body will be low impact on the baby.

I have read that most women who used to exercise a lot move down to walking a lot. They will try to walk the same length of time as they would jogging or biking. Others want to walk a slow rate but at a longer distance. I would suggest any women to move down to long distance walking at a slow rate. This way you will insure that you are not harming the baby by jogging or anything that jar the body. Increasing the distance and slowing down the speed will also allow you to still burn the calories but doing it at a gentle rate.

MOST IMPORTANTLY! Drink a lot of water during this. You do not want to get dehydrated because that will cause false labor which happened to my wife once. If you have any questions on this please let me know and I can direct you to the right people or site some resources.

Devotion To The Need

I went to the gym yesterday for my back and tricep workout. I noticed about half the total of people were at the gym from Wednesday. These resoluters already gave up or at least didn't have a very aggressive workout schedule. I lift and do cardio every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. My legs were really sore from Wednesday so I only did lifting, but at least I was in the gym doing something.

I, myself, have not been doing the best as far as watching what I eat. It is hard to do so when people bring in donuts and other treats to start off the new year. My department is really bad about it because we just got two new hires and they have to bring in donuts or something as a treat for of the people within the department.

I have still noticed that I have been doing better with my lifts and also with my cardio still. I look at myself in the mirror and I see me still losing the weight and toning up.

Ma Huang - What's the deal?

Is it legal or illegal? Here is where it gets sticky. Ma Huang (Ephedrine) is illegal for dietary use. But is legal for other uses outside of dietary supplements. Though the purchase of the the stuff is monitored very well by the laws that are different from state to state. The one other kicker about Ma Huang (Ephedrine) is the use of the supplement to make methamphetamine. After the "Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005" was approved, the government ordered that all products that contain ephedrine to be monitored and tracked because they could be used to created methamphetamine.

This is another example of Americans being stupid again. We have creatine on the market and people have used and abused that which have related to deaths in the states. Many of the cases are with wrestlers in high school and college using creatine and not drinking enough water so they can make weight. They end up dieing due to dehydration. Creatine pushes the water in your body towards you muscles which them makes you dehydrated. You have to drink more water to equalize the effects of creatine. This is a warning on the bottle which we typically ignore.

I can see the government wanting to get involved and say that we can't eat beef anymore.

New Years Resoluters

I went to the gym tonight and the parking lot was completely filled up. When I saw that I completely laughed my butt off. If this is anything like last year, then we will see this as a common thing for the first two months and at the end of February once the lover has rejected the other partner because they were not able to lose the weight that they set out to, it will all come to an end and the normal regulars will still be their.

There might be a few people that stay on and become the new regulars, but a very small percentage will actually do that.

Losing weight is hard and sometimes the butt of the doer can be kicked to lose the weight because of the new years resolution, but most of the time, it is the people who really want it will start and do it with out a new of a new year.

Start the year off to a funny start.

I saw this clip from Dilbert and being an engineer in a corporate world and also trying to lose body fat I new everyone else would like this clip to.

Monday(1-1-07) post from Dilbert.com.



Tuesday(1-2-07) post from Dilber.com.

Weight Increase - Who gained it?

All right! Who gained the weight over Christmas... I know you are out there. I know I might have place a couple of pounds somewhere but usually after Christmas and New Years, I lose the weight over again and will be back to the usual weight in a couple of weeks.

Now there is a little time to write down what your goals are for the upcoming year. It is a good idea to write down what your goal is for losing weight and/or gaining muscle. I personally have another child on the way and she will be taking up a lot of my time so I might not be able to hit the gym like I normally do but I have an elliptical machine in the basement so I will be spending time on that instead. I guess my wife will finally have what she wanted, me to stop lifting and just do cardio.

BORING! Is my response to that.

I hope everyone has a great New Year and I will talk to you next year.

Weight Management - Why so much explanation

I was asked earlier today about the human body. The question was looking for an exact answer to a human body question. All of the information has not yet been extracted from the human body and I expect that we will not have all of the answers to a complex machine. Because this machine is always changing and adapts to everything and then passes down the adaptations to its children.

The answer that I gave to this person was to have them look into the problem that they want an answer to and think about it on a more simple stand-point. Right then and there, they were able to answer the question about their body and that they need to eat right and smartly for their body to develop in the manner that they want.

Weight Loss - What is the point?

I understand that a person wants to lose weight by cutting down on certain ingredients in order to lose the weight, but in the process they completely cut the taste out of the food and brought it down to the first ingredient. For instance, we wanted to cut the fat and calories out of these cookies that we made. So we cut half of the sugar out of it and then also cut half of the fat out of it. At the end of the day we came up with a new way to warm up a pretzel. The original recipe was to take half of a rolo and place it on a mini pretzel and bake it for 5 minutes. This was to make a cookie which we were going to have for a christmas treat. Well, we cut so much of the candy out of it, that we removed the chocolate and carmel flavor to the treat. Like I said, it now just tastes like a warm pretzel.

My suggestion is to make the treats that you want, just minimize the amount and frequency that you eat them.

Weight Loss - Glycemic Index

Back in May 05, 2006 I talked about how my daughter eats. That she uses her natural instincs in finding the correct food and eat correctly as far as not stuffing herself. I talked to my mother today and she is ona diet that is called the Glycemic Index. The glycemic index (GI) is a ranking of carbohydrates on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the extent to which they raise blood sugar levels after eating. Foods with a high GI are those which are rapidly digested and absorbed and result in marked fluctuations in blood sugar levels. Low-GI foods, by virtue of their slow digestion and absorption, produce gradual rises in blood sugar and insulin levels, and have proven benefits for health. Low GI diets have been shown to improve both glucose and lipid levels in people with diabetes (type 1 and type 2). They have benefits for weight control because they help control appetite and delay hunger. Low GI diets also reduce insulin levels and insulin resistance.

Recent studies from Harvard School of Public Health indicate that the risks of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease are strongly related to the GI of the overall diet. In 1999, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recommended that people in industrialised countries base their diets on low-GI foods in order to prevent the most common diseases of affluence, such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

You can check what the glycemic index is in certain foods by going to this site and typing in the food of your choice, Glycemic Index Database.

The point to this posting is that the glycemic index tells people that if they try to keep the foods as clean and natural as possible, then they have a better chance in losing weight because they are probably eating foods that our bodies have evolved to. our bodies were never intended to eat and digest artificial flavors and sugars. There are chemicals within most foods that I have a hard time pernouncing and that were never indended for our digestion. Keep it simple and your body will love you for it.

Weight Training - Stay on Track!

Just to re-interate the last second to last post. No matter how your friends or family (who see you every day) critzise you that you are not losing weight or looking thinner...stay on track. Keep lifting and doing your cardio like you have been. If you see yourself getting stronger and that cardio training is starting to get easier, then you are doing the right thing. If you are getting stronger then you are gaining more muscle. If you are gaining more muscle and staying the same weight then you are losing fat. If you are gaining more muscle then you are able to burn more calories per time you have been using to do your cardio.

If you feel you are making progress and can see them in the mirror then you need to keep it up. That should be your only motivator and don't rely on what other people think of you. I have been getting more definition slowly but I can see it because at the end of the day, I am my biggest critic.

As a suggestion, if you are not getting as big of a result as you would like and you do not train your legs much, start. Your legs are the largest muscle group on your body and they are the largest consumer of calories than anything else. So work more on getting them bigger and stronger so you can burn more calories and start looking better....in your eyes.

Weight Loss - Spoil yourself!!!!!

Their is one key advise for anyone trying to lose weight.........spoil yourself once in awhile. I know what you are thinking....why eat something that might possibly add to what I am trying to lose.? Here is the answer. When you try to eat very healthy and stay away from the unhealthy items i.e. fast food, candy, or pastries; your hunger for those foods grow and grow. If you let it grow to large and don't try to lower it by having one or two of those things, you will get discuraged and kick off of the diet. It is easier to satisfy those cravings once in awhile so you don't lose site of your goal.

What is your goal anyways? Are you trying to lose weight so you look good, fit so you can play harder and better, or just trying to get that body back so your wife will be physically attracted to you again? If you are trying for any of these eventually you will get there and stay there. But how good would you feel if you didn't get to indulge in some of the good stuff while you look good.

My advise to you is to indulge the temptations just a little bit....moderation. I like to have a special treat once a week. I look forward to Sunday so I can have fried chicken and ice cream, but the rest of the week days I eat sensible and healthy.

So enjoy losing weight but most importantly, enjoy life because we only get one chance at it.