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One of the most common reasons I hear not to exercise is lack of time due to work. People are always saying “I work too much, I can’t find time for a work out” when I tell them how I work out during the day. Even when I explain to them the benefits of working out and how it can actually increase productivity, they still don’t think their boss would ever agree. So here are a few things to consider.

The Rising Cost of Healthcare

Health care is one of the fastest growing expenses we have. Each year we pay more for our health treatment and our health insurance. Our employers here in the US bear much of that expense. A small investment in employee fitness and health can result in major savings for a company. The Boston Globe recently ran a piece about employers who provide health incentives and it found an amazing return on investment, in some cases as high as 10 to 1.

Team Building

How many times has your company tried various team building exercises and how many times have you thought they were pretty damn stupid?  Well, fitness can be an excellent team building exercise.  The weekly office soccer match, the afternoon group jog or the morning workout with coworkers are all group activities that build personal relationships while increasing fitness.

Productivity

One of the worst productivity breakers is stress, the feeling that we’re not getting enough done and never getting it done on time.  It’s a vicious cycle that feeds on itself as the stress causes us to complete even less thereby causing even more stress.  Regular breaks, even shorts one, tend to break down stress and make us more productive.  Short walks during which we don’t think about work help us refocus on our minds and make us more productive when we do come back to work.

Fear Is The Only Thing Stopping You

Yep, you’re afraid.  Afraid that your boss will think you’re lazy and just want to get out of work.  You’re afraid that your coworkers will think your ideas are stupid.  You might even fear losing your last remaining excuse not to exercise.  I suppose all of these issues could be true, I know some were for me.  Just remind yourself that your boss and your coworkers are in the exact same situation as you.  Some of them have found a solutions for their health, some of them are just as desperate for one as you are.  Even your boss might be wondering how to best shed those few last pounds he put on over the holidays last year.

So come up with a few ideas and pitch them to your boss and then to your HR department.  It doesn’t have to be something revolutionary like building an endless wave pool in the company lobby.  It doesn’t even have to cost the company much money.  Just make sure to show them what the benefits are and how this could help the company be more efficient and productive.

So How Can Employers Help?

Some ideas to suggest:

• Subsidizing gym memberships for employees - The company pays out a relatively minor amount of money for a potentially significant return in lower health care costs.  Find a local gym, ask them about membership prices and whether or not they have package deals.  You’ll usually find a great bargain for groups or companies.
• Subsidizing public transportation tickets - Encourage people to walk or bike more.  The cost is extremely low and your company could use the environmentally friendly PR.
• A weekly office sport - Perhaps a soccer or basketball game you play once a week at a regular time.  Those are easy to arrange, don’t require much equipment and almost anyone can play. Just find a local park or field and choose a time.  These activities require a very low level of effort to set up.
• A company hired personal trainer - No, I’m not saying the company should hire a trainer just for you.  Make it a team activity.  Company pays for a trainer and then sends multiple people to work out with that trainer once or twice a week.  It’s a great team building activity.
• Company fitness challenges - Get a group together and set up some kind of fitness challenge.  Maybe an interdepartmental competition of some kind.  Another great team builder with very low costs for the company.

Whatever it takes, find a way to make your employer see that employee health and fitness is something they should worry about.  It’s in their best interest to have healthy employees and if you can find ways to accomplish that for a relatively low resources investment, you’re likely to have a pretty happy employer.

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I spent an hour watching TV the other day and now I remember why I hate it. Nothing but mindless crap interspersed with commercials trying to convince you to spend money on things you don’t need. In the thirty minutes I saw a commercial that suggested ordering pizza makes you a good dad, three advertisements for fast food and two commercials for cholesterol controlling drugs. I wonder if anyone but me saw the irony in that. Here’s a thought, turn off the TV and go do something active and productive.

And with that little rant, here are this week’s articles I thought you might be interested in:

From the Chicago Tribune, we have this article about Volumetrics being the best diet out there. I think they’re right and wrong.  Right because it’s the most effective plan out there.  Wrong because it’s not a diet. It is simply a book that educates you about food. I highly recommend reading The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan if you want to know more about food and how to make intelligent choices about it.
@Chicago Tribune

And while we’re on the topic of effective weight loss plans, the Diet Blog has 7 tips for how to spot weight loss scams. Speaking of which, I’m still trying to weed out all those “lose 40lbs in 2 weeks” ads from 60 in 3. The more of them I get rid of, the more pop up!
@The Diet Blog

On the exercise front, here’s an article from Fit Sugar which I found useful. It’s a short and practical guide for starting a weight training routine. It seems to be geared towards women but I think men can benefit from reading it as well. If you want more information on building a workout you can find it in these previous 60 in 3 series about designing a workout and a sample 4 day routine.
@Fit Sugar

And for you advanced gym goers, here’s an article from That’s Fit about the workout routine that the actors on the movie The 300 used to get in shape. Personally, it sounds little crazy, but I’m actually thinking of trying it out for a week as a change of routine. If anyone has tried this one out, let me know.
@That’s Fit

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I like group writing projects. For those of you who are not aware of what they are, it’s when another blog out there picks a topic and then recruits other bloggers to write about it. Well, the Litemind blog has come up with a very simple topic for their group writing project, list posts. So with no further ado, here’s my entry.

10 Ways To Work Through Your Workout

We’ve all been there, we’re working out and we just can’t get into it. We’re bored, we want the workout to end and we’re about to pack our stuff up and go home. Even people who really enjoy work outs (like me) sometimes have moments like this. So here are a quick 10 tips to making sure you don’t quit.

#1 - Music - Music is one of the best methods for making a workout go by faster. You’ve all seen the legions of iPod wearing gym goers out there and I have to admit that I’m one of them. Put some ear phones on, pick a fast pace play list and you’re set. The rhythm will keep you moving and singing along to your favorites will help the time go by. Just try to avoid music that’s too slow since our bodies do tend to adjust to the rhythms around us. And if you see me at the gym humming the words to Bon Jovi’s “You give love a bad name”, feel free to smile and sing along.

#2 - Bring a partner - Nothing will make the workout go by faster than having someone to talk to. Don’t just talk about the workout, have an actual conversation. Talk about your favorite movie, recent events, how you feel at work. Whatever it takes, just keep up a conversation. You’ll be surprised when you reach the end of your workout without even noticing.  If you forgot to bring your partner, why not strike up a conversation at the gym?  Don’t be rude about it but I’m betting you find many others at the gym who enjoy talking while working out.

#3 - Podcasts - When you work out, your muscles are being used but your mind is idle. Why not put those idle cycles to good use by listening to something? NPR transmits most of their programs via podcasts these days and iTunes offers up hundreds of other options. How about listening to the news? Learn some new words in Spanish? You can even listen to entertainment programs. I love listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me while I’m working out. There was this one time it made me laugh so hard I dropped a weight on my foot, but otherwise it’s been perfect for making me look forward to my time at the gym instead of dreading it.

#4 - Set A Speed Goal - How quickly do you finish your workout? For me, I do my weight training in about 35 minutes. If I’m really bored, I’ll see how much faster I can do it. My best time so far is around 25 minutes. Sounds silly but it keeps you focused on the workout instead of thinking of all the things you could be doing elsewhere.

#5 - Audio Books - Another good method of occupying your mind while you work out. Audio books are available from a variety of sources and in multiple formats. How about reading that new Harry Potter while you lift weights? Why not set up a regular routine where you listen to a chapter of some book each workout? It might make you look forward to the workout rather than dread it.

#6 - Charm - Why are you working out? Is it to lose weight? To look better? Maybe it’s because you want to spend more quality time with your kids but just can’t keep up with them in your current shape. Whatever your reason is, bring something with you to the gym that will remind you of it. For me, it’s my wedding band. I want to be in shape because I want to spend many many happy years with my wife. If I get unmotivated, that wedding band reminds me of why I’m there.

#7 - Group Workouts - For us solitary gym goers, a group workout can be quite a surprise. Whether it’s a spinning class, an aerobics session or just a bunch of people working out together with a personal trainer, groups can motivate the individual members.

#8 - TV - Yep, you heard me right, TV can help you workout. How you say? After all, TV is the dreaded enemy of personal fitness, numbing your mind while expanding your ass. Well, TV does have one primary quality and that is its ability to completely distract your brain. I time my gym visits so I always get on the treadmill at 3pm because the treadmills at my gym all have built in TV’s. One Law & Order rerun later and I’m done. It’s silly, but I get so into the program that I barely notice the fact that I’m running.

#9 - Problem Solving - I usually go to the gym during the work day, and one of the things I’ve found that really helps me get through a tough workout is focusing on a work issue. Maybe I’m trying to decide how to implement a new feature or maybe I’m working on a presentation. Whatever it is, I work on it in my head as I workout.

#10 - [Fill In Your Own Answer] - I’m curious to hear how other people get through those bad days when workouts just don’t seem worth it.

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Last weekend I talked about my desire to lose the last fifteen pounds and get down to 200lbs. Assuming I can do this without losing muscle mass, I should be at just the right amount of body fat for a 34 year old man who’s athletic and works out a lot. Now I’m a big believer in planning and I urge anyone who’s planning to improve their health to sit down and plan for a bit before jumping right in. So I followed my own advice and came up with a plan.

Eating Plan

I looked at a variety of calculators out there, and it seems like I need to eat about 3000 calories a day to maintain a goal weight of 200lbs. That number is for a 34 year old man with a moderate physical activity level. The numbers I saw actually varied from 2900 all the way up to 3100 depending on the calculator I used, so I took an average of 3000. I plan on splitting this number up into four meals. For breakfast I will try to eat about 500 calories, for lunch about 1000, another 500 for an afternoon snack and finish off the day with 1000 for dinner.

Now obviously these numbers are just guidelines. I’m not going to sit there at every meal counting every last calorie and making sure I don’t go over or under my number. However, I will keep track of this on a daily basis and see how well I’m doing. More on the tracking bit later on in this post.

This represents a slight change over my current eating plan of about 200 calories per day. This is where I’m hoping the weight loss comes from since my physical activity is going to remain roughly the same.

Physical Activity Plan

I’m already very active, so I don’t think I’ll be changing this too much. My current activity plan goals are:

• Weight training 3 to 4 times a week
• 1 30 minute walk every day
• Cardio training 3 times a week
• Biking to work three times a week
• One physical activity every weekend such as hiking

Control

One of the most important part of any plan is a control. How are you going to measure your progress? How are you going to verify that you’re sticking to the plan? Normally I would do this by keeping a food journal on my PC for a month when the plan first kicked in and keeping track of my workout in Excel. However, for the purposes of this change, I’m going to use a site called FitDay. This will allow me to share the progress of the plan with everyone reading 60 in 3.

I will also be doing weekly weigh ins. I would normally do monthly ones since I don’t really expect to lose a considerable amount of weight every week, but I thought it might be interesting to see changes on a weekly basis.

Time Line

Another important part of any plan is a time line. When are you putting the plan into effect? When does each part of the plan go live? When do you expect to see results? When do you review the plan to see if you need to make changes?

• Eating Plan - In effect as of today
• Activity Plan - Mostly in effect. My injured toe means I may not be doing my walks every day but otherwise the plan is in effect.
• Control - Fitday account has been created and I will play around with the site this weekend and start using it next Monday.
• Results - I expect to lose about .5lbs every week. This means I want to be at my goal weight of 200lbs in 30 weeks. That’s Mid 2008. Yep, that’s right, 15lbs in 7 months. Sounds slow to you? Well, if you’re used to reading ads about losing 30lbs in three days I suppose it might. Then again, how often have you seen these diets work in the long term? Where as my plan is sustainable, practical and healthy.
• Retune - I expect to review my results at the beginning of every month to see how I’m doing. That’s when I’ll make adjustments if necessary.

EDIT - here are the sites I used:

Calorie calculator - Click on the “calorie’s burned calculator” tab and then select the BMR calculator

FitDay - You might need to create an account to use all their features. However, once you do that and enter in some personal information, FitDay will also calculate your daily calories for you and display then in the activities section.

I also did some work on a few other sites that I found with a simple Google search for “BMR calculators”.  Just note that most of the other sites do not consider physical activity into their calculations so you’ll have to add that separately.

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A few days ago, I dropped a box of cottage cheese on my toe and broke it. It’s ironic, with all the physical activity I do I would expect my injuries to come from falling down a hill while hiking or perhaps some biking incident. But no, I break my toes by dropping groceries on them in the kitchen. So I hobbled my way through work yesterday and then went to the gym. At the gym I saw one of my coworkers who asked me “should you really be working out right now?”

First, The Usual Warning

Please remember, I am not your doctor. I don’t know you or the specifics of your body and injuries. Talk to you doctor if you’re hurt and make sure they’re ok with whatever it is you want to do.

Yes, You Can Work Out, But Carefully

Most injuries do not have to keep you out of the gym, they should simply make you more careful while working out. For example, there’s no way I’m going to run with a broken toe. The repeated impacts would be painful and damaging. However, why would a broken toe stop me from doing curls, crunches or deadlifts? These exercises in no way put stress on my toes.

At The Same Time, Don’t Overdo It

Of course, you should be careful. Even for those minor injuries that you don’t see a doctor about, you should still be aware and try not to make things worse. Remember the difference between a pain and an ache?  Well, even a minor pain can develop into a major one if you’re not careful.  My injured foot turned into a major stress fracture because I kept working out.  I was stupid.  I know my foot was injured and yet I kept running.

Don’t Use Your Injury As An Excuse

Don’t stop working out just because of a minor injury.  Too often I see people skipping workouts just because they have a minor injury.  I had a coworker who stopped working out when they scraped up their knee.  Sure, it was a pretty bad scrape and they should probably rest that knee but is that any reason not to do other forms of exercise?  There are plenty of other things you can that will not stress the knee in any way.

Summary

As with most things, injuries and workouts are all about balance.  Don’t use your injury as an excuse, but do be careful not to make injuries worse than they are.  When in doubt, see a doctor.  When in pain, stop what you’re doing.  Two simple rules that will allow you to keep working out even with a band aid or two.

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It’s fall time here in California, the skies are gray most mornings and the temperature is dropping.  We’re starting to get some rainy days and biking to work is getting a bit messier.  So what does all this mean for someone who’s trying to stay in shape?  Well for starters, it means it’s just about time to start shopping for vegetable seeds.

What the heck do vegetable seeds have to do with personal fitness?

Remember, personal fitness isn’t just about exercise or counting calories, it’s a whole bunch of little things that, together, add up to a healthy lifestyle.  One of these little things could be raising your own vegetables.  Now before you panic and start thinking I’ve gone crazy, I’m not talking about quitting your day job and becoming a farmer.  I’m just talking about a couple of pots on your balcony, or 10 sq. ft in your back yard.  It takes very little effort to grow a small amount of vegetables and the result is usually better tasting and healthier than anything you can find in the supermarket.

What are the benefits?

Well, besides getting some really tasty veggies?  Ok, there are a few other benefits.  First of all, growing your own veggies can be a physical activity.  Gardening in general is an excellent way to stay active and get out of the house a bit.  Even if all you’re gardening is a couple of pots of cucumbers, it’s still better than sitting in front of the TV.  Second, growing your own veggies generally leads to eating your own veggies and that right there is a good thing.  As I said, the veggies we grow ourselves tend to be tastier than anything you buy.  Whether that’s because they’re actually better quality or maybe it’s all in our heads and we’re just proud to be eating something we grew ourselves.  Either way, I’ve seen people who would never eat a salad tell me how incredible the tomatoes they grew in their backyard tasted.

So what do I need to do?

Well, decide how much effort, time and space you have.  For example, we have a small balcony in our apartment, so I can’t really start growing a cherry orchard.  However, I do have room for two pots, which I think I’ll use for tomatos and maybe some peppers.  Figure out how much sun and water the area you’re going to use gets on daily basis.  Sun is the one variable which will often determine what plants grow.

Now, based on all this, decide what you’re going to grow.  There are quite a few choices, tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, onions, garlic, herbs and a whole array of plants are waiting for you to take care of them.

Do I need to buy anything?

Depends.  If you have the land already then all you need is seeds.  Those are cheap and you might even be able to get them from other people who are already doing this.  For balcony gardeners like myself, you’re going to need some pots and soil to put in them.  Your local garbage processing plant might be a good place to go for soil.  They usually offer free compost for anyone who wants to come by and take some, and this soil is often times excellent for growing plants.  For the most part, gardening is cheap hobby, and you won’t be spending too much money.   In fact, when you consider the fact that you’re about to get some free veggies, you can usually come out well ahead financially.

How much effort will there be?

Depends on the plants you pick.  Some plants require a lot of time and effort while others don’t.  Expect to spend about 10 minutes a day on this project, assuming you’re not planting a huge amount of land.

How many vegetables do I get? 

Quite a few actually.  I was surprised to see how many tomatoes a small pot can produce.  The plants keep producing for weeks and you can usually get ten to twenty meals worth of veggies from one plant.

Summary

So while the weather is getting cold, you can start thinking about the plants you’re going to grow when it’s warm.  Start now, especially if you’re new at this, it’s going to take you a while to figure out what you want to grow and what you need to get.  It’ll be worth it the first time you bite into something fresh you grew yourself.

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A few weeks ago we talked about how to construct a balanced meal and I’ve gotten some email since then about the specifics of a balanced meal.  Here’s the most common one I’ve seen.

How much protein should I eat?

The right amount of protein is about .8grams for each 2.2lbs of body weight.  For you metric oriented folks in the audience, that’s about .8grams per 1kg of body weight.  If you’re an athlete or exercise a lot, you should increase that to about 1gram or protein for every 2.2lb (1kg) of body weight.  You may also want to increase that very slightly if you get most of your protein from plant sources.

Where do I get that?

Protein can come from a variety of sources.  Meat is the most common one in the western world, but we can also find a lot of protein in dairy products as well as some plants like soy.

What are healthy sources of protein?

Lean unprocessed meats are great.  That means staying away from factory farmed beef and pork and sticking to things like wild caught fish, organic turkey and some more exotic meats like venison or buffalo.  Other great sources are eggs, low fat dairy products and soy products.  You can also find protein in many beans and legumes.  For example, 8oz (225g) of baked beans will have 11.5 grams of protein.

Am I getting enough protein?

Unless you’re a vegetarian, you probably have nothing to worry about.  A 4oz piece of chicken has 31grams of protein in it.  A 4oz steak has 35grams.  So a single meal with a good sized meat portion probably gives you all the protein you need.

Is protein good or bad for me?

Protein is a vital part of any healthy diet.  Building muscles is just one of the many benefits of protein.  It also keeps us satiated and prevents overeating.  Just remember, it’s a part of a BALANCED diet.  That means you shouldn’t eat too much of it.

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