Chronicles: Alan B. Rowley II - Success Warrior - ECoach - P90X

Heat + FUEL + Oxygen = Burned Calories

 

Continuing the discussion (and unfortunately it's going to have to be very short tonight), the next ingredient for burned calories is fuel.

Way too many people are putting sugar in their gas tank. 

It is possible to be overweight, exercise like a madman, and not lose weight (guilty as charged).  With today's calorie bombs, it's very easy to put more calories into your body than you expend.  Not to mention that with our wonderful brains, we are also figuring out how not to do things.  As our technology increases, it becomes more and more important to watch what goes into our bodies.

What goes into the body is more important than exercise but for a high quality of life, I wouldn't leave either one out.

Three of the most important fuel sources are water, fruits, and vegetables.  By increasing the amount of these foods, you will automatically decrease the stuff that may not be as good for you.  This is, in fact, one of the big problems with the Western diet.  It's not just that Big Macs are not good for you (or poisonous in my case), it's that by eating them, you are choosing not to eat something healthy.  Every choice you make is a decision against everything else.  When it comes to food, this presents a double whammy.  By eating cancer causing french fries, you take up space in your stomach that could be used for cancer curing vegetables.  By drinking soda pop that causes symptoms of MS, you are not drinking cleansing and hydrating water.

The good news is that we get to choose.

***

Please remember to support my college efforts by visiting my BeachBody site.

HEAT + Fuel + Oxygen = Burned Calories

  Check out the size of his . . . carabiner.

  You need three things to burn calories: heat, fuel, and oxygen.  Today, we discuss heat because it's the easiest.

Humans are heat generating machines, just like we learned in that great documentary, Matrix.  Everything we do creates heat.  Just being alive creates heat.

We can create more heat by exercising, specifically with resistance exercise.  Aerobic exercise creates heat but ironically, burning calories may not be the biggest benefit of aerobic exercise.

Me, I like to do both at the same time.  Today was a seriously killer plyometric workout.  Do not try this at home if you don't have a strong heart and great knees.  This thing was intense.

I really need to get my video downloading ability fixed because words are not going to do this justice.

We did five exercises with 30 seconds rest between each exercise and we did that 4 times.  It was looking seriously pathetic by the 4th round.

The first was box hops where you hop gently off of a box or other sturdy structure of about chair height.  When you land, you go all the way down until you touch the ground, then spring up into the air.  Step on the box and do it again.  As many times as you can in 60 seconds.

Next we flipped the box on end so that it formed a diamond and we hopped to the corners around the box and the changed directions and went the other way.  Keep going for 60 seconds.  Much harder than it sounds.

Third was what I call knee-touch lunge-jump switches.  A long name for a quick exercise.  Lunge out with one leg and then rest your back knee on the ground (if you have a soft surface).  Jump up in the air and switch your feet and go back down to a knee.  Try doing that for a minute.  I did it for 20 seconds and finished the last 40 seconds by stepping instead of jumping.  Quad burner.

Fourth was jump knee tucks.  Jump up in the air bringing your knees as high as you can in front of you, touching your hands to your legs.  No time limit.  Do as many as you can.  After everything else, I was only able to get 30 per set on these.

Last, and by no means least, lateral box cross-overs.  Stand sideways next to your box (or sturdy chair height structure) and put the closest foot up on the box in the middle.  Jump to the other side of the box so that the foot that was on the box lands on the ground and the foot that was on the ground ends up on the box.  Now go back and forth as fast as you can for 60 seconds.  "As fast as you can" starts to look pretty pathetic around the 40 second mark.

Take 90 to 120 seconds break to wipe the tears sweat out of your eyes and then repeat again.  We did two sets 2 weeks ago, 3 sets last week (when I had food poisoning and was seriously on the verge of heaving it all up), and today we did 4 sets. 

I promise that you will find muscles over the next couple of days that you never knew existed.

Now, I have a special plea for help.  I'm going to be going back to college for the fall semester, probably full-time, which is going to be quite the struggle in so many ways.  One of those ways is financially so I'm going to be asking for help from my readers.  Please support my cause by purchasing something (anything) from my BeachBody site.  They have their great DVD programs, exercise equipment, and nutritional supplements, and all proceeds help me avoid getting a student loan (a worthy cause if I ever did hear).  Thanks.

Artificial Sweetener is still a Sweetener

Besides being unnatural at best and poisonous at worst, most people probably don't understand that the body reacts to artificial sweeteners as if they were a sweetener (which they are - so it makes sense that the body reacts that way).

Trying to sneak sweet food into the system by using artificial sweeteners to get around the bad effects of too much sugar isn't going to work.

The body is still going to release all the chemicals that it would release if sugar were introduced into the system.  So, on top of cancer and brain tumors, you get all the wonderful side effects of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and Type 2 diabetes.

I've seen a few people lose weight switching to diet soda but I've seen more people not lose weight by making the switch.

I'm not sure what it's going to take to get people to give up pop.  It's such a part of American culture.  At what point will people care about their own health enough to stop drinking this stuff as their main hydration method? 

Sword Point Sunday: Made with Love

I recently heard from two different sources, which talk about two very different subjects, that we should be eating food that is made with love.  We should eat food where the goal in the making is to create something of high quality for consumption.  That consumption should bring pleasure to the person partaking in the food.

The point put forth by both authors (one actually speaking about nutrition and the other speaking about spirituality) is that the body will make better use of the food.

Now, there is no doubt that eating home-made, free range, organic, or any other loving or quality way of making food is going to be better for us just because of the lack of chemicals in the food.  Processed food is not actually food.  It's a food-like substitute.

The authors go beyond this point though and say that the energy of the people creating the food is imbued in the actual food and that positive energy has a positive effect on the people that eat it.  Highly processed food comes from an uncaring conveyor belt owned by people who are looking out almost completely for their own bottom line.  They don't care about the health or well-being of the consumer (obviously, because if they did, thousands of food-like substances wouldn't be made since they are poisonous).

What do you think?  Is positive energy added to our food when made with care?  Does it have a positive impact on our health beyond the nutritional value of the food?

A Novel Approach

Do you like the cushioning effects of running on a treadmill but hate the mind-numbing boredom of being a hamster on a wheel, going nowhere?

What if your treadmill had wheels?

 

This is probably harder exercise than just going for a run and really deserves to be in the "Isn't this more work than it's worth?" category but it did give me a smile this morning.

Do Not Try This At Home

Do not try this in the gym.

Do not try this if you have an idiot for a spotter.

Do not try this if enjoy the use of your lower back and would like to continue to use your lower back for the rest of your life.

The squat is one of the all time best exercises you can do.

A stability ball is great for adding core work to your program.

The two should never, ever be mixed.  Never.  Ever.

Thanks Rick for the pic.

Breathless

I had them going good this morning.  I'm not sure what was different about this class than others but they were struggling.  Abs and calves today.  Lots of abs with a little bit of calves thrown in to give the abs a break here and there.

At one point, they all seemed to stall.  I was holding weights for the next exercise and they were just standing there.  Well, not "just" standing, they were also breathing pretty hard but the point is that they weren't moving forward to the next exercise.

"Come on, you can catch your breath after class," I said.

That got a chuckle out of them and got them moving again.

Never Too Late

SAMe's Back-Up

As a cop, we were encouraged to call for back-up for tough situations.  I was known for ignoring that now and again out of a sense of invincibility (that or not caring whether I lived or died, a very calm place to be in dangerous situations by the way). 

By now, you all know about my ankle and my deepest appreciation for SAMe.  In the past, I've tried MSM, chondroitin, and some other things that now escape my weak memory but SAMe has been the only thing that has worked. 

Still, there are the occasional times after running an 8 miler that my ankle is uncomfortable.  Not painful but I'm just reminded that it's not right.  I know that without the SAMe, I probably wouldn't be walking the day after these runs. 

It doesn't happen after every run so I'm not sure what the trigger is.  I should keep a log but I don't quite know what I would be logging.  Length of run, weather, food, shoes?  Dunno.

Anyway, lately I've been coming across (or it's been coming to me in email) a possible back-up officer for SAMe.

Curcumin.

The stuff of curry, which I haven't had in a long, long time.  We used it all the time when we lived in London but there aren't that many Indian restaurants in Wendover (not that many meaning none at all and probably never will be).

Anyway, not one to ignore the Universe, I took a closer look and this stuff seems to have some serious potential.  "[C]urcumin may have antitumor,^[10][11]antioxidant, antiarthritic, anti-amyloid,anti-ischemic^[12], and anti-inflammatory properties," (Wikipedia).  Not only that but it can work to increase mood and decrease fat. 

Antiarthritic and anti-imflammatory.  That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Not that I'm going to turn down the cancer fighting properties but warm weather is arriving and that means more running.  I'm currently running twice a week, weather permitting in my running-pansy state.  If it's too cold or too rainy or too windy, I don't go outside (which is going to lead into another post down the road a bit).  When all that crap quits, not only will I for-sure be running twice a week but the college semester will be over and I'm going to add two more days of running each week.  4 days of running, with some of those runs being 8 miles or longer, means that my ankle has to be kept in tip-top shape.

I started taking this stuff this week and I'll let you know how things go when I dramatically increase my mileage.

As usual, I've linked to what and where I get my supplements but those of you that live in civilization should be able to find curcumin in a health food store or maybe even a grocery store.  We'll probably get a health food store out here about the same time as we get good Indian curry.

If you give it a try, let me know how it works for you.  I like hearing first hand experience on these things from people that I trust.

Make the Bad Man Stop

It's Friday and I just got done with this morning's workout.  The last workout of this month's recovery week.

Recovery week.  Ha!

Each month, I do a week where I don't lift any weights.  This gives all my muscles a chance to heal up from the previous month.  That's the theory anyway and in a large part, it works.

What I choose to do during recovery week can't be called easy by any means.  It's a good thing that sweat hides the tears.

***

Now it's Tuesday and I'm not sure where I was going with that thought.

So far the first two days of this new month of working out have reminded my that recovery week, as tough as it is, really is pleasant, crying and all.

Dah-umm, does my ass hurt! 

We worked legs and biceps yesterday and we worked them hard.  Today, I'm feeling that.  My biceps always recover rather quickly.  Others in the class were not so fortunate and had a hard time getting the shampoo on top of their head.  Reminds me of that joke where the only way the lady could brush her teeth was by setting the toothbrush on the counter, bending over, and moving her teeth over the brush.

Today, was chest and shoulders.  Good gawd!  Have you ever tried to do 10 different kinds of push-ups in one workout while jamming shoulder exercises in the midst of them?  I have.  Killer.  Sometimes when you are at the bottom, you push with all your might and absolutely nothing happens.  You're just laying there in a pile of sweat straining against gravity with everything you've got and pffft, nothing.

Tomorrow is back and triceps.  Triceps should be killer after all of today's push-ups.  It's gonna hurt.  Bad.

And I love it!