Jun
18
The Burnout Workout
Filed Under Work Out | 2 Comments
Last week I talked about the blowout workout, a workout in which you use a lot more weight and fewer reps as a way of breaking through plateaus and challenging yourself to improve. Well, here’s an odd thing, the opposite changes work too, although in a different way.
The Burnout Workout Basics
Over the weekend, I received an email from a 60 in 3 reader who suggested I try out something he called the “burnout workout”. I had heard of the idea before, but never tried it myself. It’s pretty simple, take whatever exercises you’re doing, lower the weight and double the number of reps. So if before I was doing a set of 10 lunges with 100lbs, now I would try to do 20 reps with 70lbs. It sounded so simple and easy. I mean come on, less weight? This is going to be like a vacation! Oh, how wrong I was.
Set The Bar High (But Not Too High)
I thought I could do 75% of the weight I usually do while still doing 20 reps of each exercise. I quickly found out that was way off. It’s amazing how hard it is to do 10 extra reps without a break even with 25% less weight. Your muscles start aching at about 12 reps, and you begin experiencing difficulties maintaining form and lifting the weight at about 15 or 16 reps. At least that was my experience. 20 reps was doable for the first few exercises but I quickly found myself too sore to maintain my 75% weight goal.
Is This A Cardio Workout?
Even more unexpected was the burnout workout’s impact on my heart rate. I felt like I was sprinting! I never elevate my heart rate so much while lifting weights. Sure, I get a bit winded with some exercises but never like this. Half way through the workout I felt like I had run for miles and I soaked with sweat. This workout was kicking my ass! I was forced to go as low as 60% of the normal weight for some exercises and I was starting to see a need to go even lower.
The End Is Near
By the end of the burnout workout, I was burned out. I was barely doing twenty reps with 60% of the weights and I was taking longer than usual breaks between sets. The last exercise, shrugs, was performed with 50% weight and I was struggling to lift even that at the end. I climbed on the elliptical and tiredly marched on but my heart just wasn’t into it. It was telling me “hey buddy, you already did cardio, now go take a break.” I did manage to do my cardio for the day but I really had to push myself to do it.
Was It Worth It?
Hell YES! You know that feeling you get during your first few workouts? Your body isn’t quite used to the strain and you’re sore, but you also feel really good. You challenged yourself and you made it. Your muscles have done something they haven’t been able to in a long time and your whole body is tired and yet bursting with energy. I haven’t felt that after a workout in several years now. I enjoy workouts but they don’t wear me out anymore like they used to. Well, this one did. I was well and truly worn out but I also felt incredibly good.
So Which Will I Do? Blowup or Burnout?
Why pick one? I intend to do both. I’m going to start my week with a standard workout, 10 reps at 100% weight. Mid week I will do a blowout workout, 5 reps with 150% of the weight. Then finish it out on Friday with a burnout workout, 20 reps with 50% to 75% of the weight.
###
Vary things up a bit, try out new ideas and never be afraid of making changes to your workout. You may find something you love. I know I just did.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Jun
16
A Beginning Is A Very Delicate Thing
Filed Under Breakfast, Healthy Habits, Sleep | 5 Comments
It’s 8am here in California and I’m feeling great. I got a good night’s sleep, a healthy breakfast and I then rode a mile on my bike to the train station. In about 20 minutes I’m going to get off the train and ride to the office. What about you? Have you started your day out right?
The start of your day will set the tone for the rest of it. If you wake up tired and cranky you’re more than likely going to be tired and cranky for the rest of the day. If you make unhealthy food choices you’re setting yourself up for a day of bad eating. Whatever decisions you make in the morning are going to echo throughout the rest of your day.
So What Do We Do?
Now if you want to start the day off a bit better, you’re going to focus on three things:
Sleep
Everyone needs sleep. On average, we need 7 to 9 hours of good sleep per night. There are a rare few who can get by with less just as there are some who need more, but 7 to 9 is the overwhelming average. All you folks out there who boast about how little sleep you get and how much work you get done are slowly killing yourselves. Also, you’re not as productive as you think. Lack of sleep makes us into poor decision makers. Several recent studies have shown that just a few nights of poor or little sleep reduce your driving skills to those of a drunk driver. Now think about what this means for your work skills.
- Do yourself a favor and get a regular schedule.
- Focus on getting 8 hours of good sleep per night.
- Make your bedroom into a place for sleep and little else. Yes, that means you may want to move your sex life into the living room if you can
If you associate the bedroom with work or play then you’ll have a harder time associating it with sleep and that means more problems falling asleep. - Make it a dark place so the sunrise won’t wake you up.
- Remove noises and other sleep interruptions.
- Take care of problems like snoring or sleep apnea which might interfere with good sleep. See a sleep specialist if necessary.
Food
A breakfast can be a wonderfully healthy thing, starting up your metabolism with a good shot of energy and nutrients. It can also be a horrible thing smothering your stomach with bacon, eggs, pancakes and potatoes. Never skip breakfast if you can, but be aware of what you’re eating and don’t turn breakfast into a reason to binge. Remember, you’re trying to start your day out right, not wrong.
- Fruits and vegetables are your friends!
- Most breakfast cereals are not healthy, no matter what the TV commercials tell you
- Eggs are not bad in moderation
- Anything fried is not healthy
- Pancakes are not healthy, not even the wholewheat ones
- Anything smothered in syrup is not healthy
- Stop drinking fruit juices, eat a fruit instead
- Meat can be healthy but most breakfast meat choices are not. My apologies to all you bacon lovers out there, but you do realize you’re eating fried fat right? There aren’t too many ways in which fried fat can be healthy.
- Just because most people consider it dinner or lunch doesn’t mean you can’t have it for breakfast. I love a bit of curry in the morning!
Activity
Yes, you should be active in the morning, but this doesn’t have to mean a full workout. Personally, I hate working out in the morning. I feel like I’m forcing myself to do something that my body just isn’t ready for. However, the morning is a great time for light physical activities. They wake you up while jump starting your body. Rather than spending the first few hours of your day trying to wake up, a little light activity in the morning will boost your energy levels for the rest of the day.
- Walk the dog
- Ride your bike to work
- Walk to work
- Walk anywhere! My father, who is in his mid 60’s and is in remarkably good shape, starts out every day with a walk. He does this even when he’s on a business trip and says it’s a great way to get over jetlag.
- Morning stretches. No, not a full workout, just 5 minutes of stretching, perhaps some yoga and a few light exercises. Keep it nice and slow with no weights.
- Sex! Just remember to take it out of the bedroom
###
My day is starting out well. I’m wide awake and I feel great! How about you? What are you going to do tonight and tomorrow morning to make sure tomorrow is a healthy day?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Jun
15
So the combination of work, school and new puppy is taking its toll. I’m barely sleeping and I can clearly see the impact. I’m irritable, prone to snacking and I’m having a hard time concentrating. I can’t stress enough how much sleep is important for a healthy life and I’m planning to get back to a normal sleep schedule this week.
And with that, here are some articles I thought you might find useful:
This article is not directly related to fitness but I thought it might be relevant due to last week’s post about biking. It’s from In York and talks about the connections between the repeal of the helmet law and a greater incidence of deadly motorcycle crashes. Please, if you’re riding a bicycle or a motorcycle, wear a helmet. No one thinks you’re being tough and impressive when you ride down the street without a helmet.
@In York
From Ivanhoe (love the name!) we have a short article about the benefits of eating a variety of local, fresh food. I think this is a great companion to the 5 rules of eating series we discussed here a few weeks ago. Pay close attention to this quote by the way “When you buy a head of iceberg lettuce at the local grocery store, it is typically six to nine weeks old”. Why eat old vegetables when you can eat fresh ones? Try your local farmer’s market or your local produce store. They’ll typically have fresher stuff grown locally.
@Ivanhoe
And here’s another great companion piece to the 5 rules of eating. This time it’s from the Modern Forager blog. It’s called “nutrition 101, The One Rule To Remember” and yes, it’s a very worth while rule. The author’s belief is that we should limit ourselves to eating “real food”. I wholeheartedly agree and I liked the post’s summary of what real food is. Go over there an enjoy the read.
@Modern Forager
Switching it up to a slightly bigger publication. Here’s an article from Time Magazine that talks about how size isn’t always an indicator of health. I’m of two minds on this. Yes, I agree that weight is not a good indicator of health. There are many other better fitness indicators. However, it’s true that too much weight (and too little by the way) is unhealthy. So while I do agree with the approach of fitness first, weight second, I also think this shouldn’t be used as an excuse to be extremely overweight.
@TIME
And from a different kind of Times, here’s an article from the New York Times talking about fitness in our nation’s capital. It’s nice to see how leaders setting a good example for a change. I wish more companies would take on this kind of challenge, maybe our healthcare costs wouldn’t be as bad.
@NY Times
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Jun
13
How To Lose Love Handles In Two Weeks
Filed Under Reader Q&A, Weight Loss | 12 Comments
That’s the question I got over email last night from someone who happened to stumble upon 60 in 3. I responded back with most of the same information I’m about to post here and exchanged a few more emails with this person. They proved to be quite intelligent and I would like to thank them for allowing me to use this conversation as a post topic; it’s not easy sometimes to admit that you don’t know something other people consider to be basic truth.
Can You Lose Weight In A Specific Area?
Despite every infomercial that tells you it has the machine that melts belly fat or the exercise regime that shapes your thighs, it’s actually very difficult to do spot fixes on your body, especially when it comes to losing fat. Where your body stores fat is determined mostly by genetics and gender. Most men tend to store fat in the belly area while most women tend to store fat in the thighs and rear end. This isn’t always true but it’s generally accurate. Once you put on enough fat, the body will start storing it everywhere it can which is why very obese people don’t just have thick thighs or large bellies.
No Spot Losses
This is bad news because it means that we can’t diet in a way that specifically targets certain areas of the body. There’s just no way to lose the love handles. Also, making radical changes to your body in two weeks is almost impossible and usually unhealthy. To lose weight the healthy way, you’re going to want to lose between 1 to 2 lbs per week. Anything more than that and you’re probably doing damage to your body by starving yourself and cannibalizing muscles.
Exercise is slightly different. You can actually target different muscles in exercise. However, building stronger belly muscles is not going to specifically target belly fat, it will just mean that you have good muscle tone under that belly fat.
So What’s The Answer?
Well, the answer is the same as always. Eat a healthy diet, lead an active life and exercise at regular intervals. Eventually, your body will become fit and those love handles will go away. The down side is that it takes more time than two weeks. The upside is that you end up feeling good and looking good all over rather than just losing weight around your belly.
###
There are no miracle solutions in health. Anyone who promises you major changes in two weeks is more than likely trying to sell you something.
NOTE - Right after I posted this ad I noticed an advertisement on 60 in 3 called “learn the secret to losing belly fat”. Needless to say, I went ahead and blocked it. If you see other such ads for junk health sites like this one, please let me know.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Jun
11
Biking, A Healthier, Cheaper and Cleaner Commute
Filed Under Biking, Money, Time Management | 11 Comments
Before last year, the most common reason I would hear for not working out was not enough time. People were busy, they had things to do, places to be and people to meet. No one seemed to have time for working out even though they knew it was important. These days, things have changed a bit. All of a sudden, it’s not that people don’t have time, it’s that they don’t have money. The gym costs too much, exercise equipment for the house is too much money and no one can afford a personal trainer.
Well, those things may be true, but health and fitness do not have to take up a lot of time, nor do they have to cost a lot of money. To illustrate this example, I am going to use my commute to work.
First, The Cost Comparison
I traveled around 2000 miles on my bike last year. I spent around $10 in maintenance. The previous year I spent a bit more since I also tuned it up so I’m going to use an average yearly cost of $20. That means my bike costs me an average of $.01 a mile to operate. That’s a cent per mile that I’m on the bike.
My car is a 1999 Infinity Sedan. It’s not a gas guzzler but it’s also not the most efficient of cars. It gets an average MPG of around 25. With today’s gas costing about $4 in California, that means a cost of 16 cents per mile. I also spent about $500 in maintenance last year and drove 10,000 miles. That’s an additional 5 cents per mile for a total car cost of around 21 cents per mile.
By the way, I’m not including calculations for the purchase price of the car, which was much higher than the bike obviously, or the lower healthcare costs I incur by being in shape. Those are just a bonus. The above figures are already good enough to illustrate my point.
My Old Commute
With my old house and office, my commute was about 5 miles or a 10 mile round trip. So doing the math, commuting on the bike cost me around 10 cents while commuting in the car cost me $2.10. That’s $2.00 saved every single day. Actually, it was a bit less than that since gas prices weren’t so high back then but it was still around $1 saved every day.
Commuting on the bike took me about 20 minutes each way while the car commute took around 10 minutes each way. So yes, I was spending 20 more minutes per day on my commute. However, I was getting a decent workout and I was enjoying myself far more than spending 20 minutes in traffic.
My new commute
Since we moved homes and I moved jobs, my new commute is about 20 miles each way. In the car, this would cost an average of $8.40 every day. Yep, that’s right, with current gas prices, I am paying $8.40 every single day just to get to work. My alternative is to take the bike to the train station, take the train and then ride the bike from the train station to the office. This means 10 miles per day on the bike for a cost of $.10 and a train ticket. I buy a ten ride ticket which works out to about $5 per day’s worth of commute. Total cost is $5.10 which means I save $3.30 per day.
Time wise, the car would take me 45 minutes each way due to awful traffic. The bike / train commute takes around 1 hour each way. At first that sounds like I’m losing 15 minutes each way for a total of half an hour each day. However, please consider that time on the train can be productive. For example, this entire post was written while on the train this morning. I could also read a book, do some work or just nap. Whatever it is, it’s a lot more stressful than 45 minutes of stop and go traffic. So both time and money wise I come out ahead.
So What’s The Point?
Some of you might be saying “woopty doo! You saved a couple of bucks and a minute or two here and there. Who cares? This is too small to be significant.” However, you’re missing the point. This isn’t a blog about time management or personal finance and so the money saved and time not wasted are nice, but they’re not the point. The point is that I got a workout and I did it while saving money and not wasting time. Every single day, even if I don’t go to the gym, I am getting 20 minutes of solid physical activity and I didn’t have to spend an extra cent for it! In fact, I saved both money and time by doing it this morning.
Now this doesn’t apply to everyone equally. Some people have commutes where public transportation or biking is not possible. Others may not enjoy biking as much as I do. Still, the point is that you can get more physical activity into your day without spending extra cash. That day out to the movies with your friends? Why not make it a day out to the park with a frisbee? It’s a lot cheaper and more fun. That fancy dinner with your wife or husband? Why not wrap up a picnic and go hiking? Cheaper, healthier and far more romantic. There’s so many options out there that are both cheaper and healthier that money should never be an excuse to not be fit and healthy. In fact, money can be a motivator towards fitness.
###
Stop thinking about health and fitness as things that use up money and time. Done right, living a healthy lifestyle can save both time and money.
NOTE - corrected my math based on Alex’s comment below. It’s a good thing my stats teacher didn’t see me fail basic division.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Jun
9
Back To School
Filed Under Eating Healthy, Motivation, Time Management | 4 Comments
As some of you know, I recently started graduate school. It’s a part time program, which means I spend 1 weekend out of every three at school. Each one of these school weekends consists of a Thursday, Friday and Saturday during which I’m in class for 12 to 14 hours. I’m finding the schoolwork challenging but enjoyable and in general, I love being back in school, but my health is suffering.
The Problem With School
Actually, there’s more than one problem with school. First is the constant food. Starting from breakfast and lasting all the way to the end of the day, we are constantly surrounded by food. Apparently, the program administrators have decided that food makes people happy, which is true. They have therefore made it their mission to make sure that a student cannot turn around without hitting finding some kind of snack. Some snacks are healthy (fruit bowls are great!) and some are not (brownie bowls not so great) but even if all the food options were healthy there would still be too much of them. To make things even worse, the food is always high quality and very tasty. Yes, that does in fact make things worse since it’s harder to resist.
The second problem with school is the schedule. I am in class from 7am to 8am on average. Sometimes a bit more and sometimes a bit less. After class there is socializing to do, homework to catch up on, school books to read and of course, work to catch up on (all the students maintain a full time job while going to school). With all these time requirements, I’m finding it nearly impossible to work out.
The First Weekend
The first school weekend was two weeks ago and it didn’t go very well healthwise. I think I gained about three lbs and I felt really bad when I got home. I knew I had overeaten for four days and spend those same four days completely inactive. My body felt it and I was stressed out by it.
The Second Weekend
This past weekend I started finding solutions. First of all, I decided to get out of the classroom more often. We get a 10 minute break in the middle of each three hour class. Rather than spending those breaks in class snacking, I decided to take a walk around the campus (The UC Berkeley campus is amazingly beautiful by the way). On some of these walks I invited fellow students along, since socializing and making friends is part of the school experience. I also did mini workouts during some of the walks. Nothing special, just a few stretches, lunges and sqauts.
Second, I made time for real workouts. Yes, I had to sacrifice a bit of my socialization time, but I felt much better. Also, next school weekend I intend to find a workout partner so that I can workout and get to know my fellow students at the same time.
Finally, what really helped with the food being more aware of it. Rather than mindless eating, I paid attention to what I ate and how much I was piling on my plate. I usually don’t have to do that as much since my eating habits are relatively healthy these days. However, surrounded by so much food, I had to be more aware of when, why and how much I was eating. I constantly used my rules for eating to make sure I was eating healthy and not too much.
###
I’m looking forward to school, it’s an incredible opportunity. However, I don’t want to spend my school weekends stressed out about my health. Spending just a little bit of time on being healthy should make this whole school experience far more enjoyable.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Jun
9
This weekend roundup is slightly delayed due to the fact that I spent most of my weekend at school. More about that later today. For now though, here are some articles I thought you might find useful:
From the New York Times, we have this piece about the benefit of vacations. One of the things I talk about on 60 in 3 is the need for breaks. I usually recommend multiple short breaks during the day, but the same idea applies to longer breaks from work. In the end, you’ll end up less stressed and more productive, not to mention healthier.
@The New York Times
From Mark’s Daily Apple comes this interesting piece about eating healthy in fast food nation. Yes, it’s possible to eat healthy while going to restaurants like Subway or Carl’s Jr., it’s just not easy. So read this article and find out how to do it.
@Mark’s Daily Apple
And while on the topic of fast food health, here’s something you should avoid. From the Diet Blog, it’s an article about the most sugary beverage they found. I won’t give it away but I will say that it has 266grams of sugar and around 2300 calories. That’s right, an entire day’s worth of calories in ONE drink.
@The Diet Blog
Let’s stay with the topic of food shopping for a bit. These days, everyone is trying to save money. So here’s a useful article from WebMD that talks about 10 different healthy food options under $1. Read and enjoy. If you’re interested in topics like this, I sometimes post my healthy meal ideas which are both healthy and cheap. You can find those posts here.
@WebMD
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
