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We Are All Beautiful And Unique Snowflakes

February 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Ok, I’ll admit it, I occasionally read a blog by the name of fit bottomed girls.  First, because I like most of their articles and second because I really like fit bottomed girls :)  Now that I’ve confessed that horrible fact, let me introduce you to an article I recently read on FBG which I really enjoyed:

Can We Stop Talking Clothing Size Already?

The article talks about how we’re all different in the way our bodies are shaped.  Some of us are wider, some are longer, some are more muscular and some are heavier set.  Pretending that we’re all the same or that we all should aspire to the same body shape is ridiculous.  My friend who is 6’1″ weighs less than I do and yet I’m in better shape.  Why?  Because my shoulders are broader and I’m far more muscular.  Should I be concerned about that?  Of course not.

And to women everywhere, please believe me that us men don’t think you need to look like a Victoria’s Secret model to be beautiful.  We think you’re gorgeous and we love the fact that some of you are tall, some short, some slender and some curvy.  We love you and we love your body and we love your wonderful personality and we love your confidence and we love your sense of humor and so many other things as well, we’re just happy that you tolerate us :)

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Also, I have yet to meet a man who really understands what women’s clothing sizes mean.  It’s like a horribly complex code setup to confuse us poor men as we try to shop for presents for the wonderful women in our lives.

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How Do I Look?

October 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

That’s me in the picture.  It was taken maybe a week ago, when Julie and I went to Half Moon Bay.  You notice that big smile on my face?  That’s because I’m happy.  I’m doing something fun with somebody I love.  The last few weeks, since we came back from our honeymoon have been great.  I feel good, I’m happy and I’m doing well because of it.  I’m more productive at work, I’m more at ease with my friends and I’m doing far better with my fitness goals than I thought possible.

I’m not quite sure where this post is headed by the way, I’m typing this as it occurs to me, but it seems like the connection between physical health and emotional health is undeniable.  Feeling better in general has led me to feeling better about my body and health.  It’s led me to have more motivation for my goals, health related and otherwise.  I wonder if this is why married men are on average healthier and tend to live longer.  I suppose it could be because we tend to do less stupid things when married but I also believe it’s because we’re happier and happiness is conducive to a healthier life.  Happiness means less stress and stress is the thing that kills most of us. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editorial, Motivation, Stress Tagged With: , , ,

To Take Tylenol or Not To Take Tylenol

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Dr. Mario TylenolI was miserable last weekend. I was congested, my throat ached, my head hurt and my body felt like a 500lb gorilla had used it as a punching bag. I was feeling and acting pretty pitiful when my wife said “how about you take some Tylenol?” My guess is I was annoying the crap out of her with my whining but that question got me thinking, why don’t I take more medication? I resist taking anything from Tylenol to aspirin. I didn’t take the anti inflammatory medication my doctor prescribed for my elbow and I didn’t take any anti histamines when I developed an allergy to something unknown last summer. Why not?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Editorial, Illness and Injury Tagged With: , , , , ,

Week 1 – And so it begins…

September 19, 2011 By 1 Comment
This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series The Long Path To Health

Julie and I arrived home three nights ago after an amazing two weeks in Croatia (which I highly recommend for anyone looking for a beautiful place to go).  I’m tired, I’ve had a miserable weekend because I caught a cold on the flight home but I’m also incredibly happy. The honeymoon showed me just how much I love her and how wonderful our life together will be.  However, since this is a health and fitness blog and not a marriage blog, let me focus on a couple of thoughts that occurred to me while I was gone.

First of all, my choices are no longer mine alone.  In the past, if I wanted to eat poorly and not exercise that was my choice and the consequences were mine and mine alone.  That’s no longer true.  My health is now Julie’s concern as well, especially when we’re talking about kids and a future together.  The consequences of my choices are hers as well as mine.  This is difficult for some people to accept and I can see why.  It’s not easy to take responsibility for another person, to be accountable for what they do and to allow your own actions to be dictated in part by them.  In effect, it means I’ve abdicated some control of my body, my decisions and my choices to her, just as she’s done for me.  That’s a lot to accept but I accept it willingly because it’s part of our commitment. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Announcement, Diets, Eating Healthy, Editorial, Exercise, Gyms, Running, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , , ,

More Charts! This Time, Workout and Weight By Age

April 19, 2011 By 2 Comments

Last week I charted by weight by age and came up with some interesting thoughts on what really influences health.  Based on that conversation, I thought I would add in additional information in the form of my workout results.

I am representing average workout performance in two ways.  First by showing you how far I would run in an hour.  That’s the bar marked speed and the lowest point on it is 4 while the highest is 6.5 miles.  The second is by showing average weight in my bench press set.  That’s the blue bar with the lowest being 45 and the highest being 275.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Eating Healthy, Editorial, Research, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Eating With A Conscience While On The 4 Hour Body Diet

April 1, 2011 By 3 Comments
This entry is part 12 of 15 in the series 4 Hour Body Diet

Cows GrazingThose of you who’ve read my blog for a long time know that I prefer to eat with a conscience. That is, I like eating food that is good for me and also good for the environment. Plus I love animals so I don’t want to eat something that is needlessly cruel to raise and produce. In fact, this is the reason I originally became a vegetarian, because I wanted to lessen my impact on the world around me. However, as the years went by, I found myself modifying my stance somewhat, which brings us to today’s story. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Diets, Eating Healthy, Editorial, Nutrition Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Primal Blueprint (Paleo Lifestyle) Is Wrong But It Really Doesn’t Matter

November 17, 2010 By 2 Comments

Primal Eats: Cabbage and Turkey KielbasaEvery group of friends has their experts. My best friend is our group’s expert on computer related topics because he works in IT. We have an expert on medical issues who happens to be an EMT. We even have an expert on real estate who happens to be a broker. As for me, I’m the expert on business and on health. So when people in our friends circle hear about new health trends or ideas, they frequently come to me and discuss them. This is what happened a few weeks ago when a good friend of mine came to ask my opinion about The Primal Blueprint and the paleo lifestyle in general. He was very enthusiastic about this idea and wanted to know what I thought of it.

Now, before anyone gets up in arms, I would like to say that I like the Primal Blueprint and the paleo lifestyle, I think it’s fine and healthy. Unfortunately, that’s not what I told my friend. I, being the nitpicky person that I am, proceeded to tell him about a few of my objections to the whole idea of living as our ancestors did.

A few weeks go by and I see my friend again. I ask him how his new paleo lifestyle is going and he responds with “I didn’t bother trying it because you said it sucked”. Well, he used a few other words as well but they’re not fit for printing in a family friendly blog (which this is!) I quickly realized that I had been a complete and total idiot in my choice of advice for a friend. Rather than focus on the 95% of the Primal Blueprint which I liked and appreciated, I focused on the 5% I had an issue with. Rather than encourage my friend to pursue a healthy lifestyle, I had discouraged him due to trivial details.

The 95% Which Matters

So, today I would like to say the following:

There are a million and one health books out there that claim to have the ideal way of life. They will explain the science, the history and the methodology of their ideas in great detail. They will attempt to convince you, cajole you and possibly even shame you into following what they preach. Some of them are good and some of them are bad. Here are my methods for spotting the good versus the bad.

The Good:

  1. Tells you to stay away from junk food. This includes pretty much every kind of snack ever packaged in a plastic wrapping with bright colorful pictures on it.
  2. Tells you to add some fresh fruits and vegetables to your diet. Can’t really go wrong with this one.
  3. Gives you tips on eating in moderation. Take a look at this post if you need a few of those.
  4. Tells you to get some kind of regular resistance exercise. No, I don’t care if they focus on kettlebells or tell you to go to the gym, just as long as you strain your muscles a bit.
  5. Tells you to challenge your heart. Sprints or jogging, whatever!
  6. Tells you to get some sleep.
  7. Tells you to avoid stress.
  8. Shows you how to change your lifestyle in the long term.

Does The Primal Blueprint do all those? Absolutely!

The Bad:

  1. Tells you to eat only one kind of food like cabbage. Are you kidding me?
  2. Only focuses on eating or exercise but not both. You need both for a healthy lifestyle.
  3. Tries to sell you something like supplements, special yogurt, a new kind of exercise machine or anything you shouldn’t be spending a lot of money on.
  4. Focuses on the short term. For example, giving you a nine week program after which you’re on your own.

The Primal Blueprint does none of these.  In other words, while I may nitpick a few details here in there, I think the Paleo lifestyle is great.  If you want to live healthy, that’s certainly a great choice and if you want more information on the Primal Blueprint in particular I would recommend that you go to Mark Sisson’s excellent Mark’s Daily Apple.

So now I’m asking all of you to pay attention.  Because as smart as we are, we all of a tendency to think what we believe in is right and anything else is wrong. Whether you’re raw vegan or paleo or low carb or Mediterranean diet, stop nitpicking the details. If someone tells you of a lifestyle that includes the good and leaves out the bad, encourage them, even if you’re not in 100% agreement. Our goal should be to encourage others to adopt a healthy lifestyle, even if it’s not exactly like our own.

As for me, I’m happy to say that my friend is back to the Primal Blueprint and having a very successful time with it.

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