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It’s Friday and the weekend is about to start.  For most people, that means a couple of days of rest and relaxation.  Unfortunately, the weekend also means many unhealthy habits for people.  People tend to eat more and be less active on the weekend.  So how about ending this week right with a few ideas for a healthy weekend.

Go Outdoors

The weather is beautiful in the San Francisco Bay Area.  If it’s this pretty where you live, how about finding a fun outdoor activity?  This could be anything from hiking and biking to playing frisbee in the park with friends.  It could even be something as simple as finding a friend or loved one and taking a long walk through your neighborhood.  Whatever it is, outdoor activities tend to be healthier than staying indoors.

Work On The Yard

If you have a yard, why not spend some time working on it?  I don’t just mean mowing the lawn, although that’s a pretty decent physical activity right there.  I mean plant a few things, especially vegetables or fruits.  Planting a garden will provide you with physical activity for months and with fresh produce at a cheap price.  It’s the best of all worlds!

Lay Off The Beef and Grains

The majority of what we eat is meat and grains.  How about changing that for a weekend?  No, you don’t have to go vegetarian for the weekend, but how about sticking to healthier meats until Monday morning?  That means fish, chicken, turkey and so on.  No beef, no pork, especially not the overly processed varieties.  Also, stay away from breads this weekend.  So no pizza, pasta or breads.  Commit yourself to doing this for just a weekend and see how easy and tasty this sort of healthy diet can be.

Go Dancing

Dancing is a wonderful workout which most people don’t consider a workout.  If you’re part of a couple, why not invite your partner to a night out at a dance club?  If you two have never danced before then find your nearest dance lesson or hall and go try it out.  There’s always beginner nights.  If you’re single, what better place to meet people than at a dance hall?  That’s especially true of you shy guys out there.  Trust me, you’ll enjoy it

Start Each Day Right

Commit to starting your Saturday and Sunday mornings right.  That means plenty of sleep the night before (you can forego the late night drinking binges for one weekend), a good breakfast and a 5 minute workout.  Do that for two mornings and see how much better you feel for the rest of the day.  Again, I’m not asking you to commit to this for the rest of your life, just two mornings.

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I hope everyone has a healthy and fun weekend.

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I usually try to work out at least once over the weekend. Rather than hitting the gym, I try to do something active like hiking or biking. This weekend however, I found myself without a lot of spare time. Not only was it a school weekend, but my wife and I were in the middle of a move.  Here’s a funny thing though, with a little change here and there, I changed a weekend that was going to be bad into one that was fun, productive and physically active.

Stairway To Fitness

The biggest change I made was during the move.  Our old house was one the fourth floor of an apartment building.  So rather than make each trip up and down using the elevator, I did it using the stairs.  Total time was about the same but I was burning a ton of calories just moving.

Ten trips means 40 stories up.  It also means 40 stories down while carrying boxes, plants and bags.  This is about as good as an hour of cardio on the treadmill, except I also moved all my stuff.

Biking Trip

I also needed to go to the store to pick up a few things for the new house.  Rather than take the car, I took the bike.  The store is pretty close so the time spent is about the same, but I ended up with more physical activity and I actually saved money.

Gardening

We have a backyard at the new place which needs a bit of work.  Rather than put this off to a later day, I decided to do this yesterday.  About an hour of digging around in the yard, trimming branches and planting ground cover was another shot of good physical activity.  I needed to do this anyway this week so why not do it on a day when I need a workout?

What Can You Do?

• Going somewhere?  How about walking or biking instead of driving?  How about taking the stairs instead of the elevator?
• Got a yard?  Why not do the gardening yourself instead of hiring someone?
• Got friends who needs help moving?  Tell them you’re in and then revel in the fact that someone is going to feed you and thank you for working out.
• Shopping for a small amount of things at the supermarket?  How about using a basket instead of a cart?

It’s the little things that matter folks.  All these little things combined will turn your life from sedentary to active and isn’t that what you’re looking for?

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While the gardening helped, the most important changes were the stairs while moving and the bike to the store.  These are things most people choose not to do.  In our day to day lives, we usually choose the easy path.  The easy path is more comfortable and it requires less effort, but it’s also less beneficial.

I chose the less than easy path and it paid off.  I got a good workout while also being very productive.  What about you?  Is there something in your life that you could make a bit more physically active?  I realize it sounds counter intuitive, almost like asking you to do something the hard way on purpose.  However, when you think about it, aren’t you here and reading this because you want to get in shape?  If that’s the case, then the “hard” way might actually be the right way for you.

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One of the articles I linked to in yesterday’s weekend roundup spoke about the importance of social networks when it came to health. A social network is your friends and family, the people who are close to you and provide you with support. A good social network reduces stress and gives you someone to rely on. They encourage, motivate and accept you. A bad social network stresses, discourages and demoralizes you.  Today, I’d like to focus on one particular part of your social network, your partner.

Of All The Wonderful Things My Wife Helps Me With, This I Appreciate The Most

My wife is an amazing person, something I don’t tell her enough .  She’s smart, creative, funny and beautiful.  She’s been an incredibly positive influence in my life.  For all the great things I could thank her for, it’s her support that I appreciate the most.

When I need help, she’s there.  If I need someone to talk to, she’s there.  If I have an idea and I need someone to talk about it with, she’s there.  We support each other through school, work, new puppies and moving houses.  This support has proven to be invaluable for me in so many areas, health being one of them.

How Does Support = Good Health?

My wife and I don’t workout together.  We’ve tried but it just didn’t work out.  We’re still planning to take a few classes together but for the most we work out separately.  Yet, her support is still there when I work out.

• She motivates me through some days when I’m not really thinking about working out.  I think of her and of the long and healthy life I wish to lead with her and I start exercising again.
• She helps me make good decisions.  For example, when I say “Let’s go to the buffet!” she points out that just the week before I said buffets were bad for me.
• She helps me when I’m stressed just by being there and giving me someone to talk to.

What To Do?

The first and most important item is communication.  If you want feedaback you need to provide information.  If you want support, you need to communicate.  That’s a lesson I’ve learned myself.  It’s a hard lesson to learn, especially for someone used to being independent and self sufficient, but there’s an amazing amount of return on this one.  Some examples:

• If you’re planning to make some effort to change your health, communicate about it with your partner.  Tell them why you’re doing it and what you’re planning to do.
• If you’re having a problem and trying to figure out a solution, communicate with your partner.  Tell them what the problem is and ask them for their opinion.  Even if you think you know more about fitness and health than your partner, they might have insight on you that you missed.  It’s amazing how the people close to us see our habits in ways we never imagined.
• If you need motivation, think about your partner.  It’s hard sometimes to visualize good health and remember why it’s so important.  It’s not that hard to visualize your loved ones and think about all the good years you hope to enjoy with them.

What If I’m Single?

Well, getting a partner just for better health is probably a bad idea.  Instead, why not find a friend who you’re close to and can serve in the same function?  How about a sibling or parent?  They’ve known you all your life and probably have a lot of useful insight into who you are.  Good friends are a great options since they’re supportive and spend a lot of time with you.  Remember, you’re not looking for a workout partner here, you’re looking for a communication partner.  You need someone you can talk to, not someone to jog with.  If you can also jog with them then that’s great, but it’s not the main goal.

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Find someone you care about and who cares about you and then communicate.  That’s it, it really is that simple.  The benefits, health and otherwise, are immense.

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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.

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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.

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Every once in a while I like trying out a new way of working out. It keeps my workouts interesting plus it lets me try new things. As with eating, I believe that variety in exercise has many benefits.  However, variety is not what today’s post is about.  Instead, I’d like to tell you about the workout I tried out on Wednesday and how much I liked it.

The Need For Continuous Improvement

If you’re a long time reader of 60 in 3 and have read some of my past series like the 4 day workout, you’ll know that I prefer to do sets of about 10 reps (repetitions).  That means I do an exercise like squats ten times.  I usually use weights that I know I can lift for those ten reps, but I try to pick something heavy enough to be challenging.  That means picking weights that I don’t think I can do for many reps than those ten.

In the past, I’ve been increasing the weights I use at a slow but steady pace.  This reflected the improvement in my overall fitness level.  For example, when I started working out I could barely bench press the bar on its own, about 45lbs.  These days, I usually bench press around 150lbs for my reps.  Unfortunately, I just haven’t been able to improve any of the weights I do for the past few months.  In fact, I was feeling as though I had reached a sort of plateau and that further improvement was impossible.   In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing.  Everyone has a point past which they cannot go.  Our bodies have limits and it’s good to know that limit.  However, I felt like I should be able to lift more but I simply couldn’t take that next step forward.

The Blowout Workout

I happened to mention this to a friend over the weekend, and he suggested I try out a new kind of workout.  He called it the Blowout Workout but it’s also known by other names.  Essentially, the blowout workout means you do half the repetitions with about 25% to 50% more weight.  So if I normally did ten bench presses with 150lbs, on Wednesday I tried to do 5 bench presses with 180lbs.

At first, this was a bit intimidating.  I was having enough difficulties with 150lbs, did I really want to try out this much more weight?  Yes, it was just five repetitions instead of the my usual 10 but that’s a lot of weight!  But I tried it anyway and I’m really glad I did.

The Results

I was able to do the five reps with the extra weight on each and every exercise I normally do.  In fact, in many cases I kept going and did 8 to 10 reps.  It was like my body had always been capable of this kind of performance but I was holding back for some reason.  All it took was a willingness to try.  I had convinced myself to try out the higher weight by telling myself that I was just going to do five reps instead of 10 and once I tried it, it just wasn’t that bad.

Breaking Through Self Imposed Limits

All this time, I was perfectly capable of exercising at a much higher level than I was.  So why didn’t I?  I’m not sure of the answer but I think it’s because I had convinced myself that I just couldn’t take a little more extra weight before the current weight became easy.  Well guess what, the current weight was never going to become easy until I tried something harder.  It was only when I challenged myself with something more difficult that I noticed how easy my current workout had become.

This is applicable in more than just weight lifting by the way.  If you’re trying to do something that’s a bit challenging, don’t just raise the bar a little, raise it a lot!  Challenge yourself way beyond your comfort level.  Maybe you won’t achieve 100% success, but that big jump in difficulty will make that little jump you were trying to make seem a lot easier.

Try It Out For Yourself

If you’re interested, the Blowout Workout is a very easy idea to implement.  Take every weight you’re using right now and increase it by at least 25%.  Now try to do five reps.  If you can do more, that’s great, but tell yourself that your goal is just the first five reps.  That will keep your focused and make everything seem more doable.  My only warning is that you need to be careful. You may not be used to this much weight and having another person around you to make sure you don’t do something silly is probably a good idea.

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Trying out new things is great.  Trying out things you think are impossible is even better.  It will make the things you think are possible but difficult seem very easy.

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I try to link to interesting articles and posts on my weekend roundups because there quite a bit of good information out there that’s not on 60 in 3. Sometimes though, I run into a post that’s so good it just deserves a special mention. Today I found such a post.

Mark’s Daily Apple

I like Mark’s Daily Apple for various reasons. It’s smart, funny and includes a lot of good information. It doesn’t quite get into the details I like to write about, which is probably good or else I wouldn’t have a reason to write articles on 60 in 3

Now Mark has this concept called the Primal Blueprint. Basically, it means that if you live your life the way our primitive ancestors did you’re going to have a much healthier and happier life and I couldn’t agree more. Mark’s Daily Apple has been talking about this concept for a while now, exploring various parts of it in detail, but they never really explained the whole thing at once. They never told the readers “THIS is what the Primal Blueprint is all about”. Well, they’ve gone ahead and fixed that.

The Primal Blueprint post

Take a look at this folks, it’s the primal blueprint post from Mark’s Daily Apple. It’s a brilliant breakdown of what a healthy life can look like.  There’s a lot to learn here and all of it is valuable.

Slight Disagreement

Now I will say that I have a slight disagreement with Mark in that I’m mostly a vegetarian and he recommends meat.  However, please note that Mark recommends lean, healthy meats and not the processed crap you find in most restaurants.  That I have no problem with as long as it’s in moderation.  Personally, I chose my lifestyle because I believe it’s healthier for the environment around me, but I have no problem admitting that healthy meat options can be great parts of a healthy lifestyle.  In fact, If I could find a reliable source of meat that was healthy and environmentally friendly, I’d be happily munching away at it.  As is, I do sometimes add in healthy and sustainable options like venison to my diet.  So Mark and I really aren’t that far off on this part of the Primal Blueprint.

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Yes, I’m urging my readers to go read someone else’s blog.  So go already! 

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Two weeks ago, I started talking about the five rules I use for eating healthy food. I use these relatively simple rules because It’s just too difficult to keep up with all the guidelines, recommendations and plans for eating the perfectly balanced diet. You can drive yourself crazy and still not be 100% perfect. Today we look at rule #1, which I like to call the “variety counts” rule. This particular rule is partially influenced by Michael Pollan but is also from my own history.

By the way, you may have noted that I’m not exactly following a sequential order in discussing these rules; I started with rule #2, followed by #4, then 3, then 5 and now #1. That’s for two reasons, one because I want to emphasize that none of these rules is more important than the other. Also, I picked each rule because it was appropriate to the day I was writing it. Today is Monday and we’re expecting a catered lunch here at work.  This specific caterer delivers food that is exactly like the food I grew up with.  So I thought today is a good day to talk about variety and expanding your cuisine choices.

What Is “Variety Counts” Rule?

I grew up in Israel with a mother who came from Eastern Europe.  That means my diet consisted of two different cuisines.  The first was the Mediterranean cuisine I would eat around town.  Things like falafel, shawarma and hummus.  The Med diet is relatively healthy if eaten in moderation.  The second cuisine was my mother’s eastern European style cooking.  Lots of heavy beef and potatoes type dishes with incredibly tasty sauces and of course, chicken soup!  The eastern European diet was slightly less healthy since it had more fat and calories and less vegetables.  However, the two diets, combined with an active childhood, kept me healthy.

Then we moved to the US.  My mother kept cooking her eastern European dishes, but my neighborhood diet had changed from healthy Mediterranean healthy to American fast food.  I was still active, which kept my weight in check, but my diet became far less healthy.  The final nail in the coffin of my healthy eating came when I moved out.  Since I didn’t cook, I either ate out at restaurants or bought frozen dinners and all of these meals were traditional American foods.  I ate burgers by the dozens, pizza, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, cheese pockets and microwaved chicken nuggets.  I’m guessing you can figure out what happened.  This new diet, combined with a lack of exercise, drove me to that health meltdown a few years ago from which I am still recovering.

Since then, one of the things I’ve discovered is the wonderful variety of food we have available to us.  I discovered sushi and sashimi, I found Chinese and Thai restaurants, I tried out Indian food and found that I loved it, I experimented with vegetarian dishes and saw that they were really good.  I even rediscovered Mediterranean food and reconnected with some of the healthy food I grew up with.  I used to be afraid of strange foods but now I seek them out.  I enjoy new flavors and new selections.

All of this has left me with a far larger selection of healthy choices to eat.  Want a good way to eat vegetables?  How about that incredible veggie stir fry from the Thai place.  Looking for a good protein choice?  Why not try the Salmon sashimi?  How about the pumpkin dish at the Afghan place for dinner or the burrito from the Mexican place down the road?  These are all healthy options that I would never have discovered had I not been looking for more variety.  So these days I welcome variety in my food.  I’m always happy to try out new dishes and I’m always looking to experiment with new cuisines.  Who knows, you may just find a new favorite dish.

Given two options, I will always pick out the dish I’ve never tried before.  That’s the “variety counts” rule.

Advanced Applications

Every week, try out at least one new cuisine or dish.  Ask about the ingredients, research the preparation and learn more about how your food was made.  It’s a wonderful education and you’ll discover many things you never realized about food.

Don’t limit yourself.  Why is an omelet only for breakfast?  Why can you only BBQ in the evenings?  Why do you have to have mashed potatoes with meat loaf?  Mix and match and see what works.

Clarifications to the Variety Counts Rule

No, this rule is not an excuse to gorge.  Yes, if you’ve never tried deep fried twinkies before, maybe you should just once.  However, did you remember to ask about how your food is prepared?  If you did, I’m guessing you’ll figure out that deep fried twinkies are a one time thing.  Not all food is healthy and that’s something you’ll figure out as you go.

Why Use the Variety Counts Rule?

Because a boring diet is one that won’t last.  Yes, there are healthy dishes in the classic American diet, but they are few and far between.  If you limited yourself to just those, you’ll soon get bored and fall back to unhealthy eating habits.  That’s why you need to branch out and try new things.  Doing so will help you discover new healthy dishes to add to your repartee.

But I Like What I’m Eating Now!

Sure, and if it’s healthy, there’s no reason for you to stop.  I’m not saying you should eat something new every day, just make sure to try out new things once in a while.

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I can’t imagine life without a variety of foods.  It would be boring and I would quickly revert back to unhealthy habits if I had to eat the same one or two healthy dishes day after day after day.  Do yourself a favor and try something new today.

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