Spark People! October 5, 2008
Posted by Jeff in Fitness.Tags: community, Exercise, Fitness, nutrition, sparkpeople
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There are lots of health and wellness websites out there. Lots of diet pages, lots of communities. I’ve decided to join one of them, and I thought I’d share it with you guys – in case anyone is looking and wants to join me over there. (I’ll still be getting back into the swing of things over here!)
The site is called sparkpeople.com, and it’s got some neat features. First neat feature is a Spark Page. Here’s mine. You can choose what gets displayed (I chose everything.) You can post pictures of yourself ( I have) and you can share your nutritional tracking, exercise tracking and other things. (For those of you that are pregnant or breastfeeding, sparkpeople.com is affiliated with babyfit.com – a great website that has the same sort of features but designed towards helping new mothers or moms-to-be.)
I mentioned the nutrition tracker. It will suggest meal plans for you, recipes, and lets you enter your own meals, along with as much or little nutritional information as you want to include. You can also import information from other people who have chosen to share their foods, so Sami was able to import my meat sauce I made for spagetti last night, and I was able to import the margerine we have that she entered.
If you want to come try it out, please do! These things usually work better when you have a support network around you. Add me as a friend from my spark page if you join up. You can even mention I told you about it (my username is suprspi) and I’ll get spark points.
Other things I’m going to do are to post some recipes here, (and probably at my normal blog too) and to track some of the exercise Sami and I are doing. Hope you enjoy me getting back into the swing of blogging our exercise and stuff again.
Cheers! And welcome back!
Merrraaaaagghhhhhh……*yawn* February 19, 2008
Posted by Jeff in Diet, Fitness, Recipe, sore!.Tags: cheese, hot tub, multigrain, pool, Recipe, runfatboyrun, steam sauna, stirfry, swim, yoghurt
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My alarm went off at 5:45 this morning. I promptly pressed snooze.
Then I rolled out of bed – slowly, with a very bad backache. I got up, got jammies on (that probably tells you things you really didn’t want to know) and found all my gym stuff. I packed everything up and drove through the chilly -13c morning fog to the gym.
I didn’t get any cardio in today – simply stretched out and hit the hottub, pool and steam sauna. It felt good to stretch my back. I got home at 5 of 7 and climbed back into bed beside Sami and rubbed her sore back. (And ribs, baby is beating on them something bad since she turned)
I had a 12 grain bagel with cream cheese (mmm, naughty and nice) and had an activia yoghurt for a mid-morning snack. I had a sandwich and salad for lunch, and just finished a pork stir fry-ish meal with creamy sauce for dinner. Yummo. ( I used canned soup for the sauce to prove to Sami that I can cook without doing it totally from scratch)
All in all, a pretty good day. Tomorrow I’ll get a run in if my back isn’t too bad. Probably only a mile or so on the elliptical, but it’s start for my fat ass. Run fat boy – run!
Dinner Stir Fry-ish Recipe with Creamy Mushroom Sauce
- Red Pepper, cut into quarters, then cut julienne style
- 3/4 head of celery, with leaves, cut into narrow slices
- 4-5 Scallions, chopped up smallish
- 2 pork chops, fat trimmed and cut into strips
In a wok or fry pan heat oil at medium high heat. Add pork and stir fry until cooked through, no pink remaining. Season to taste (I suggest some dried garlic, pepper, salt and a bit of something spicyish, like red pepper flakes. Go easy.) Add veggies and stir fry until just soft. Add a can of cream of mushroom soup, and 2/3 a can of hot water. Mix well and simmer 10 minutes or so over medium-low heat. Serve over rice.
Wild or Brown rice would make this a little healthier, and you could certainly add other veggies, this is just what I had to cook with. Broccoli would be especially good. Some yellow squash would be nice too. Look for colourful foods to add good vitamins and minerals to your diet! Stir Fry is especially healthy because all the nutrients are not boiled away, but are kept in your meal for you to eat.
This Week February 18, 2008
Posted by Jeff in Diet, Fitness, New Idea.Tags: carbohydrate, early, gym, two things, whole grains
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This weeks I’m going to be trying two things. One easy, and one hard.
The easy one is to get my 12 grain bread again that I really like – and eat it. Toast in the mornings. I know whole grains are the best sort of carbohydrates to be eating, so I want to add more of them to my diet.
Secondly, I want to get to the gym in the mornings. I’ve missed for two weeks now, first cause I was sick, then cause I couldn’t be bothered to go again. So, the alarm will now ring at 5:45 in the mornings for me, instead of 7:30. I’ll hit the gym, get a shower in and be home by seven. Shouldn’t be too bad, except the whole getting up in the morning part.
Last night’s workout. January 18, 2008
Posted by Jeff in Cardio, Extra-Curricular, Fitness.Tags: active, Cardio, driveway, Exercise, frustrated, shovel, snow, what did you do?, workout
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Wasn’t at the gym.
It was in my driveway, shoveling snow. We’ve just recently got a dump of snow about 4 inches, and I hadn’t shovelled the previous few times, so we’ve got some good buildup on the driveway.
The snowbanks are now over 3, someplaces 5, feet on my driveway. My driveway is probably about 375 sq. feet or so. It’s not huge, but it’s a good 30-40 minutes of shovelling on a good day. Yesterday wasn’t so.
First of all, I had to shovel the paths as well, to the door, barbecue (yes, it gets used in winter…) and blaze a trail to the shed. The shed has the crib and stuff in it, and we’ll need to unpack some of that this weekend as we’re setting up the nursery.
Then, I had to clean the drive entrance. When it snows and I shovel, I usually have to do this area twice, so sometimes it gets forgotten the second time. What happens is that the city comes by and plows the road into the sidewalk, creating a berm. I have to shovel that out when I do the driveway, otherwise cars can’t get into my driveway – our pilot can, but it’s an SUV.
Then, the city comes by two days later with the bobcat plowing the sidewalk. This creates a second berm – the one that sometimes doesn’t get shovelled.
Long story short, as of yesterday there was an 8 inch step up onto my driveway, so I had to get out some tools (that weren’t meant for the job, or nice to my back) and chip away at it to create a slope that a car can traverse.
An hour later, and with my heartrate a lot higher than when it started, a car can get into my driveway.
I didn’t quite even make it to they Rec Center to use the steam sauna, though it would have been nice. But I did get a solid cardio workout, even if it was outside rather than in. Sort of better in a way.
That was my workout. What did you do yesterday to be physically active? No, for real – not snarky at all. Feel free to post in the comments about what you did yesterday, or even this week, to stay active.
Keep on swimming… January 15, 2008
Posted by Jeff in Cardio, Diet, Fitness.Tags: Cardio, sauna, steam, swimming, update
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Gym last night was good, except I didn’t go. I decided to do my cardio in the water instead and did 6 laps. that only works out to three lengths, and I’m sore today.
Also hit the new steam sauna we have for about 40 minutes – heavenly. I have yet another reason to get my but to the gym, just to sit in that awesome steam sauna.
Sam mentioned that she’d read that cardio swimming isn’t as efficient as running etc, because either your temperature doesn’t rise or because you don’t sweat. I’d heard it was good cardio, because your whole body was involved and your heartrate tended to stay higher – anyone reading this have any input on this?
My diet yesterday was bad. No breaky, chinese for lunch (lots of veggies, but lots of crap too) and salad (good) with caeser dressing (bad) and wings (bad). Also a bowl of ice cream (bad) and berries (good). Didn’t drink enough water, but did manage a few glasses.
A present… January 9, 2008
Posted by Jeff in Fitness.Tags: 196lbs, gym, presents, weight
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from the holidays.
+12lbs.
That makes a total of 196. It’s a good thing the gym is open again after their annual maintenance. I also got some good exercise stuff as Christmas gifts, so I’ll be putting those towards shedding the excess.
Time to get to work.
Super-Mega-Ultra-Cardiovascular-Fat-Burning-Update of Doom November 7, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Boxing, Cardio, Exercise Program, Fitness.Tags: Boxing, Cardio, Fatty McGee, gym, heavy bag, pop, soda, target pads, Weights
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I made it to the gym last night, after missing both times last week, making me feel a bit like Fatty McGee again. I’m getting a cold, so I didn’t swim and I was a bit “woozy”. However, I managed to get a decent workout in, even if it was off track for my circuit training.
I started out with 10 minutes light cardio on a bike, then did some Iron Crosses with Scott and Ken. 10lbs is about my limit, my right arm could do more but my left shoulder is still weak from last winters spectacular skiing crash. The Crash of 2006 you could call it.
I did military presses (20lbs) and incline presses (20) and seated rows (45).
I then took a break and did a couple minutes of target pads with Ken. I’m really loving the target pads, havn’t had them since boxing so long ago – great cardio workout. The everlast gloves I bought that work like handwraps are stellar – they are quick to put on, quick to take off, and have nice foamy-gelly-paddy stuff over your knuckles – allowing you to do pads and bag work and stuff without a dire need for bag gloves – which I’m still going to buy a pair next spending money time.
I’m already thinking about where I can put a speed bag and heavy bag in my house – no good ideas yet.
On the Soda Challenge – well, I’m covered in loser-sauce. I managed it for a couple of weeks, but now I’m back to drinking Pepsi probably once or twice a week on average. Still not bad, but not meeting the challenge requirements.
[[With all this talk of boxing, I'm wondering if Mr. James-ey boy is jealous yet.!?!]]
Some Quick Updates October 16, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Diet, Fitness, Sicko!.add a comment
Broke my soda diet weekend before last. Had a can of Pepsi. Mmmm…glorious pepsi. It was twice as bad, as I was in a vegetative state playing Halo 3.
Missed the gym last Tuesday, and Wednesday. (My normal make up day is the day right after) because of a wicked flu. Did make it on Thursday but the workout was poor at best. The swimming was fun, I forgot my shorts and towel so I bailed into the pool in my track pants. Wicked. I love our lifeguards – the one on duty taunted me for forgetting my stuff until I jumped in.
This week is looking up – I’m feeling better and looking forward to a workout. I bought hand-wraps. I’m going to buy bag gloves next paycheque, and perhaps target pads too. Wal-Mart might be evil in many ways, but it brings us true department store purchasing to our little store – now I don’t have to order things like this.
I know Ken will be all about doing target pad work with me on gym nights. I might have to start getting there a bit earlier – extra things are taking up more time – though I could do pads instead of jogging sometimes as long as I keep it high energy enough.
My overall diet is sucking – this next couple weeks is going to be the “kick it into better shape” time. Meaning I forsake a bit more junk food, choose a few more leafy greens and try to eat at home more often. I’m not going to make any major changes, but just eating at home can be a great change in itself.
I should start my new bottle of Hydroxycut. I keep forgetting. That means I have to give up coffee though. Ick.
*mmm….coffffffeeeeee.*
My Goals October 3, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Diet, Exercise Program, Fitness.Tags: Diet, Fitness, goals, healthy
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My goals are threefold I think.
1) Lose Weight.
This should really be expressed as lose body fat. I don’t worry much about my weight (currently 183lbs) as I do about getting my body fat down. My target weight is 165, +/- 5 lbs. However, if I stay how heavy I am and lose my fat, I’m still a happy camper.
2) Tone Muscle
I want my muscle to look better. This is partly losing body fat, and partly sculpting larger muscles. This counts everywhere, abs, back, chest (especially), arms etc.
3) Improve Posture
I plan to do this partly by strengthening my muscles, partly by stretching, and partly by attempting to adopt better posture in my day to day life.
Where I am Now.
I am 183 lbs, give or take. I wear a size 34 waist. I have man-boobs and a gut. This all needs to be fixed. This blog is my motivation to do so. If something I’ve written strikes home – do yourself two favours.
1) Build yourself a simple easy to follow fitness plan. Copy mine if you like – I don’t care.
2) Attempt to eat healthier. This doesn’t mean a diet – but attempt to fix imbalances in your diet, attempt to eat more lean protien, more raw and undercooked veggies, and consume less fat and refined carbohydrates like sugar and white bread.
After you’ve done those two things for a while you should be able to make some bigger changes, but I’m betting just those two will set you on your way to feeling better about yourself.
