Category: Lifestyle

My New Routine & Diet

Routine

Day 1 (30-45 min cardio)
Just pick up something fun like cycling, running, or some sort of team sport.
Day 2 (Push Day – Chest, Triceps, Shoulders)

  1. 5 min chest & shoulder warm up
  2. 3 x 20 pushups
  3. 3 x 15 dumbbell flies
  4. 3 x 10 incline push ups (from chair)
  5. 3 x 20 dips
  6. 3 x 15 skull crushers
  7. 3 x 10 military press
  8. 3 x 10 lateral raise
  9. 3 x 10 front raises
  10. Cool down by statically stretching all muscles worked this day for at least 30 seconds.


Day 3 (Legs & Abs–super set–no rest between sets)

  1. 5 min legs & abs warm up–bicycles are a good option.
  2. 3 x 20 squats (with dumbbells on shoulders)
  3. 3 x 10 leg raises
  4. 3 x 15 leg curls on the swiss ball
  5. 3 x 20 crunch on swiss ball
  6. 3 x 20 lunges (with hanging dumbbells)
  7. 3 x 20 side crunch (both sides)
  8. 3 x 20 calf raises
  9. 3 x 20 jackknives on swissball
  10. Cool down by statically stretching all muscles worked this day for at least 30 seconds.

Day 4 (Pulling Day – Back, Biceps, Lats)

  1. 5 min back bicep lats warm up.
  2. 3 x 10 pull ups
  3. 3 x 10 isolated curls
  4. 3 x 20 shrugs
  5. 3 x 10 rear deltoid raises
  6. 3 x 20 rows
  7. 3 x 20 dead lifts
  8. 3 x 20 back extension
  9. 1 x 10 pull ups (optional)
  10. Cool down by statically stretching all muscles worked this day for at least 30 seconds.


Day 5: Rest
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Repeat from Day 1
 

Diet

Breakfast: Three eggs (boiled or fried), 1 bowl of oatmeal with milk and cinnamon and 1 cup of black tea.
Lunch: Half a salad, a portion of complex carbs (brown rice, whole wheat bread, sweet potato, etc), a good portion of protein and one cup of black tea.
Afteroon Snack: 1-3 servings of fruit, yogurt or nuts.
Dinner: Half a salad, a portion of complex carbs (brown rice, whole wheat bread, sweet potato, etc), a good portion of protein and one cup of black tea.
Evening Snack: 1-3 servings of fruit, yogurt or nuts.
 

Guidelines

  1. Find the heaviest dumbbell you can lift 10 times with good form. You can get cheap ones on Craigslist.
  2. If the workout is not followed by a meal, make sure to replenish your energy with 1 fruit and a yogurt or some other form of fast digesting protein.
  3. Train yourself to eat slowly and stop eating a soon as you are no longer hungry–even if there is food remaining on your plate. When creating portions for yourself opt for less (but enough to satisfy), and add more if you’re still hungry. Once there’s more food on your plate it’s hard to stop.
  4. Keep a water bottle at your desk. I refill mine about 4-5 times a day. It’s especially important to stay hydrated during your workout. I drink about 3 cups per workout.
  5. And finally, everything in moderation, including moderation.

Paleo Doubts of Mine

Plain Oatmeal
Plain Oatmeal

1 Banana
1 Banana

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
For those unfamiliar with the Paleo Diet, the premise is simple; you simply eat whatever your hunter-gatherers ancestors ate before the advent of agriculture. This means removing all grains, legumes and dairy from your diet. Leaving you with lots of vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, fowl, nuts and healthy oils. The rationale behind this diet is that it takes a long period of time (something like 10,000 years) for a species to adopt a new diet, and we haven’t passed that threshold yet. Paleo advocates also claim that some components of grains are actually toxic and detrimental to overall health.
I’ve gone Paleo for the past 8 days in an attempt to optimize my health and nutrition. For the first few days it seemed to be a welcome change; I’ve lost the need to have to munch on something every couple of hours and maybe even felt a bit more energized. But recently I started getting strong carb cravings and feelings of malnourishment. I should note that in tandem with this diet, I am also working out pretty rigorously following my usual routine. So that might be causing my body to crave more carbs.
In keeping up with the Paleo guidelines, I end up binging on fruits and tubers. All this consumption of Paleo-aproved carbs got me thinking if the diet is sound. By comparing the nutritional facts we learn that a single banana has more carbs than a bowl of oatmeal! Is this Paleo thing really ligit?! I am being unfair — Paleo enthusiasts do suggest limiting your fruit intake. But what would be the harm in replacing my morning banana with a bowl of delicious oatmeal?
Reading through Mark Sisson’s The Primal Blueprint reveals some holes in his biological rationale for going “primal” (Mark’s cooler version of Paleo). He mentions that a high carb diet leads to an over-production of insulin. Which, in turn, causes cells to become unreceptive to glucose — causing malnutrition and the buildup of body fat. But fruits have carbs too!
Dylan Klein does an amazing job at explaining the flaws of The Paleo Manifesto.
Coincidentally positive results from going Paleo might just be some sort of placebo effect taking place. If I recall the statistics correctly, more people heal from placebo drugs compared to actual ones. So there you have it!

Top Fitness Tips

  1. When strength training move very slowly up and down. This helps you gain muscle mass and prevent injury due to good form.
  2. Workout exercises that target the same muscle group together.
  3. Eat eggs or oatmeal for breakfast, to avoid hunger later in the day.
  4. Drink plenty of water throughout the day.
  5. Do different exercises on different days. Your muscles need rest, if you do the same exercises everyday they will adjust to the work outs and you won’t be seeing the results you expect.
  6. Eat high fiber foods like fruits and vegetables. Fiber is the best way to get full for the lowest calorie count.
  7. Eat whole grains. They digest slower and keep you full for longer periods of time.
  8. Avoid junk food. For a funny video on the problems with junk food check out: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66boOY4xXGU
  9. Don’t drink calories.
  10. Eat snacks between meals.
  11. Working out at home is a lot easier if you’re too lazy to go to the gym. It is also a lot cheaper.

How to Commit to a Healthy Habit – The 21 Day Challenge

Commiting to a new habit may seem difficult. And any failures along the way may lead to discouragement.
The idea of the 21 Day Challenge has been floating around the blog world for quite some time. Basically you pick a single challenge and attempt to implement it for 21 straight days. Since the goal is a short period of time, psychologically it appears to be a lot easier. Once the 21 days have passed the habit becomes routine. You should only take on 1 challenge at a time.
Some 21 day challenges for you to try:

  1. The Ultimate Full Body Workout.
  2. The Perfect Diet/Meal Plan.
  3. Cut out all media besides music.
  4. Eat Slowly.
  5. Good Posture.
  6. Kick coffee.
  7. Don’t eat 3 hours before bed time.
  8. No instant messaging.

For more challenges google is your friend.

The Ultimate Full Body Workout Routine

After reading books and articles on proper exercises that workout your body entire I believe I have come up with the ultimate routine:

All the exercises here can be done with the Complete Home Gym for Under $100.
I use cardio to kill two birds with one stone: Cardio in and of itself and a full body warm up. Jogging around your neighborhood for 15-20 minutes should be enough.
Regarding stretching there is a lot of controversy of whether you should do it before or after you work out. To avoid any issues I simple don’t do any stretches on Day 1 and Day 3 and simply stretch my entire body with yoga on Day 2. I found the P90x version masculine enough for those of you who feel that yoga is too feminine. I can finally reach my toes!
Check out this page for a complete list of yoga poses if you do not feel like purchasing the dvds: http://www.sheerbalance.com/brettsblog/p90x-yoga-poses-tony-horton/
 

The Outline

Day 1 – Cardio + Abs/Core

15-20 min cardio

Core Excercises

  • 20 kettlebell swings
  • hip thrusts on the swiss ball
  • Plank for 50 seconds
  • 10 Side plank rotations on each side
  • 10 Leg raises on the iron gym (requires the straps)

Swiss ball exercises

  • 20 swiss ball myotatic crunch
  • 20 swiss ball back crunch
  • 20 swiss ball side crunches
  • 30 swiss ball russian twists
  • Super Man on the swiss ball for 30 seconds
    20 swiss ball jack knives

Ab exercises

  • 20 plain crunches with legs on the swiss ball
  • 20 V situps
  • 10 reverse crunches
  • 50 bicycle crunches

It might look like a lot but each set of repetitions takes under 1 minute or less so one complete round takes about 20 minutes if you don’t rest in between reps.

Day 2 – Yoga from the P90x series

Day 3 – Cardio + Strength Training

Shoulders

  • Pull ups
  • Military Presses
  • Lateral Raises

Legs

  • Calf Raises
  • Lunges
  • Squats
  • Swiss ball wall squats
  • Dumbbell Dead-Difts

Chest

  • Pushups
  • Incline bench press using the swiss ball
  • Swiss ball push ups
  • Swiss ball dumbbell flies

Back

  • Rows
  • YTWL back exercises on the swiss ball

Arms

  • Dumbbell Kick-Back
  • Curls
  • Dips

For videos of the above exercises check out part 2 and part 3.
There you have it!