Aug
18
Last Wednesday I started talking about how people can add more physical activity into their lives. I started out with the office because that’s a good example of a large chunk of your life that is spent sitting down. However, I want to move on to the home now, and how we can be more active while at home. By the way, in response to an email I got over the weekend, yes I do apply all of these tips to my own life. I don’t just preach things on this site and then ignore them, all of these items are things I do myself.
The Home
You get home from a long day at work and all you want to do is sit down. Really? Are you sure about that? No offense, but most people spend their entire workday sitting down so why the heck are you so tired at home? Now that doesn’t apply to everyone, there are quite a few of you who are very physically active at work, but if you’re an office worker like myself, there’s no reason to need to “rest” after a long day at the office. In fact, there’s still a lot you need to accomplish. You need to take care of the yard, clean the house, go shopping, cook food and a whole host of other activities. Those activities are actually the key to being active while at home.
Gardening
Got a lawn? Do you mow it yourself or pay a gardener? If you pay a gardener, why? If you do it yourself, do you ride one of those silly ride on lawnmowers? What you’re telling me is that you paid a lot of money for a machine that eats a ton of gas so that you can be lazy and inactive. Why? Does this make sense? You’re throwing away money so that you can be unhealthy. Sounds crazy to me.
Gardening can be incredibly physically active. Mowing, planting, sheering, pruning, weeding are all physical activities. Yet people choose to hire a gardener or use power tools. These are typically the same people who complain about not having enough time to be active. Get rid of those power tools and go back to good old fashioned muscle power. You’ll be active, you’ll save money and your yard will look great.
Cleaning
Our new house doesn’t have a dishwasher. It’s a new experience for me having lived with a dishwasher my entire adult life. Now I spend a few minutes each day washing the dishes. End result? We save money on electricity, we save water and I get a bit of extra activity. Is it strenuous exercise? Of course not, but it’s physically active and that’s all we’re after here.
Errands
I’ve talked about this before. I try to run every errand I can on the bike or by walking. This includes shopping, dropping off the mail, visiting my mom, going to a friend’s house and so on. Taking the bike costs me an extra minute or two here and there, but it’s great physical activity and it saves me money. As a little bonus, the bike also prevents me from buying too much when I go shopping since I know I have limited space.
Do You Notice A Trend?
Look at all of these items I have listed above. They’re common, every day things. Most people clean, wash dishes, run errands or take care of yards. These aren’t unusual activities. The key is making them physical activities. All I’ve done for that is do them myself and do them without the help of electricity or gasoline. I’ve taken my every day tasks and converted them to use muscle power. That’s it. That’s all it takes to be physically active at home. As a bonus to being healthy, you also get to save money and who can argue with that?
There’s A Limit
Of course, there’s always a limit. There are some things I can do and some things I cannot. For example, I could start washing all my clothes by hand but I don’t. I could also start churning my own butter and raising chickens in the back yard but I don’t do that either. Everyone has a line which they cannot cross because they’re missing the skills, the time or both. That’s fine, I’m not advocating a return to the days before electricity. However, it seems to me that many people willingly stop far before they even approach this line.
Take a look at your life. Take a look at the activities you do at home. Is there a way in which you could reasonably convert them into physical activities? That hedge that needs trimming every two weeks, do you really need the electric trimmer or could you do this yourself? Can you walk to the corner and drop off the mail or do you really need to get in the car for that? These questions are part of a process that converts a sedantary home life into an active one.
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Being active at home doesn’t mean working out, it means doing the same things you do every day but using your body to do them. Once you start, you’ll see how easy it is.
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Aug
17
Weekend Roundup - Finals Edition
Filed Under Weekend Roundup | Leave a Comment
I’m about to start my economics final. If you have any tips about game theory or marginal revenue vs. marginal cost, feel free to post them in the comments 
In the meantime, here are some articles I thought you might find useful:
On Friday I ranted a bit about the modern food industry. So I thought I would include a related article. This webpage was created by Joel Salatin and it’s entitled Evertyhing I Want To Do Is Illegal. Joel is an organic farmer on the east coast and is featured in Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. It’s interesting reading and tells you quite a bit about what’s wrong with our current food supply chain from a small farmer’s perspective.
@Mindfully
And while we’re on the topic, here’s an interesting editorial from the Seattle Times that talks about the personal impact of the Omnivore’s Dilemma. I always enjoy reading articles like these because they show the personal impact of trying to eat well.
@Seattle Times
In the past, I’ve said that the vegetarian diet is not necessarily healthier, and I said that as a vegetarian. However, there is a lot of research that says people who stick to a vegetarian or vegan diet do end up healthier. Here’s an article from the Nutrition Research Center that supports that. Personally, I think it’s because these people are more aware and selective about what they put into their mouths.
@Nutrition Research Center
On to some exercise news. From Mark’s Daily Apple we have an article about 10 unnecessary and worthless exercises. It’s a useful and sometimes funny read which I recommend everyone review. These are things that you often see people waste time and money on which are simply not necessary.
@Mark’s Daily Apple
From US News and World Report, here’s an article with 3 myths and 1 truth about running. More good exercise information here and I particularly liked their point about the myth of running destroying your joints and bones. Running, if done badly, can stress out joints and bones and too much running can be bad. However, the overall impact of running is far more positive than it is negative.
@US News and World Report
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Aug
15
Ok, sorry about the headline, but that’s the only thought running through my head right now. If you’ve gone to business school, you might know what I’m talking about. It’s a particular business case that most MBA students cover during their education and it discusses the treatment of chickens as they’re raised. Just for a bit of background, chickens get very aggressive when raised in small confined spaced. To prevent them from killing and eating (yikes!) eachother, chicken farmers will debeak their chickens at a young age. That means they grab a chicken and cut off the beak with a red hot knife and then throw it back into the coop. The business case in question discussed an alternative where red contact lenses would be inserted into the chicken’s eyes to make them less aggressive. This method never really caught on by the way.
Ok….
So why the heck am I talking about debeaking and chicken lenses? Well, because to me, this is an example of just how crazy our food industry has become. We mutiliate our chickens so they won’t cannibalize eachother. We pump cattle full of antibiotics so the open sores they have won’t become infections. We finish our beef on corn, a food they were never meant to eat, and then take pride in how it tastes. We raise turkeys so grossly fat that they break their own legs when they stand up. Does this sound healthy to anyone?
Killing Animals Doesn’t Bother Me
Let me clarify, killing animals doesn’t bother me. I don’t have a moral problem with eating meat nor do I think killing an animal in order to eat it is ethically wrong. What I do have an issue with is a food industry that deviates so far from the natural order of things. We raise cattle, chickens and other animals so badly and in such unnatural conditions that the only way we can sustain this is by mutilating them, pumping them full of drugs and hoping that various health issues don’t kill them before we can eat them.
By the way, this is true for non meat foods as well by the way. Have you looked at modern fields lately? Most of them are corn, most of them require so much fertilizer that the rivers around are poisoned for miles and most of them require enough pesticides to make the produce itself a chemical hazard. And we wonder why we’re so unhealthy. We need only look at our food industry to see where the problem starts.
A Simple Rule
This is not 100% true but it’s close enough to be a great rule to live by. The more processed food is, the less healthy it is. You want to eat healthy? Start eating a bit more naturally. Start eating meat that was raised the way meat is supposed to be. Start eating vegetables that don’t have to be washed in boiling water before they can be handled without gloves. Stop eating foods where 3 of the top 5 ingrediants are chemicals you can’t even pronounce.
Yes, it IS Affordable
Oh, I can hear it now. “You’re just saying that because you have money. Good healthy food costs money which I don’t have”. That’s a load of crap. If you saw what this business school is costing me you would know I have no money to spare. However, even without that, healthy food does not have to be expensive. Forget the Whole Foods supermarket that will charge you 10 dollars for an apple. Start shopping at local produce stores, farmers markets and ethnic markets. They have very reasonably priced produce that’s local and not toxic. My weekly veggie and fruit purchases at the local produce store amount to less than $20 and that’s enough for two people for a week, and we both consume quite a bit of fuirts and vegetables. Same applies to meat by the way.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and there are many ways to find inexpensive meats. For example, I have a friend who fishes on weekends. For a low initial investment, he gets a decent amount of meat per week for essentially free. I know other people who buy large quantities of organic beef from local farms and freeze most of it. Buying in bulk gets them a price that’s comparable to most supermarket prices. That’s right, they’ve found ways to make healthy meat affordable.
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Our modern food industry is an abomination. It’s wasteful, poisonous, toxic, pollutant and unhealthy. We spend an enormous amount of resources to get unhealthy food. Don’t be a part of this monstrosity. You can have food which is healthy for you, healthy for your wallet and healthy for the world around you. Knowing this, how can you make any other choice?
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Aug
13
Living A More Active Life - Part 1, Start At The Office
Filed Under Healthy Habits, Work | 2 Comments
On Monday I wrote that the two basic truths of fitness are eat in moderation and be more physically active. I believe that wholeheartedly and it was the realization of these truths that helped me get to where I am today. In the past, I’ve gone over my rules for eating, now I’d like to share with you some ideas for being more physically active.
Physical Activity and Exercise Are NOT the Same Thing
I’ve talked about this before, but physical activity is not a replacement for a workout. A workout challenges you, physical activity just means you’re not sitting on your butt doing nothing. So just because you’re going to be active, doesn’t mean you can stop working out. That said, where do we start adding activity into our lives?
The Office
Why the office? Easy. Because it’s where a lot of us spend a lot of our time. For example, I spend a good 10 hours a day in the office, 5 days a week. That’s 50 hours, or about 45% of my waking time. However, how am I going to add to a work day when I already have too much to do? Well, there are a number of ways.
- Stop emailing / calling and start walking - Got a question for a coworker? Don’t call or email them, just walk over and talk to them. I once calculated that I walk more than a mile a day just within the office. Best part of all, this actually makes me more productive. First of all, it stops me from shooting off useless emails and calls. Second, I find that face to face conversations tend to resolve issues a lot quicker.
- Use the stairs - Do you work in a multi floor office? Yes? Then stop using the elevator and start using the stairs. Unless you work in some sky scraper, you’ll actually save time by not waiting for the elevator and you’ll get a decent workout in the process.
- Take a walk meeting - Got a 1 on 1? How about taking it outside and walking around the building? I had a boss who used to do this and it was great. Not only did it eliminate other distractions and let us have our meetings in peace, it also felt much better than sitting in some office reporting on goals and objectives.
- Park further - Stop looking for that ideal parking spot and take the spot a bit further. Your car will get dinged less and you’ll end up walking more. Speaking of which…
- Use a bike or walk for your commute - Most people write off this idea as taking too much time but it’s easier than you think. Take a look at this old post where I compare my drive and bike commutes. The bike commute ends up taking 10 minutes longer but I spend less money overall, I’m active and I get to spend 30 minutes on the train (working) rather than 30 minutes in traffic (being annoyed).
- 5 minute stretch - Need a break? How about instead of heading to the water cooler you stand up and do some stretches in your cube? A series of 10 lunges, 10 squats, 10 arm raises and 10 toe touches done really slowly and with no weight are an amazing stretch routine. You’ll feel better and be more productive afterwards.
Work More Efficiently
Note that none of these ideas take time away from the workday. In fact, many of these ideas will make you more efficient overall. That’s right, being more physically active doesn’t have to cost you time. In many ways, it can save you time.
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Stop treating the office as a place to spend 9 hours sitting down. You spend way too much time there to be sedentary.
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Aug
11
This post is based on an article I read in the Simple Dollar, a personal finance blog by Trent Hamm. In fact, large parts of this post were taken verbatim from The Simple Dollar because I found no way to improve on some of Trent’s basic messages. TSD is one of the most interesting, readable and useful blogs out there. So if you have a chance and you’re curious about ways to improve your finances, take a look at it HERE.
About two or three times a month, a reader will send me a very extensive explanation of what they’re doing to stay fit and ask me if I think it’s okay - and virtually every time, it’s just fine. Even though some of the themes are repetitious, I actually quite like these emails, as it shows there are a lot of people out there making good, strong, healthy choices.
What I find interesting is what all these emails have in common: a general sense of “I think I’m doing this right, but I’m not sure.” I have this same exact feeling as well, quite often, when it comes to my own fitness and health. Why is this sense of unease so universal? If I feel it and a fair number of my readers feel it, there must be something to it. I think there is a pretty deep fundamental concern for “getting it right” among people who are getting their health in order.
For me, I made some big health miscues earlier in my life. I basically spent 5 years doing nothing but working, playing video games and eating junk food. These miscues taught me one key thing: I certainly don’t have all the answers when it comes to health, and because of that, I’m often concerned I’m not following the right path. However, there are at least three big factors that make me feel better about this.
No One Has All The Answers
First, no one has all the answers when it comes to health. Even my doctor can’t answer all of my questions although she is very enlightening about some topics. There are a lot of health gurus out there, as well as some great fitness role models. Guess what? None of them have all the answers. The best thing you can do is learn, synthesize, and figure out what’s right for you. For example, I love reading a variety of fitness blogs, from Mark’s Daily Apple and Modern Forager to Cranky Fitness and the Diet Blog. A lot of times, these blogs don’t agree with one another. In other cases, I find things on these blogs that I don’t agree with. So what? Just keep reading and keep educating yourself. You won’t always find things to be clear cut, but you’ll eventually develop a much better understanding of the issues.
But There Are Some Absolute Truths
Second, there a very few absolute truths in all of the information on health and fitness:
- Eat in moderation
- Be physically active
Everything else stems from these two items. Exercise? That’s all about being active. Eating veggies? That’s all about eating in moderation. Smaller, more frequent meals? A great way to eat less over all so right back to eating in moderation. Take the stairs instead of the elevator? You guessed it, be physically active. Everything about fitness essentially comes down to these two truths. Sure, there are an infinite number of details, but always keep those two basic rules in mind.
Communication = Motivation
Finally, we’re not alone in this struggle. I often look at others and think, “They really have their head on straight.” Meanwhile, others look at me and think the same thing. What does that all add up to? We’re all in this together, making little mistakes, but largely following a strong fitness path. Unfortunately, we don’t share enough of this with each other. Quite often in these emails, people tell me all about their exercise plan, but then they say something like “how do I explain all this to my wife/husband/partner/family/parents?” Folks, the hardest part to being fit is staying motivated and the easiest way to stay motivated is to get your friends and family involved. These people know you, care about you and want to help. You’ll find out things from them about yourself that you may not be aware of and they’ll keep you going long after you would have quit on your own.
Sooo…..
If you’re sitting there worried about your fitness, you really only need to ask yourself a few things.
- Are you eating in moderation? Be honest with yourself and look at how much you’re eating (and drinking).
- Are you physically active? Again, look at your life and be as honest as you can.
- Are you communicating with your family and friends? Are you using this amazing support network to keep yourself motivated?
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Fitness isn’t that hard. Eat less, move more, communicate. That’s all there is to it.
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Aug
10
Weekend Roundup - Finals Edition
Filed Under Weekend Roundup | 1 Comment
This week’s posts might be shorter than usual since I’m headed into finals week at school. It feels odd to be taking finals again, but it also feels good. I got my health under control, now I’m doing the same for my career.
And with that, here are some articles from this week that I thought you might find useful:
I couldn’t resist linking to this article from Mark’s Daily Apple since it’s all about eating bugs. Yes, you heard me, bugs! Insects are actually a great source of protein and before you say “EEEW!” Have you taken a close look at a shrimp or crab lately? Not that different folks. Don’t count out a food source just because your culture tells you it’s bad. Remember, there are cultures out there who consider beef or pork unclean and disgusting. Now if only I could find a place around me that sell organic grasshoppers
@Mark’s Daily Apple
And while we’re on the topic of organic grasshoppers, here’s a piece from the Nutrition Research Center that deals with some of the controversy around “organic”. Unfortunately, our government, looking as always to cater to industry over consumers, have made the rules around what can or cannot be labeled organic rather loose. That means the “organic” produce or meat you pick up at the supermarket could be just as processed and laden with chemicals as the normal stuff. Two things you can do, first, shop at local stores, farmer’s markets or farms. Second, write your congressman and tell them your health is more important than campaign contributions. Who knows, one day, they might even listen.
@Nutrition Research Center
Moving from the subject of food to one of exercise, here’s one from Fat Man Unleashed that talks about the FITT plan for weight loss. It’s actually more of a FITT plan for general fitness which is why I like it so much.
@Fat Man Unleashed
Last one for this week talks about the most important topic of all, motivation. We all know what we need to do, eat healthier and be more active, it’s motivation that trips us up. This article is a bit on the long side but I found it really useful for working through mental blocks and keeping that motivation high.
@The IF Life
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Aug
8
How Often Should You Exercise?
Filed Under Exercise, Work Out | 3 Comments
This is one of the more common questions I get from people, and one of the more important items I had to resolve when setting my own routine. I think it comes from fear. We’re afraid that we’ll have to spend out entire life in the gym and we’re worried that we might be committing ourselves to something we can’t sustain. So most of us, myself included, are scared that the answer might be “every single day”. We don’t want to exercise every day. We want time to go on with our lives. Well, the truth is both better and worse than we imagine.
First, Exercise Is Not The Same As Physical Activity
Being physically active just means moving around instead of sitting on your butt all day long. It means walking to the store, biking to the office or doing a bit of gardening. It is not the same as exercise. When you work out, you’re challenging your body. You’re doing things that you don’t normally do in order to improve your physical ability. Being physically active is not necessarily challenging. For example, I just took a 30 minute walk. Was it physically active? Of course. Was it exercise? Not at all. The walk didn’t challenge me, nor will it really improve my physical ability. However, all that said, you should be physically active EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Yes, you heard me right, you should be doing something physical every single day and hopefully multiple times a day. That could be walking, gardening or a slow bike ride. What ever it is, you should strive to be physically active at all times. However, this doesn’t answer the basic question of how often should you exercise. After all, we just said that exercising is not the same as being physically active.
So How Often Should You Exercise?
The best answer I found to that question is around 5 times a week. Any less and I feel like I’m not challenging myself enough. Any more and I risk over exercise and injury. That said, exercise doesn’t have to be at the gym nor does it have to be a structured workout. For example, a hike that involves a lot of up hills can be exercise. Fast paced dancing can be exercise. A jog outdoors can be exercise. Even playing soccer with friends can be exercise.
My personal rule of thumb is to get at least 3 resistance training sessions every week. That means weights and a structured workout to make sure I am working out all areas of my body. During those days, I’ll also do a light cardio session, usually 30 minutes in the elliptical. The other 2 or 3 days I keep pretty flexible. Maybe I’ll go biking with friends or maybe I’ll go hiking. Maybe I’ll feel like doing sprints at the local track or maybe I want to hit the pool for some laps. I might go dancing with my wife or I may go running with the dog. Whatever it is, it needs to be physically challenging or else it’s not exercise.
Remember
Be Physically Active Every Single Day - Walking, gardening, slow paced biking, what you do it, make sure you do it all day as much as possible.
Workout Every Part Of Your Body At Least Once Per Week - That means weight or resistance training and it means a structured workout. However, this can be done in 2 to 4 sessions which means you don’t need to “workout” every single day.
Exercise, or Challenge Yourself Physically, At Least Two or Three Times A Week - Fast paced dancing, hiking, team sports (baseball and golf don’t count!), jogging, sprinting, what ever it is, it should be challenging.
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Working out is something you do 2 or 3 times a week, usually at the gym. Exercising is an almost daily activity. Being physically active is a lifestyle.
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