It happens to everyone. You are flying along on your diet, workout routine or both and all of a sudden life becomes too busy or stressful and something has give. For many the first thing on their list is being healthy. It is unfortunate but as I said it happens to everyone from time to time.
It is never a liner path from point A to B. It is more of a pendulum. You swing towards your goal but then you swing back away from it. The best you can hope for is that your forward swings have more momentum than your backward ones, and over the long run you continue to make progress.
As you can see the site has a new look. I really liked the old theme I was using, but I noticed that widescreen youtube videos were getting cut off. As I have been posting a large quantity of videos lately, I thought I should find a theme that can handle them. I hope you like the new look.
I know, I know its a Ludacris title. As a kid I loved swimming, I live on a lake, and always had access to pools. My parents had a pool since I was ten. I would spend the entire summer in it. Sometimes just lounging, sometimes going nuts with my friends and many times swimming laps. Looking back I never had any trouble staying lean until I moved out of my parents house. Some may attribute that to getting older and having a slower metabolism, but I think it had a lot to do with no longer swimming every day.
Well the weather is nice, and the pools are open. I think its time to look more closely at using swimming as a great get in shape workout plan. Swimming strokes are very low impact excercises. It works the entire body. It is great for summer because the water keeps you naturally cool. Also it can be fun and relaxing. There are several types of swimming strokes to choose from.
I see it all the time. People go to the gym and kill themselves for an hour or more then as a reward to themselves they stop for ice cream on the way home. You might as well save yourself the time and money and just skip both. this is why weight loss = diet + exercise.
There have been several studies in the last few years stating that exercise isn’t effective for losing weight. Then came a flood of articles analyzing those studies and concluding that people’s body size is predestined (meaning if you are fat, then you are just meant to be fat). This obviously isn’t true. You only have to watch a season of “The Bigest Loser” to see that people can change their body types, and can make drastic changes with the help of exercise. Diet and exercise and weight loss are all connected.
The Studies weren’t wrong
The Studies didn’t get it wrong, they just had a very narrow focus.
There’s a principle called Pareto’s Principle, more commonly known as the 80/20 rule. What it means in a nutshell is that 80% of your results comes from just 20% of your work. So for instance if you only had a few minutes a day to devote to your fitness, there would be a few exercises that could accomplish most of your workout. I’m not saying you should stop your full length routine for this one. But if you were pressed for time, these would be the best workout routine to do. By varying these three exercises, you can hit nearly every muscle group in your body.
Push Ups.
Push ups have been around for over 100 years, They have been used by the military since after World War II. It seems like Push ups are one of the first exercises people learn, but then they quickly forget.
What push ups work.
Push ups can effectively work the Chest, Triceps, Shoulders, and Abs.
How to do a standard push up.
Start on your hands and knees. Put your hands palms down on the floor directly under your shoulders. Extend your legs out with your feet together and your toes touching the ground. Keep your body as straight as possible. Bend your elbows and go down till your chest is an inch from the ground and push back up. This is a standard push up. It works both your chest and your triceps.
This will probably turn into a series of articles. I don’t know if myth is a good work since starvation mode does actually exist. Like most of these there is a grain of truth to the claims, but for most people in most situations Starvation Mode is a myth. Do you need to worry about Starvation Mode? The short answer is no. For anyone who is overweight or even a healthy weight starvation mode will not be a factor. If you are underweight starvation mode could affect you but you shouldn’t be dieting anyway.
I've got nothing related to this topic, so here's a picture of my puppy.
What people think starvation mode is
It isn’t hammered down, but people think starvation mode kicks in if you consume less than 1200 calories per day. It causes your metabolism to slow to a crawl. Your body stops burning calories, and you stop losing weight, some people even believe you can begin gaining weight if you eat few enough calories (something that violates the laws of physics).
What starvation mode actually is
Starvation mode is what happens when your body runs out of fuel to burn. Your body will feed on 2 things as long as they are available: food you eat and your fat reserves. If these 2 calorie sources are depleted then your body has no choice but to slow down. People become lethargic. They have trouble concentrating, They are laterally running on empty. With no where else to get energy the body will consume muscle and organ tissue to keep going. Body temperature is no longer regulated properly and people can get very cold. Their metabolism does slow to a crawl but that is because there is no more fuel for the fire. I want to hammer this point home. The body doesn’t choose to slow metabolism to conserve energy. Energy is depleted so the body is forced to slow down. This is real starvation and it is probably hell to go through.
When you say something like you should calorie count people look at you like you just told them to give up everything they love. I understand that it can sound like a chore, but there are some simple tips that will make calorie counting much easier to deal with.
First I’d like to talk about why you should calorie count if you are serious about losing weight and getting back in shape. I’ve said this before. If you need to save money the first thing you would do is see how much money you are spending and what you are spending it on. Think of calorie counting as budgeting for weight loss.
These are a few tips to make calorie counting easier.
It seems there are quite a few ways to separate your weight training schedule over the week. For years I did the 3 day split of
Day 1 = Chest and triceps
Day 2 = Back and biceps
Day 3 = Legs and shoulders
Then when I wanted to bump up to 5 days a week I just looped the routine
Day 1 = Chest and triceps
Day 2 = Back and biceps
Day 3 = Legs and shoulders
Day 4 = Chest and triceps
Day 5 = Back and biceps
For the past 3 or 4 months I’ve been doing a 5 day routine that is similar but more targeted.
Day 1 = Chest and shoulders
Day 2 = Back and shrugs (other misc. exercises)
Day 3 = Legs and lower back
Day 4 = Triceps and abs
Day 5 = Biceps and forearms
The reason I do this split is because I always felt that my shoulders never really got a chance to rest. My shoulders would get hit some on chest days, then worked hard on leg days, then worked a bit more on triceps day. I would get sharp pains in my shoulders during my workouts. So now my shoulders get worked hard on day 1, and then worked a little on day 4 and that’s it.
The Dead Simple Advice: There is no right answer, pick a weight training schedule that fits your lifestyle.
So I’d like to tell you a story. This happened to me the other day and it really bothered me. As the weather is getting nicer I am wearing less bulky clothes. One of the ladies in the office asked me if I lost weight. That didn’t bother me obviously. I said yes, I dropped 20 lbs in 12 weeks. She then asked how I did it. I walked her through all the aspects of my diet plan and my exercise regiment. At the end of this long description she looked at me and said “Well you have a fast metabolism…” What!? In 5 words she discounted everything I explained, as well as belittled my 12 weeks of hard work. Now I’ know she didn’t mean anything by it, but it seems like such a dismissive statement.
So I created a Tools section for the site. I plan to flesh it out as the days go on. So far I created a basic BMR Calculator.
BMR Calculator
I did it for the Weight Loss Formulas post. I hope it is useful to my readers. Check it out and let me know what you think. If you have any thoughts for other tools that would be useful please let me know.
