Crossfit Workout

Thanks to Bren... ugh...

We did a crossfit benchmark in this morning's conditioning class. The workout consisted of the following:

• 75 Side to side medicine ball swings
• 75 Dips on a bench
• 75 Pushups
• 75 Sit ups with ankle slaps
• 75 Squats

The goal was to finish all of the above in 20 minutes or less doing everything with the best form possible. Initially the reps were set at 100, but Bren lowered the number due to moans and groans from the class.

Personally, I think 100 would have been way more challenging. Not to say that 75 is not hard, but I think 100 would have put me closer to 20 minutes. Anyway... here are my times:

My times were:

• Medicine ball swings: 2:20
• Dips: 1:30
• Pushups: 3:17 - I had to drop to my knees here as I started failing out at 50.
• Sit ups: 4:08 - by far the longest for me. These were really hard for some reason. I guess I need to so more sit ups instead of crunches.
• Squats: 1:49

Total time (rounded milliseconds): 13:06 (2nd in the class, I am sure 3rd if Bren were working out)

We've got a really busy weekend lined up. Here's the brief to-do:

Saturday:

• Morning KF.
• Afternoon KF seminars (candle training and mantis form).
• Victoria photo shoot.
• Jim Gaffigan 7pm @ The Paramount.

Sunday:

• Not sure here, but I am assuming we will work more on Christmas preparations i.e. mailing out cards and finishing up shopping for the extended family.

I can't freaking wait for my vacation time the week after next.

Health and Nutritional Things

So last night, I had a whole conversation with my mother regarding health and fitness. She has been going to the YMCA since the beginning of the year, but from what she tells me, has gotten minimal results.

After finding out what her routine was (spinning and weights multiple times per week resulting in over 1 hour stays in the gym), I had a few thoughts:

• Ineffective cardio. Her body is probably used to the spinning classes.
• Ineffective targeted weight training. Spot training doesn't work.
• Diet. Diet. Diet. - If you are working out a lot (albeit possibly the wrong way, but activity nonetheless) and not seeing any results at all, a close look at diet is warranted.

I then went on a tangent about how we all lie to ourselves about what we eat. I do this all the time, apparently, now that I think of it. The times when I say, "oh a little of this is ok" or "I worked out hard today"... those are mostly bad and I, like you probably, am lying to myself about just how bad something is for me. I say mostly bad because you cannot be a food nazi at all times. You have to allow yourself the things you really like, but you have to earn them.

Anyway, I recommended to her that she keep a food log to see just what she is eating. I didn't suggest to actually change anything, just start logging which will enable her to see, from an empirical standpoint what exactly she is ingesting. Recognizing this deficiency in myself I too decided to start logging my food today. In the past, I have done this with just pen and paper, but that eventually failed because I got tired of carrying it around with me. In light of that I decided to re-purpose my mobile blog from well, mobile blog to food log.

Using my iPhone, I will upload an image of everything that goes into this fat mouth of mine for the world to see. Actually, I just like that it auto-tags the food with the date and time. Even if I am out  somewhere, all I have to do is take a picture of it so that I can remember it. Later, I can go back into the blog and edit the details of what I actually ate. I only have one thing on there right now, but if you want to check it out or RSS it, feel free. The address is http://bmgfoodlog.blogspot.com.

Hopefully, this will help me to better understand in total what I am ingesting.

I am pissed off that I didn't go to conditioning class this morning. I hurt my shoulder last Friday in a very lame attempt to do a shoulder roll, which pretty much resulted in me crashing into the freakin' ground shoulder first. It's still giving me some trouble when I move it in different directions, so I decided to take the safe option and let it rest for a few more days.

I will be going to black belt class tomorrow morning to be sure I don't fall behind in the material. After that, Victoria will be testing for her senior blue belt in TKD. She feels like she is not ready, but I think I have more confidence in her than she does =).

Up for this weekend, I think Madagascar 2 is being seen tonight. There's a UFC tomorrow. Not sure where/if we are going to watch that. The Shaolin open house is tomorrow which we may or may not get to. It depends on when Victoria is finished with her testing. Sunday is the sparring festival at the Shaolin school as well. I don't think I will be sparring due to my shoulder but I would definitely like to go, watch, and support.

Have a great weekend.

iPhones and eating out...

So, if you have been keeping up with Victoria's blog, you will see that she recently got the new 3G iPhone. Yay!

What does that mean for yours truly? I now have her old, err, classic, 2G iPhone... and I have apps. Tons and tons of apps! One of those apps is called "Restaurant" and I learned some startling shit a few nights ago.

This application basically lets you pick a restaurant to view nutritional information about the food that they serve at said restaurant. Wow...

So, I like Chili's and Cheddar's from time to time. I also will go to Wendy's if I am in a pinch. Particularly, at Cheddar's or Chili's I will almost ALWAYS get the Buffalo Chicken Salad. After viewing this information, I doubt this will be the case going forward.

Check this crap out:

Wow... that's close to being as bad as a burger or something. Holy crap! Here is an example of something I will not be eating again. I guess it's easy to think that just because it's a salad and has leafy things in it, it is not so bad for you, but... wow.

When I looked up the stuff from Wendy's I found out that nutritionally it's not that bad for you. Well, the stuff that I usually order is not that bad for you. Usually, I get the small chili and a side salad. That results in about 550 calories, and, if I picked a better dressing, not TOO much fat. Once you add in the chicken nuggets, it's just as bad (if not worse) as the salad above. Didn't see that coming. Check this:

If, for shits and giggles, we take a look at a Caesar salad with vinaigrette dressing, we see a vast improvement:

Conclusion:

What I thought was "not so bad" for me actually is. Damnit.

Moving forward:

• No more buffalo chicken salad, which forms the logical conclusion of no more salads with friend chicken of any kind. Stick to grilled.
• No more ranch dressing. Stick to vinegar based dressings. Too much fat in ranch dressing.
• Make my own damn buffalo chicken... wow.

I don't even want to touch a burger at this point. I did at some point know how bad this shit is for you, but for some reason, the severity of exactly HOW BAD this is to eat had become decreased in my head. This was a very good reminder as I am known to eat the occasional fast food burger from time to time.

Here's an example of Wendy's baconator. This is something that looks delicious to me. In fact, as much as I hate to admin it, I actually felt myself start to salivate in just visualizing the commercial for this. Sick how that works, but that's an entirely different blog post. Here are the facts (bad bad):

Ok... I guess I should pay attention to this conference call now. BE CAREFUL WITH WHAT YOU EAT WHEN YOU ARE OUT!!!

Hell yea, Ross!

I love this post. I don't even need to add any comments to it! Enjoy.

Fruit Doesn’t Need Fizz!

June 09th, 2008 | Category: Nutrition

I wasn’t happy when I found this story in my local newspaper.

Carbonation Gives Fruit A Fizz

Twenty Connecticut school districts (where I happen to live) are pushing a new Fizzy Fruit product to our children.  As stated within the story above, Fizzy Fruit are pieces of apples, oranges, and grapes that have been pumped with carbonation to give them a soda taste.  The food management contractor (Sodexho) who added these snacks to the menu hopes that “it will turn kids on to fruit.”

How did kids ever become turned off to fruit in the first place?  My son is 2 years old.  If you lined up 10 different foods, he’ll go for the fresh fruit every time.  In his eyes, fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and grapes are treats.  There is no need to add carbonation to a fruit that is already a treat.

Go look at the junk food at your local grocery store.  Many of the sweets are fruit flavored.  Why do you think the food manufacturers choose fruit flavors?  Simple answer, fruit tastes good (so the kids will like it) and seeing fruit in the label fools many parents into believing the snacks are healthy.  Unfortunately, most of these fruit snacks are everything but healthy.  Need an example?  No problem…

Indiana Jones Fruit Snacks

Let’s look at the ingredients:

CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, APPLE PUREE CONCENTRATE, WATER, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, GELATIN, CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF CITRIC ACID, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, COLOR ADDED, COCONUT OIL, CARNAUBA WAX, YELLOW #5, RED #40, SODIUM CITRATE, BLUE #1.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this snack is everything but natural.

Where do our kids go wrong?  Why do we need to fool them with soda?  Why are kids drinking soda anyway?  Who buys the soda for these kids?  Why don’t parents start leading from the front?  Who does the shopping?  Who makes the decisions?

My wife is involved with two mother’s groups with area kids.  We’ve had several play groups in the last two years.  All of the kids love fruit.  The fruit platters never last long.  It’s clear in my eyes that kids are naturally inclined to enjoy eating fresh fruit.  Fresh fruit is a treat.  Kids shouldn’t need to be fooled back into eating fruit.  We as parents should be providing fresh fruit all along.     

There is no soda in my home.  Fresh fruit is a snack.  It’s a treat for me, and it’s a treat for my son.  My son has a long way to go before he’s doing his own grocery shopping.  There won’t be any soda treats in this house.

It’s one thing to ignore sound nutritional advice when you are stuffing your own face, but it’s irresponsible when you do this to your own kids.  No one is born with knowledge.  Responsible parents need to make some time to learn the facts about sound nutrition.

I didn’t know anything about being a parent before my son was born.  I read everything that I could however to learn as much as I could beforehand.  The information is there if you take the time to look.  The “I’m too busy” excuse is beyond old.  News flash, we are all busy in today’s world.  When it comes to raising our children, busy doesn’t cut it.

Ross

IF

(Intermittent Fasting)

So, I finally got to read the book "EatStopEat" and I loved it. I won't spoil all of the good parts (so you read it hehe), but what I really enjoyed the most was how the author (Brad Pilon) dispelled common myths and misconceptions about how fast effects the body. To date, I had subscribed to the common knowledge that, well, everyone else does.

Suffice it to say, I am going to be trying this theory out. Actually, I am trying it today. Victoria offered to try it with me which, I thought was really cool. So, we stopped eating at around 930pm last night. The next time I will be eating is at the Alamo Draft House tonight when we are watching Indiana Jones.

The basic idea behind this is as follows:

"Diets" or "eating plans" most often fail in the long term. Sure, in the short term, they might work really well. How many of you have tried the "South Beach Diet" or the "Abs Diet"? I have. I got pretty good results for the first couple of months, then pretty much said "fuck it, this is way too much work", and went back to whatever I was doing before I started.

FAIL.

Some of the myths/misconceptions that this book speaks to are:

• the idea that fasting will kill your metabolism.
• the idea that you will lose muscle mass from fasting.
• that eating 6-8 times per day will "stoke" your metabolism.
• why eating "plans" or "diets" typically fail once you extend the observation period.

The bottom line is that reading this book really made me think about some of the ideas that I have accepted as conventional wisdom. What I like even better is that the claims that are made are backed up by scientific studies and data. They are not just said and expected to be accepted. I would recommend this book to anyone, if nothing more than to just have some new ideas to think about in the health/nutrition arena.

It is currently 11:13am. I have not eaten anything since 9:30pm last night. Overall, I feel just fine. I do feel some pangs of hunger, but they come and go. I am trying to not think about it. Ultimately, I would like to be able to do this 2x/week.

Which brings me to talking about some things that I am doing to get ready for my next test.

1. Josh Hillis fighter workout which is 3x/week (starting on Monday).
2. Lots of jump rope.
3. Lots of form practicing.
4. San He Chuan 3x/day ( I am shooting for 3x/day, we shall see how that pans out ).

Anyway, to sum up, right now, I am about 205-210 depending on what day and what scale. As I move forward with the above AND with IF, I will post changes, if any.