Diet Not Exercise, Backlash?

Simon Owens: "Written by Time Magazine's John Cloud, the article loosely strings together a series of anecdotes and studies to argue that exercise, in the end, isn't worth all the hype. It even goes further to suggest that in addition to not causing weight loss, exercise can actually result in weight gain because of increase hunger after workouts." - Simon is talking about the same Time Magazine article I'd written about a couple weeks back. I guess it produced quite a bit of backlash. It's nice to see him address it.

Labels: food, Supplements, Training

Diet, not exercise, is the key.

Time.com: "As I write this, tomorrow is Tuesday, which is a cardio day. I'll spend five minutes warming up on the VersaClimber, a towering machine that requires you to move your arms and legs simultaneously. Then I'll do 30 minutes on a stair mill. On Wednesday a personal trainer will work me like a farm animal for an hour, sometimes to the point that I am dizzy - an abuse for which I pay as much as I spend on groceries in a week. Thursday is "body wedge" class, which involves another exercise contraption, this one a large foam wedge from which I will push myself up in various hateful ways for an hour. Friday will bring a 5.5-mile run, the extra half-mile my grueling expiation of any gastronomical indulgences during the week." - Basically the article eludes to the fact that exercise burns calories, and makes you hungry. So, if you're not watching what you eat it can be counter productive. Proper diet and exercise are a great combination. If you're going to Chipotle daily and trying to shed pounds, you're probably not going to make much headway. If you limit those visits and have a reasonable diet 90% of the time, you're probably going to make progress.

As I've gotten older, I'm nearing 42, it's become more difficult to shed pounds. Back in my mid-30's I could stop drinking sugary soda and drop five to ten pounds quickly, not anymore. I'm now on a reduced calorie diet, 2000 calories per day, until I can shed 30-lbs. My goal is to be a trim 240, possibly back to 230 depending on what I see when I reach 240, not so easy to achieve. Watching calorie intake is difficult, it's a constant struggle, one in which I've had failures. Last night I couldn't take it anymore and I had two cheese enchiladas, rice, and beans from our favorite mexican joint. That's OK, I failed for 1/3 of my day. Today I'll pickup where I left off and continue the fight.

The plus side is, I love the gym. My daily training has changed in two ways. I have to up my cardio to 60 minutes a day, up from 20, and I'm doing yoga with my lovely wife twice a week. The cardio thing is what's killing me. It's a huge time commitment. Instead of and hour-and-a-half in the gym I'm now committing two hours to the gym, three on days I do yoga. Another change, I only did cardio on lift days, four days a week. Now I'm supposed to do cardio seven days a week. Something I haven't been able to achieve in the two weeks I've been on this new program. The encouraging thing is I've lost weight, about one pound per week, which is healthy and steady. I'm aiming for one to two pounds a week, which can lead to eight pounds a month, at which rate I should reach my 240 goal sometime in November, toward the end. Even if it takes into the beginning of the year, I'm ok with that. Healthy weight loss is the goal, you can't lose it too quickly or you'll put it right back on.

Labels: food, Life, Training

BMI == bad

NPR: "But you may want to take those findings - and your next meal - with a grain of salt, because they're based on a calculation called the body mass index, or BMI." - Ahh, it's about time someone gave us a good set of reasons to hate the BMI. It's bogus! Problem is too may people use it today to determine if you're obese, or better yet morbidly obese.

Here are some BMI fatty's for you, just so you get the "real" picture.

Brian Urlacher - BMI of 31.4. Obese. 6'4 258lbs.
Ronnie Coleman - BMI of 44.6. Obese, super fatty! 5'11 320lbs.
Mariusz Pudzianowski - BMI of 41.2. Obese, another super fatty! 6'1 312lbs.

I think you get the picture.

Labels: Life, Training

It's just too heavy, mommy.

Chris Pirillo: "Understand, I’m completely happy with my Macbook 17? notebook computer; even though it’s a bit heavy to lug around, it certainly gets the job done (with plenty of screen real estate to boot)." - We've become a culture of girly men. Sorry Chris. I have a 17" MacBook Pro, it's not heavy. I'd recommend a post on gym membership discounts, and also recommend you workout daily. It'll make you feel better and that heavy MacBook won't be so heavy after a while.

I'm sorry if this sounds mean. I just don't get the whole "It's too heavy" argument.

Oh, if you want a super duper light option, try an OQO. Too bad it doesn't ship with Mac OSX.

Labels: Life, Training

Losing Weight

Get Fit Slowly: "This morning, I hit another magical 10 pound increment. Since November 1, I’ve managed to drop 30 pounds. That’s 31 weeks and 30 pounds for those of you counting. And even though I complain a lot, I really couldn’t be much happier. I’m fitter, lighter, and healthier than I was 8 months ago–a statement that I haven’t been able to say in a very long time. I’m hoping to keep that streak going for a very long time to come." - This is the hardest thing in the world to do! I want to lose fat, not weight, and I've had a heckuva time doing it. I drop ten, then gain it back. Maybe Get Fit Slowly can help.

Labels: Sports, Training, Weights

Weight management, healthy eating

Powering Muscles: "Powering Muscles is an online nutrition information resource for athletes. Our mission is to help athletes improve their health, fitness and performance through nutrition. We achieve this aim by providing sports nutrition tips from leading experts, cutting-edge interactive tools, frequent sports science updates, and opportunities to communicate directly with fellow athletes and sports nutrition experts."

Fat Fighting Foods - Gotta join, but it's free.

Labels: Meals, Supplements, Training

Supplements and Steroids

Champion Nutrition: "Champion Nutrition can assure you that we are NOT one of the 25% that were found to contain these banned substances. In fact Champion Nutrition is one of only 4 companies currently having our products tested by “Informed Choice” to assure our customers that our products remain free of these banned substances." - I like what Champion has done. They've submitted their products for testing so we know they're not contaminated with stimulants or steroids.

So, the big question for me is, where can I find the list of supplements found to contain stimulants or steroids? I take a bunch of different supplements every day, including products from Champion Nutrition.

Here's a USA Today article on the problem, it contains a list of supplement policies for major US sporting associations.

Labels: Protein, Supplements, Training

GI

Michael Montignac GI Pioneer.

We're going to give this a try and see if it will help cut me down the fat on my body. The goal is to stay around 250-260, make it solid, and reduce the gut. In the end I may drop off to 230-240, and that'll be fine.

Labels: Diet, Training

Training Sheet

Corrie Haffly: "At one of our old gyms, they offered free ugly forms that you could use to track your weight training routine, which were useful to track your progress as well as remember how much weight you were using on various exercises." - I've downloaded Corrie's sheet to give it a go. I keep a simple home spun sheet to track my progress, but this one is so much nicer.

I think I'm going to have to modify it a bit to fit my current routine, but it's a super nice start.

Thanks Corrie.

Labels: Training, Weights