You are here: Home / Archives for Stress

The Best Exercise Gear That Money Can Buy

January 16, 2012 By 1 Comment

A few weeks before Xmas, I listed out some of my healthy gift ideas.  Well, Santa (or Hanukkah Harry) must have read that post because most of those items showed up at my house in the weeks before the holidays.  Among those items was what I now consider one of the best health investments of my life.  Namely, the Everlast 80lb heavy punching bag.

Warning – Some of this post contains certain language.  Language that is laden with testosterone and meant primarily for guys.  If you’re ok with this kind of language, please read on.  Otherwise, check out my wonderful post about water retention.

And now, I present to you my new exercise equipment / anger issues outlet!

A Man’s Best Friend

Yes, this bag isn’t won’t just improve your physical health it will also improve your emotional health, but more on that later.  First, let’s talk boxing workout.

Honestly, I thought boxers were overweight, overmanaged and more similar to choreographed wrestlers than true athletes.  I now take all that back and apologize for any bad thing I have ever said about boxing.  Well, I still believe they’re over managed but that’s a different issue.  As far as health and workouts are concerned, boxing kicks ass!  (Amusing fact, Balrog, the boxer from Street Fighter, had no kicks and was therefore the only character who literally could NOT kick ass).

Along with the boxing bag, my wonderful wife got me a round timer.  It’s a little gadget that rings a bell to signal the start of a round and then rings another bell two minutes later to signal the end of the round.  When I first saw this little device I thought to myself “two minutes?  Are you serious?  I can do twenty minutes!!”  I was wrong.  So, so, SO wrong.

The Workout

60 seconds into punching this bag and I was winded, tired and hurting.  90 seconds and the bag was kicking my ass so hard that I had to stop the round timer before I collapsed.  My heart was beating hard, my legs were tired from hopping around and my arms were sore from punching this monster hanging in front of me.  Now sure, you can do some form work or slow motion boxing that won’t tire you out as much, but if you want to do that, why did you just plonk down $100 (or $300 if you bought the optional stand) for a heavy punching bag?  No, this thing is meant to take a beating and a fast paced beating you shall deliver.

One quick disclaimer, you really should consider boxing gloves or even hand wraps.  Again, I thought to myself those boxers are pansies for needing to protect their hands but I was very very wrong.  One punch to this heavy bag and I thought I had broken my wrist.  I still do the occasional bare handed routine but in that case I make sure not to hit with any kind of follow through.  Trust me on this one, the bag doesn’t have much give in it and neither do your bones, try not to break either.

So, overall, this thing was a monster in terms of workouts.  It combines cardio with some good hand eye coordination and muscle work.  It’s not a resistance workout by any means, it’s more the equivalent of running sprints.  You work really hard for a short amount of time and then rest.  I definitely recommend getting the timer with it and then trying to see how many rounds you can go full out.

The Therapy Session

However, what really surprised me is not how good of a workout this was but how good of an outlet it is.  Yah, that’s right, I enjoy hitting stuff.  I won’t lie to you and I won’t try to pretend otherwise.  Honestly, I think a lot of us guys still have a primal creature inside of us just waiting to obliterate some threat to our loves ones.  It’s why we watch movies like Deathwish 9 and why we like to act tough around our friends.  Except we’re also civilized creatures (despite our penchant for burping and farting) and civilization has told us that violence is bad.  So in our quest to impress women with our gentler side (and not go to jail) we’ve repressed our violent tendencies and buried them deep inside our day dreams and fantasies where we kick ass on anyone who dares touch our wife.

Except those urges are still there, lurking.  They’re like little monsters waiting to be unleashed at the absolute wrong time.  They grow stronger when our bosses are idiots, the train is late, traffic is bad and the guy at the checkout counter ignores us and makes us wait.  They whisper to us “you’re not a man, you’re a wimp” and beg to be released.  And sooo….

Cry Havok, And Let Loose The Dogs of War

Every few nights I have a date with my punching bag.  During this date I tell the bag exactly how angry I am.  I tell it how annoying AT&T customer support was.  I tell it what an ass my coworker was.  I tell it how much I hate that guy on TV who yells at me when I buy the wrong stocks.  I even tell it some secrets I tell no one else, like the annoying thing my mom does when she thinks she’s being funny.  Except I don’t tell the bag any of this with words, I tell it with my fists!  And the bag listens and it talks to me.  It says “ hit me harder!  Be a man!” and I do and after 10 minutes of this, my anger is spent, my monsters are tired and I am ready to rejoin civilization once again.  I am sweaty, tired and in pain but I feel good.  I feel like a man, a true man, and a healthy one.

###

If you’re interested in buying this bag for yourself or as a gift, check out our gift review on Diamonds or Dogs.

Filed Under: Alternative Workouts, Exercise, Review, Stress Tagged With: , , , ,

Week 5 – Speed Bumps Encountered

October 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series The Long Path To Health

Speed Bump AheadThis is week five of my project to get back to a healthier lifestyle.  If you recall from a couple of weeks ago, my goals at this point were:

Plan:

  • No drinks other than water
  • No sweets other than fruit (no dried fruit either)
  • No beef
  • No bread
  • Three runs per week
  • Three weights workouts per week

And The Goals Were:

  • 1 hour run at 5.5mph
  • 1 set of bench press at 255
  • weight 225lbs (this has changed)

How am I doing? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Eating Healthy, Fitness, Gyms, Healthy Habits, Monthly Update, Motivation, Running, Stress, Time Management, Weight Loss, Work Tagged With: , , ,

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: , , ,

When Did I Get Fat?

April 15, 2011 By 8 Comments

I love numbers.  Numbers are beautiful because they don’t really lie.  They simply present the fact although it’s up to you to interpret those facts correctly.  I love crunching through them and seeing what useful information I can find.    I suppose that’s one reason why I’ve spend much of my life working on optimization related technology, because this field is all about using numbers to make stuff better.

I apply this same love of numbers to my life (much to the annoyance of my loved ones on occasion), and especially to my health.  I love tracking stuff and seeing how I’m doing compared to last week, last month or last year.  I enjoy looking at the nutrient breakdown of my day and then comparing it to my mood that day.  Sometimes you get useful insights and some times you don’t but the numbers are always beautiful.

last weekend I sat down and charted my own weight against various events in my life just to see what had made a difference and what did not.  The results were interesting although pretty much expected.  Four events stand out.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Fitness, Healthy Habits, Stress, Time Management Tagged With: , , ,

Making It Work – The Tim Ferriss Diet

January 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
This entry is part 6 of 15 in the series 4 Hour Body Diet

I’m a big believer in experimentation, especially on myself.  As long as it’s not too extreme, I’m more than willing to try it out and see if it works.  So when I noticed some of my own issues with following the Tim Ferriss diet, I started wondering what could be causing these problems.  I’m not usually the kind of person who gives in to sugar cravings and goes to consume a whole bag of chocolates.  Not that I don’t love chocolate, but I can usually restrain myself pretty well.  So what’s been going on in the past few weeks that’s causing me issues around healthy eating?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Diets, Sleep, Stress Tagged With: , , , ,

Laying The Foundation To A Healthy Life

October 11, 2010 By 1 Comment

IMG_8787In the past month or so I’ve been taking you all through a bit of a reboot here at 60 in 3.  We’ve talked about making plans, health toolkits, healthy eating, living active, pushing some weights and getting the heart moving.  These are the essentials of a healthy life.  However, there is also one more aspect and that’s the foundation we’re going to build this whole thing on.

What Does That Even Mean?

Well, before you become healthy physically, you must also become healthy mentally.  Yes, the two go hand in hand.  You may in fact find that one is improving at the same time as the other but you have to commit to both.  You cannot expect yourself to become healthy through diet and exercise when you’re also placing an incredible amount of strain on yourself through issues related to work, money, family and life in general.

Now I have a whole blog devoted to changing your life so I’ll try to keep this brief, but I would like to emphasize this:

If you want to be healthy, you need to reduce your stress level.

Believe me, I know this lesson first hand.  I went through a period of my life that was incredibly stressful.  It involved a series of bad personal events and had nothing to do with my health.  In fact, I kept exercising through it and tried to watch what I eat.  However, no amount of exercise or healthy eating could compensate for the stress I was going through.  My blood pressure shot up, my weight fluctuated by more than 20lbs up and down, my energy level went from manic to depressive and my doctor was considering putting me on some medications to deal with various chronic conditions.  When I finally came out of that dark time, I found a new  strength, both mental and physical.

Now you may not be going through a crisis of the same level, but I bet a lot of you are under a tremendous amount of stress anyway.  Like me, you probably have a day job which keeps you busy, friends and family that keep you busier, finances to deal with, projects to complete and dogs to walk.  Well, all of this means stress and if you don’t deal with it this stress is going to undo any amount of healthy living you can think of.  Stress will cause you to eat too much, drink too much and not exercise.  It will cause your blood pressure to rise and your energy to drop.  It will slowly wear your down and leave you a broken wreck.  Before it gets to that point, try out some of the following pieces of advice:

Sleep - Most of us don’t get enough sleep.  7 to 9 hours a day is recommended and is wonderful for reducing stress.

Meditation - No, it’s not just for new age hippies.  Meditation is a wonderful way to center yourself and reduce your stress.  There are numerous resources on this great tool online.  Why not give them a shot?

Take a walk – Not just good for your body, it’s good for your soul.  A quiet walk on a quiet evening is extremely relaxing.  Take a friend with you for some quality conversation and you have a good stress reliever.

Read a book – A good fiction book will engage your imagination and remove you from day to day stress.  Heck, pick up the latest chapter in the Twilight series if you must. :)

Hug someone – Yes, I’m a hippie at heart.  Hugging has been proven to reduce stress levels and lower blood pressure.  How about finding your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, child, parent or dog and giving them a good hug?

Yoga - Another exercise that’s good for both the body and the soul.  Yoga is essentially a series of stretches that will make you more limber and loosen your mind (in a good way).

I know you came here for fitness advice but I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t talk at least a little bit about your mental health.  I want you to succeed.  I want you to live a long and healthy AND HAPPY life.  You matter to me, all of you, and for your own sakes I urge you to lay a solid mental foundation for that healthy life you are about to start.

As for me, I’m off to walk my dog.  That’s her in the picture at the top of this post.  She may no longer be a puppy, but she’s still my little baby and walking her is an incredibly effective way to reduce stress :)

Filed Under: Self Improvement, Stress Tagged With: , , ,

The Value of Sleep

May 15, 2009 By 4 Comments

One of the things I’ve been struggling with for the past four months is getting enough sleep.  For a variety of reasons, most of them my own fault, I’ve been getting 5 to 6 hours per sleep a night, and that’s just not enough.  I’ve noticed a number of effects from this:

  • Tiredness during the day (duh!) leading to nodding off in meetings and social events.
  • Poor focus at work
  • Occasional irritability
  • Poor decision making at times
  • Greater tendency for binge eating
  • Greater need for artificial stimulants like caffeine and chocolate

Needless to say, this has made my goals a lot harder to accomplish.  So I’m taking a few steps to remedy the situation.

Step 1 – Bed by 10!

I wake up every day at 6:30am.  So if I want to get a good 8 hours of sleep, I need to be in bed by 10pm at the latest.  Sure, some days I won’t be able to do that, but I want those days to be the exception where I’m doing something fun and important and not the rule, where I stay up late surfing the internet.

Step 2 – New Bed

So long old mattress.  Hello new bed!  My current sleeping arrangement is very poorly setup.  It’s too soft in some areas, the pillow setup is bad and the whole mattress is damaged thanks to the lovely Daisy, also known as super puppy!  Time to get something new and this time do a bit more research on it.

Step 3 – No Eating Late

This is an obvious one but I’ve been a bit lax with it lately.  No more really late dinners.

Step 4 – No Drinking Late

I’m cutting out the caffeine anyway, but I’m also going to try to cut down on the water consumption after 8 or 9pm.  This is to avoid the inevitable trip to the bathroom at about 4am.

Step 5 – Bedroom Rearrangement

My bedroom is both my place of sleep and my place of work.  I think this is a bad idea.  It should be one and not the other.  I’m going to rearrange a few things, get rid of my desk and turn the bedroom into a place of relaxation, not stress.

Step 6 – A Sound Experiment

I’m going to experiment with white noise makers as well as music.  I want to see if either one will make a difference in my sleep patterns.

###

I’m hoping that all of these things added together will make for a much better night’s sleep.

Filed Under: Sleep, Stress Tagged With: ,
« Older Posts