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?

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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: , , , ,

On Honeymoon Break For Three Weeks!

August 31, 2011 By 1 Comment

Yes indeed, it’s true, I’ve gone and gotten myself married :)

On Sunday, August 28th, I married the most wonderful woman in a beautiful ceremony in Woodside’s Mountain Terrace.  The day went perfectly and I couldn’t be happier.  On Thursday, September 1st, we will be taking off for a two week honeymoon in Croatia.  That means no updates until after I come back on the 15th.  Stay healthy and enjoy yourselves.

See you when I get back!

Filed Under: Announcement

Active Living Through Active Giving

August 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Habitat-for-Humanity-77I mentioned a few weeks ago that being healthy means living a healthy lifestyle.  It’s a lot more than just 4 hour diets and trips to the gym.  It means doing everything possible to live a life that gets you moving more and eating less.  Today I’d like to talk about the act of giving.

We all enjoy giving.  We like making people around us feel better.  However, purely monetary giving (the act of giving money) seems to be unpopular these days.  We hear constant stories of our money being used for less than charitable purposes, we believe that the individuals we give our money to might misuse it or we simply have no money to give.  So, I would like to propose an alternative that is satisfying to both body and soul, volunteering. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alternative Workouts, Healthy Habits, Motivation Tagged With: , , , ,

Marathon Training Update

August 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

marathon training scheduleJust a quick update about the marathon training.  I’ve split my weekly runs into four different days:

  • Monday and Thursday I run for about 6 to 7 miles at a normal pace, which is about 6mph for me.  I’ve been increasing both the pace and the distance but very slowly.  I do these runs at the gym, which means I can closely monitor distance, speed, incline and overall performance.  These are the sort of runs I would three times a week before I started training for the marathon.
  • Wednesday I do sprints.  This means 1 minute at 7mph followed by two or three minutes at a walking pace, typically 3mph.  I do this for about an hour to work on my speed.  I’ve been slowly increasing the sprint speed.  Again, this run is done at the gym so I can closely monitor all numbers.
  • On the weekends I try to do one long run.  I’m currently up to about 12 miles.  These runs are done outdoors, typically on a trail or city streets.  I don’t monitor my performance too much on these runs.  In fact, other than total distance, I don’t really look at any numbers.  I just want to get out there, feel good and enjoy a nice, long run.  I figure the other three runs a week will improve my performance, this one is just for getting used to running long distances.
  • On Tuesdays and Fridays I do my normal weight work outs with a little bit of elliptical afterwards to get my heart rate up.

Overall, I can feel my performance getting better and better.  My pace is going up as is my endurance.  When I started this a few months ago, I doubt I could have run 6 miles in a row and my pace was barely above 5mph.  I’m feeling good about finishing that marathon in under 5 hours and I’m really hoping to get close to the 4 hour mark.

The Benefit Of A Goal

I definitely feel that having this public goal of training for a marathon is enhancing my resolve and motivation.  It’s nice to have something to work towards and to have a bit of social status hanging in the balance.  Motivation is key in everything we do, so having an upcoming marathon to think about it definitely motivating me to get healthier.

Filed Under: Exercise, Motivation, Running Tagged With: , , , ,

What A Wonderful Sunday

August 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

Golden Sunday

  • Woke up at 7am, took the dog for a 30 minute walk.
  • Got back and napped for a 30 or so minutes on the couch.
  • Julie woke up and we took another walk with the dog.
  • At 9:30, she went off with her mom to get various items for our upcoming wedding and I stayed and worked on the house.
  • I got a lot of gardening done, cleaned up the shed, worked on the garage and found a bit of time to play with the dog.
  • Also made myself a nice breakfast of organic bacon and tomatoes.
  • When Julie and her mom came back, I made lunch with some fresh chicken and a greek style salad (olives, tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce tossed in a bit of of olive oil and feta cheese) for us to eat while we worked on the seating arrangement for the wedding.
  • In the evening, Julie and I did some more work on the house, then took a two hour hike in the hills.
  • To finish it off, I cooked dinner out of some turkey sausages and a fresh green salad.

I feel tired but great.  We walked so much today and I also got in some physical activity through the gardening and house work.  I feel full but not stuffed which tells me the amount of food was perfect.  All in all, an amazing day. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Eating Healthy, Fitness, Healthy Habits, Walking Tagged With: , , , , , ,

An Easy and Healthy Home Made Dinner

July 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Caprese SaladWe invited my fiance’s family over last week for a fun little dinner at home and I was amazed at just how easy it was to make a healthy dinner for 5, and for a very low budget too. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Eating Healthy, Healthy Meal Ideas, Motivation Tagged With: , , , , ,
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