Mar

19

Healthy Dinner Choices, Burgers and a Salad

Filed Under Eating Healthy, Healthy Habits, Healthy Meal Ideas | 3 Comments

A few days ago I went out to dinner with some friends. We went to a local pub where the fare consisted of burgers, sandwiches and fries. One of my friends ordered a burger and, to make things a bit healthier, he ordered the side salad instead of fries. Unfortunately, this didn’t make his meal very healthy. The burger consisted of a patty, a large sesame seed bun and lots of dressing. The salad was mostly lettuce with a few croutons and cherry tomatoes and a whole lot more dressing. End result, over a thousand calories, lots of bad fat and carbs and very few good nutrients.

So yesterday, while cooking dinner for my wife and myself, I decided to see if I could take that theme of burger and salad and make it a bit healthier.

Note - I went non vegeterian for this meal. Yes, I do on rare occasions eat meat.

The Ingredients

  • 2 buffalo burger patties. These are available at most supermarkets. We bought ours from Trader Joe’s.
  • 1 large orange bell pepper (can also use the green variety but I like the taste of the yellow and orange types).
  • 2 large tomatoes.
  • 1 medium sized avocado.
  • 1/2 large cucumber.
  • Garlic pepper. You can find this in most supermarkets in the spice area.

Preparation

Salad - Take the tomato, cucumber, avocado and pepper and chop them up into small pieces. By small I mean no larger than a 1/4 inch. Add a bit of garlic pepper and mix throughly.

Burgers - Lay them out on the BBQ, sprinkle with a bit of garlic pepper and let them sit for about 5 minutes on a high flame. After 5 minutes turn over, sprinkle a bit more garlic pepper and let them sit for another 5 minutes. We like our burger medium done. If you them more or less well done feel free to adjust the time on the grill. I use a small, gas powered grill on our balcony. If you don’t have access to that, broiling in an oven is just as good.

That’s it. Take your burgers and your salad and enjoy.

Total Preparation Time

From beginning to end, this took about 20 minutes. Most of that time was spent watching the burgers on the BBQ.

Total Cost

This dinner cost less than 10 dollars. the buffalo burger patties come in packages of 4 for around $8 dollars and we only used up 2. The vegetables were picked up at the local farmer’s market for about $5 total.

Calories

If you’re counting your calories, this meal had about 400 to 500 per person. The buffalo burger patties are relatively low in fat and only had 210 calories each. The vegetables, with the exception of the avocado, are also low in calories but we did eat a lot of it.

What Didn’t We Do?

Notice a few things that were different between that restaurant meal and our dinner.

  • No bun - You don’t need a bun to have a good burger. In fact, I find that it detracts from the flavor. Buns are nothing more than refined carbs. Get rid of them.
  • No dressing - Neither the burger nor the salad has a lot of creamy dressing. Even those light ranch and other fat free dressings are still packed full of junk you don’t need.
  • Healthier meat - Choose meat options that are healthy. Processed beef is the opposite of healthy. The buffalo patties were relatively lean and unprocessed making them a good option.
  • Healthy salad - I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a few leaves of lettuce do not make a good salad. A salad should have good flavor and texture all on its own, without needing croûtons and dressing.
  • No sodas - Neither of us decided to add hundreds of empty calories to our meal by tossing in a soda.

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It’s not that hard, expensive or time consuming to make a healthy dinner at home. If even I, the man who can burn water, can do it, so can you.


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Mar

17

Swim Your Way To Fitness

Filed Under Cardio, Swimming, Work Out | 6 Comments

It’s spring time, and I thought it might be time to write a post about swimming.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that swimming is no longer a warm weather only exercise.  Just about every gym I know has a pool that is heated year round allowing swimmers to work out regardless of the weather.  So I may write this in the spring, but feel free to read this at any season.

Why Not Swim?

When you ask most people about exercise, very few of them think about swimming.  Why is that?  Well, I think it has a few reasons.

  • Equipment - Swimming needs a lot of specialized equipment.  For example, you need a pool.
  • Temperature - Most people have the same mindset I do, which says that pools and water are a summer only activity.
  • Cardio - Swimming doesn’t seem to be as strenuous as jogging or biking so most people don’t think of it as good cardio.
  • Shyness - If you’re out of shape, it’s going to take a lot of courage to strip down to a swim suit and get in that pool.
  • Skill - Everyone knows how to run, but not everyone knows how to swim.

I’m here to tell you that all of these reasons are completely wrong.

  • Equipment - Yes, you do need a pool, but those are available at most gyms, colleges, hotels and apartment complexes.  In fact, access to a pool is more common than access to a gym.
  • Temperature - Many pools are heated year round.  The only exceptions are some apartment complex pools.  So with the right gym membership or access to a college, you can swim year round.
  • Cardio - Swimming is excellent cardio and a whole lot more.  I’ll talk a bit more about that in a second.
  • Shyness - Yep, it’s a little awkward sometimes to take clothes off, but hey, you’re doing this to get in shape, right?  Believe me, no one is judging you.
  • Skill - Swimming classes are available at many colleges, gyms and community centers for relatively low prices.  You’ll get coaching in a skill that’s not just good for exercise, it’s also something I would consider a vital life skill.

So Why Swim?

Swimming is one of the most incredible exercises you can perform.

  • Full body workout - Unlike many cardio exercises, swimming works out your entire body.  Now this depends a bit on the stroke you pick, but even simpler strokes like freestyle will work your upper body better than most other cardio.  Try something like the breast stroke and you’ll get an amazing full body workout.
  • Low impact - Again, unlike most other cardio exercises, swimming is zero impact.  What does that mean?  It means that you get a great workout while doing zero damage to your body.  Yes, some exercises do in fact damage your body.  For example, jogging places a lot of strain on legs and biking can be hard on your back. By comparison, swimming has zero impact and zero strain.

Honestly, I can’t think of a better cardio exercise than swimming from a physical perspective.

The Downside

While swimming is rather perfect on the physical side, it does have some real issues on the motivational side.

  • Hard to gauge performance - Unlike running or jogging, it’s relatively hard to gauge how hard you’re working out while swimming.  You have to be very motivated in order to keep up a fast swimming pace.
  • Boring - You can’t read, watch TV or talk to your friend while swimming.  All you can do is swim.  Many people find that boring and could cut their workout short because of it.

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If you can motivate yourself, I highly recommend that you try swimming as an exercise.  It’s quite literally the best cardio workout I have found.  However, it does get a bit monotonous so, unless you really love swimming, I recommend mixing it up and not swimming more than once a week.


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Mar

16

Weekend Roundup - Santa Cruz Edition

Filed Under Weekend Roundup | 1 Comment

Just came back from another wonderful day spent in downtown Santa Cruz. I won’t bother you with the details but I must say that the weather was perfect and we had a really great time. And with that, here are some health articles from this week that I thought you might find useful.

All too many people associate eating healthy and being physically active with younger folks. However, that’s absolutely untrue. In fact, physical fitness might be even more important for the elderly. It can reduce the risks of everything from heart disease to Alzheimer’s. So here’s an interesting article from the Arkansas Gazette about a few senior citizens who are taking their health into their own hands.
@Arkansas Gazette

I used to do posts with a list of tips in them until I realized that a lot of them get really repetitive. That’s why I try to avoid linking to similar articles since I find a lot of them say the same things over and over. However, I liked the following article. It’s from the Common Voice and it gives a list of 20 simple health and fitness tips. Nothing revolutionary here but still worth reading.
@The Common Voice

Summer is coming, and a lot of people are thinking about vacations. I know my wife and I are planning some travel and I hope all of you take the chance to occasionally explore the world around you. However, all too often, vacations become an excuse to overeat, sleep all day and gain 20 lbs in the process. So read the following article and learn how to spend money on vacations and not on diet.
@The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


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Mar

14

Where’s My Motivation?

Filed Under Motivation | 3 Comments

I’ve talked about motivation plenty of times before. I think it’s the most important part of any plan you make to get fit and healthy. I can give you a thousand useful tips for exercise and eating, but without motivation, your plan will always fail. Sure, we all know that good health can lead to a long and healthy life, but that’s a sort of ephemeral goal that’s hard to picture. We need things that are more concrete and immediate to really motivate us. Well, I thought I would give you a list of the things that motivate me as a way of inspiring you to find your own motivation.

My Wife

I want to spend a long and healthy life with my wife. We enjoy many physical activities and I’d like to be able to do them for a very long time. Looking at her gives me motivation to control my eating. When she’s not around, I have my wedding band to remind me of her.

Maui Marathon

I signed up for a marathon in September and I’m currently training for it. I picked a beautiful spot (Hawaii) where we’ll spend a couple of days after the marathon enjoying ourselves and recovering from the run. This gives me a very real incentive to keep training and keep running. I want to do well and get a good time. I took my marathon entry form and hung it up at the office in a place where it’s always visible while I work. That way I’m always aware of this goal.

Sleep

I’m tired of sleeping badly. I want to sleep without snoring and without sleep apnea. This gives me incentive to watch my weight.

Physical Activities

Ever since I got in better shape, I’ve found several physical activities that I really enjoy doing. Chief among them is hiking. So I make hiking plans for the weekends by myself or with friends and coworkers. This gives me a constant reminder of why I’m in shape. It’s also a good way to keep motivated during the weekend, a time when many people seem to forget all about healthy eating and fitness.

Pictures

My mom has this old picture of me from the height of my unhealthy days. It’s a good thing to look at sometimes and remind myself that this is who I used to be. Some people would think that this is negative motivation, a way of scaring myself into shape, but it’s not. For me, this is positive motivation. I know how hard I worked to get to where I am today and looking at this picture reminds me that I once thought being in shape would be impossible.

60 in 3

Yep, this blog isn’t just to help others, it’s also to help me. 60 in 3 forces me to stay current on health news. It allows me to make my goals public which in turn makes me more aware of them. It’s a daily reminder of who I am these days.

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Did you notice something about all these ways in which I motivate myself? Each and every one of them has some kind of immediate reminder. Whether it’s my wife, my hobbies or a simple sheet of paper hanging on the wall above my desk, I’m surrounded by things that I can look at and go “ahh, THAT’s why I stay in shape.”

What motivates you and how do you remind your self of it?


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Mar

12

Freeze Those Calories Off

Filed Under Healthy Habits, Money | 1 Comment

In the last post, I talked about sauna’s and how they make a poor weightloss solution.  Overheating yourself doesn’t do much for your metabolism.  All it creates is temporary weight loss through sweat.  However, what about the opposite effect?  Can we cool ourselves down and burn a few calories?  Sounds a bit counter intuitive, how can we burn calories if we’re cold, but it actually works.  Not only that, it’s one of those health tips that’s also good for your wallet, not to mention the environment.  So let’s take a closer look.

How Do We Keep Warm?

Our bodies need to maintain a relatively stable temperature.  We don’t like being too hot or too cold.  In the case of overheating, we usually try to cool down by resting and / or sweating.  However, what do our bodies do when our environment is cold?  Simple, our burn calories in order to keep warm.  It’s just like you throwing another log on the fire to keep warm during a cool winter night.  Our bodies version of firewood is calories, and we use them up to keep those inner fires burning.

So How Do We Use This?

Simple.  Whatever temperature you keep your house at, turn it down by two or three degrees.  Don’t go overboard, I don’t want you getting frostbite in your own home.  I also don’t want you uncomfortable and miserable.  However, a small two or three degree change is almost unnoticeable by most people.  Your body however will notice it and will burn more calories to keep warm.  Your wallet will also notice it since heating costs tend to add up rather quickly.

Should We Keep Gyms Cold?

On a related note, someone recently asked me if working out in a cold gym was also better for burning calories.  Well, not really.  When you exercise, your body creates a lot of heat.  So you’re going to burn a lot of calories regardless of the temperature of the gym.  However, a gym which is slightly colder will help you get better performance since you lower the risk of overheating.  Your body will have an easier time dumping excess heat in a cooler environment which means you’ll be able to exercise longer and harder.  This is also why you shouldn’t overexercise on warm days.

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Lowering the thermostat won’t make you thin overnight.  However, it can help burn an additional 20 to 30 calories a day.  That’s an extra 2 to 3lbs over the span of a year.  That’s not bad for an effortless and money saving change.


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Mar

10

Reader Q&A: The Sauna, Weightloss Miracle or Pointless Waste of Time?

Filed Under Reader Q&A, Weight Loss | 12 Comments

Question 

One of my readers wrote in with:

I have a friend who swears by the weight loss properties of the Sauna.  He says he goes in and comes out feeling (and weighing) lbs lighter.  I told him he’s just sweating the weight off but he says that’s exactly the point and says I do the same thing when I exercise.  So is the sauna the same as exercise?

Answer

No, absolutely not.  A sauna is NOT the same as exercise.

What Is Sweating?

Sweating is the body’s way of trying to cool down.  The human body needs to maintain a relatively even temperature.  If it gets too warm, it tries to cool off by sweating.  Part of this cooling off mechanism is sweat.  When we sweat, glands in our skin are letting water from our bodies flow out.  The evaporation of the water uses some of the heat energy which in turn helps our bodies cool down.

Why Do We Sweat When We Work Out?

Easy, because exercise warms our bodies up and in order to stay cool, we sweat.  However, sweat is just the side effect of the exercise.

Why Do We Sweat When We Sit In The Sauna?

Easy, because it’s really really warm in the sauna and our bodies are trying to cool down.

Well, That Sounds The Same As Exercise

Not really.  With exercise, our bodies are warming up because of something we’re doing.  We’re being active and burning energy to workout.  This causes our temperature to rise which in turn causes sweat.  However, it’s the exercise itself which burns calories and gives us the positive effects of physical activity.  With the sauna, we’re not doing anything.  We’re just sitting there baking in steam.  The heat of the sauna causes our bodies to overheat and this in turn causes sweat.  There’s no energy burn here, no calories being used.

But I Weighed Myself and I Weigh Less After The Sauna

Sure, and I weigh about 6lbs less after a long run.  That’s just water loss from sweat.  Drink some water and it will all come right back.  Remember, the sweat you lost is primarily water, with a bit of salt.  You didn’t really burn any energy in the sauna.  At least the run burned some calories along with all that sweat.

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Sitting in the sauna is no replacement for exercise.  It may make you sweat, but that’s just a reaction to an outside influence rather than the result of physical activity.  That kind of weight loss will last about as long as it takes you to drink a glass of water.


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Mar

9

Weekend Roundup - FAFSA edition

Filed Under Weekend Roundup | 1 Comment

Someone once said that the hardest part about business school was getting into it. I would like to offer an alternative opinion. I think the hardest part about business school is filling out the financial aid forms. Wow! After a few hours filling out various government loan applications, I feel like I just gave birth to accountant. And with that lovely thought, here are a few articles I thought you might find interesting:

As a category, video games are usually lumped into the “things that are unhealthy” group. They promote a sedentary lifestyle of sitting in front of the TV or computer, endlessly pushing buttons. However, the recent popularity of the Nintendo Wii is turning some of these ideas around. Here’s an article from the UK times about the fitness potential of the Wii and several new add ons or games. Please note that I am not saying the Wii is a good substitute for a regular workout. However, it’s an excellent substitute for hours on the sofa playing WoW and Chuzzle or watching the latest episode of Survivor.
@The UK Times

As opposed to ideas about fitness, the following article from the Los Angeles Chronicle talks about finding workout videos for free or almost free. I like articles like this since I find that most people who are concerned about fitness are also concerned about other aspects of their life like finances. Plus it dispels the myth that you have to spend thousands of dollars just to get fit. Believe me, you can get a great home gym for less than $100. Heck, you can get a good workout for free if you’re willing to improvise a bit.
@The Los Angeles Chronicle

And the last article for today (it was a slow fitness news week apparently) is from a small town newspaper in my general vicinity, The Modesto Bee. It lists some commonly held diet myth and the corresponding reality. Well written and worth reading. Careful with point #3 though. While the Bee is right in saying that it’s calories and not specific foods that make you fat, regular pasta packs a whole lot of calories, which makes it a dangerous food for those of us interested in being healthy and fit.
@The Modesto Bee


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