This is the chronicles of two long time friends (currently living on opposite ends of the planet) trying to change their lifestyles, and not go mad in the process.
Yes, it has been quite sometime since we last spoke. I'm sorry. It's entirely my fault, please let me try and woo you back.
How will I win you back? With a story, but not just any story, this story is involves me being clumsy, dirty, and getting injured. Just the right amount to be funny, but not enough to cause worry.
My weekend has been filled with walking, 20000 steps saturday and 23000 today. Todays walk was more of a hike, a hike that involved my friends and I trying to cross a small river. We couldn't find any rocks that went all the way across but we eventually came across a fallen try that spanned to river. The tree itself wasn't to wide, but looked crossable. That was at least till I got halfway across, then the tree became extremely slick. This combined with my having walked though mud along the path meant that I had no traction. I went down. Slammed my inner thigh on the tree and went up to my upper thigh on the other leg. On the way back to shore I fall in with my other leg and lose my sunglasses. Not that bad you say, I should mention now that it's salmon spawning season. So, the river is full of alive and dead salmon and I was up to my thigh in it all.
Well, I hope that little tale has softened your heart to me a little, I'll see you again in a few days.
Not everyone has the goal of losing weight. For many who have reached their weight lose goal, or are naturally thin they are more interested in refining how their body looks. For some that means creating lean muscle, which boosts metabolism and cuts back on the jiggle. Others may want big muscles, these tend to be more for show than anything else, and tend to be wanted by men.
Building large muscles in a healthy way, like healthy weight lose is a long term issue and involves math. I talk about math more here than I ever thought I would.
Now the bulk of the information I am about to give you a cribbed from a Jillian Michaels podcast so feel free to check that out if this all seems a little confusing.
To start a healthy goal is to gain about 10lbs of muscle over the course of a year. This added muscle may also shift your body composition, resulting in a lower body fat percentage. You should also only start this if you have already reached your weight lose goals, this type of workout doesn't focus on fat lose so it's best to start from a good place.
To start you need to find the heaviest weight you can lift once with good form, if you can do 2 reps with good form than you haven't gone heavy enough. Once you know your one rep max find what would be 85% of that weight, this is the weight you will be working with. Your new workout will be to do 3-5 reps (good form) with this new weight. If you can do more than 5 and keep good form you need to increase your weight, you may notice this over the course of the year so allow for occasional adjustments.
What you're doing is creating new muscle fibres, it's these new fibres that will add the bulk you're after. Building these fibres take energy from your body with means you will need to cut back on your cardio and allow for recovery time between workouts. Excess cardio shunts energy away from muscle production, so if you keep a high cardio routine in you workout you'll limit your muscle growth. That's not to say you should do no cardio, just don't go making it the bulk of your workout. Another aspect to consider with muscle growth is that it take place when that body is recovering, so you can't work the same muscles at every workout. A good rule of thumb is to take every third day off, so you'll workout 5 days a week, and don't work a muscle group more than twice a week.
Lastly, you need to consider your eating. You'll need to eat quite a bit so your body will have the energy (protein) to build new muscle. The basic formula (yes, math again) is...
Goal weight x (hours worked out a week + 9.5) = kcal
So, if your goal weight is 190lbs and you're working out 5 hours a week your daily caloric intake would be 2755kcal. That doesn't mean you can eat crap, remember you're trying to build muscle, your body needs protein to build muscle so count on eating a LOT of lean protein.
And that my friends is how you gain 10lbs of muscle in 365 days.
When people start trying to lose weight they have a slash and burn approach to their eating. Chucking out every food they love, with a vow to never eat it again. Changing to an ultra healthy, extremely limited collection of foods will yield results, but it's just not practice for living a normal life. I'm not saying "don't eat healthy", but I am saying that you should eat realistically.
Allow yourself an escape route. By allotting roughly 200kcal of your daily caloric limit for none perfectly healthy foods should give you just enough freedom to stop you from breaking down, bingeing, and giving up. A flexible approach to eating is a major ingredient in long term weight lose. There will be days when you can't work out, or eat more than your BRM (basal metabolic rate), but that doesn't mean that you have to stop losing weight or gain weight.
A great example of this is how I've been living lately. I'm in a friends wedding party, that means I haven't been the one controlling the food I have access to. I try and make the better food choices and keep within my BMR, but with the travel to and from the events, plus the time at the events themselves I just don't have time to workout. There are a couple different ways I can approach these situations.
1) I can bank my all or a portion of my 200kcal daily treat reserve. This way when everything is added up at the end of the week I will have had the same amount of calories as the week before. This approach can also be done retroactively. If you unexpectedly go out to dinner, someone buys you a treat, or you just really want one blow out calorie bomb meal you can just cut back your calorie intake by 50-100kcal till things even out.
2) Add extra workouts. This will be easier for people who are counting both calories in and calories out (look to Breaking it down for my parents for more info). Like the calorie banking this can be done before or after the event, or a combination. By adding about 15 minutes to the cardio portion of your workout can burn about 100kcal. This wont replace a missed workout but it will help soften the blow.
I find a combination of the two approaches works best for me. Most importantly because I knew I had options I never worried over what food would be at an event, or if I'd be home in time to workout. I just kept going, as I have been and continue to see results.
I'm back! Back in Canada and no longer 13 hours ahead of my friends and family. I'm still getting over jet lag, and have been busy as hell since I got home so my exercise has not been what it was. I plan to start back in with the circuit training and loads of walking on Monday, for now I'm just walking. I'm still counting my calories and making progress, also I now have regular access to a scale meaning I can know my weight on a more regular bases.
I would post more, but my brain just isn't working right now. I promise a longer post next time.
Wow I can`t believe it`s almost July! IT seemed like winter went by really slow but fast at the same time. Any who, my week was pretty good considering that it rained alot but we needed it so I am not complaining. So I didn`t get a whole lot of walking in this week but that `s okay. I did however go to see my awesome doctor who told me that I was right about my medication and the fact that my meds are holding on to most of my weight and making more difficult to lose it as well.... isn`t that just super... yah I thought so but the best part was when she told me that there was NOTHING I could do to make it any better just keep doing what I have been and eat less than what my dietitian has been telling me to eat. yepp thatès all I got for now still a little peeved at the fact that the meds I take to help me live a normal life SUCK balls to try and lose weight on .. . yay!
Hey everyone ... sorry I didn't write my friday post I was dying on my couch, literally...the day started out well enough went to my dietitian appointment and that was disapointing I gained 5 pounds but then went to my dads house with Inara and by the end of the day I felt like shit on a stick.
After Damian came and picked us up we went home and then I got worse I have never felt that sick EVER. I honestly felt so sick I was shaking and thought that I was going to have a seizure. Not good at all. then my sinuses decided that I didn`t need to breathe through them anymore and that was that. Since Friday I have slowly been feeling better but other than my walking everyday I haven`t gone to the gym hopefully tomorrow I will get back to the gym .
Thank god I have the worlds best boyfriend to take care of me and Inara.
Hello all, this maybe my last post for sometime. I have two days left of work followed by a week long race around Japan, so I don't know when I'll have access to a computer. I will try to post once more before I leave.
On the workout front thing have been a little different. Jeremy arrived Wednesday night so my very small apartment now has twice the amount of people in it that it was designed for. This means I just don't have room to do me circuit training like normal. I'm continuing to do my 100 burpee challenge (43 down, 57 to go) and walk insane amounts. How insane you ask, over 30,000 steps a day insane, it's not an intentional thing Jeremy just always walk a lot when he's here. However this does mean that for both of us our legs are screaming in pain.
Hopefully if we keep up the same amount of walking the pain will go away, because walking less just isn't an option right now.
Yes that's right people I said two more boxes to go! I can't wait , to unpack those boxes. Mind you I have no idea where I am going to put the stuff it's not that I don't have room for it , it's just that I really don't know where i should put things I am still kinda staring at my house wondering where things should go and moving stuff around still. I know things will eventually find a home in my house it just all depends where that home is.
But I have decided that Inara loves books and wants t o read every single book we own OR she just wants to lick them and eat the pages. She has a fascination with ripping the books off of the shelf and then on to the floor, all the while looking at me then giving me this evil little smile ... it's almost taunting me saying " ya that's right you are going to have to put them back on the shelf EVENTUALLY and when you do I will take them off AGAIN mwahahaha" something to that effect.
NO seriously people things have been good just been doing the walking and gym thing and playing outside and getting ready for Inara's birthday same old same old .
Not everyone goes to the gym to workout, working out at home can be very effective. But, just like the gym home work outs can get a little dull. Now that nice weather has arrived a third option is now open, exercising outside.
Outdoor work outs are a nice option because like working out at home, it's free. You can go to a park, beach, or your own backyard and use the environment to aid your workout. There are some set ups for outdoor workouts that can be found online. The basic lay out off all seem to be;
1) Stretch and warm up for about 10 minutes.
2) A cardio activity for 3-5 minutes
3) A strength activity for 2-3 minutes
4) cardio for 8-10 minutes
5) strength for 2-3 minutes
6) repeat steps 4 and 5 till you're a sweaty mess.
The cardio options while outside are pretty much anything you could do without equipment indoors. So, jogging, jumping jacks, jump rope, oblique twist, or skaters. The strength exercises are along the same lines, you can increase your options if you're willing to bring along a resistance band or dumb bells. Exercises that are good with no equipment are push ups, squats, or lunges. If there's a bench, play ground, or trees with strong, low hanging branches you can add in pull ups, chair dips, and bench press ups. Your options are only limited by your skill level and your creativity.
An added bonus to an outdoor workout is that the uneven ground forces your body to stabiles itself. This means that you burn more calories with and outdoor workout than you would doing the same exercises indoors. Just make sure to wear your sunblock.
First off I want to say sorry for the late post. I have a headache and just couldn't look at my computer screen. Now, back to the post.
Fran, I am so sorry to hear that you have had to deal with unsupportive people. What you need to remember is that they don't know you and more importantly, they're wrong.
Losing weight is not easy. The entire concept goes agains how we as a species have evolved. It was our ancestors who ate everything they could and had energy reserves to survive a famine that lived long enough to enjoy sexy baby making time. Naturally thin people, who can't keep weight on would not have survived in pre-agrucaulteral civilizations. So those people can shut up and silently thank whoever invented the plough. We are filled with genes that makes us want to do nothing more than eat, relax, and enjoy sexy times. It's astounding that people leave their houses at all.
If that doesn't help how about some facts. The average woman's dress size in north america is a 14 (B38", W33", H43"), this is considered a plus size. Oh, and she's 5' 3.8' tall. 64% of woman are pear shaped and can not fit the fashion standard of B35", W27", H37.5". Most people can't recognize what the average sizes are, and more importantly, they don't know what a healthy body looks like. A healthy waist measurement for a woman is under 35", and 40" for a man both these measures are well about the cultural ideal and would probably not be seen as healthy by most people.
The next time you hear someone babble on about weight again Fran give them a good looking over (you know in a non-creepy way). Are they a paragon of fitness and health? Chances are the answer is no, more likely they're skinny fat. Skinny fat is when someone weighs less but has a high body fat ratio, making them look good in clothes but horrible naked. These people may think they're healthy because they can fit into smaller clothing sizes, but they are actually in worse physical shape than a heavier individual who works out.
The most important thing Fran is this, don't give them real estate in your head. These are not the tenants you want. Maybe you should try watching a couple episodes of How To Look Good Naked, it may help your motivation.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
On a random subject I just want to vent my displeasure with people mostly assholes who find it difficult to relate to the people who have a hard time with wieght loss. I know I am having a hard time losing all my baby fat and I have heard random people talk about how easy it is to lose weight and they don't understand over weight people and that they are lazy ... this enrages me !! how dare they say that over wieght people are lazy , I work my ass off litterally everyday at the gym and eat well and try my hardest to lose all this excess fat that I do n't need on my body.
Lately I have found that I have so much energy I think this is mostly to do with the fact that I am not in that horrible apartment building that I was living in for the past year.... please note if you are reading this and you live in Burlington NEVER live at 1460 Ghent ave or what most of us know it as the B building. I sware that place was sucking the energy and life right out of me quite literally!
But anywho , as of late I have been like I said outside most of the day with Inara and loving every minute of it whether I am just playing with Inara or raking leaves, pulling weeds, walking or playing at the park I am loving it. Going to the gym is going well too , I am walking to the gym and then doing my regular routine there which consists of the elliptical the treadmill, the rowing machine and the bike. I feel pretty good after I am done at the gym and the walk home is nice too.
I know I have no right to complain about the temperature outside since you are in the land of the hot with sweat towels and ya need I say more ? However , I will say this it is getting warmer which is great I just know that the humidity is on its way and I am not looking forward to that. But until then I am going to enjoy the sunshine with my little girl and play in the dirt cuz it's fun and frankly I miss the physical labor. I know I never thought I would ever ask to shovel shit again but I want to! I wouldn't care if I got paid to do it, it's kind of a zen thing for me and a great workout.
but anwho , I am going to go to sleep now franny pants is a tired girl
There are a variety of different types of workouts available which can make finding one that not only works for you, but you don't mind doing a bit of a challenge. Since starting this little journey back in November I have been bouncing through the workout videos out there and I've come to a couple of conclusions.
The first and probably most important conclusion I've come up with is that the best workout for you is the one that you'll keep doing. If you hate a workout so much that you never do it, or are bored by a workout it wont matter how efficient a it is you'll never do it. The cold hard truth is this, it will only work if you work it.
One workout style that I find works to keep my attention and doesn't spark my ire is circuit training. I've mentioned it before here that I do circuit training and see good results from it. The benefits of circuit training are that you get a combination of cardiovascular and resistance training, which means you not only burn calories during the workout but get an afterburn effect. Afterburn is when your body continues to burn larger amounts of calories after you workout. Other benefits are that the workouts are not usually long, ranging from 20-30 minutes. Also the programs you usually find work on a progressive system with either 3 or 4 levels of difficulty, so every week to 2 weeks you get something new.
So, if you're looking for a new workout to try, or want to add in something new to your routine give circuit training a go. There are a ton of videos out there, so you shouldn't have trouble finding one you like.
So this post is about how awesome Tara is, losing all those inches and still going. I am getting there too but still not happy with the results that I am getting but I am not giving up , there is no way that I is for long, I want to be at my old wieght and I will be at my old weight soon ! Yepp but anyways Go team Tara!!! And have I mentioned how excited I am for you to come home to the land of Canada ? cuz I am!!!!
So as of late I have have been going to the gym every night and walking all the time, and now taking Inara to the Ontario early years centre where she can interact with other kids her age, which is awesome but also very tiring running after her making sure the other kids don't wack her in the head that sort of thing.
On the whole I think that I am still losing weight but it has slowed down again. meh I will just keep working at it.
My time in Japan is quickly coming to an end. I have finished work at two of my four schools, and have only 25 days till I hop a plane back to Canada. I have quite a bit to get done before I leave and I'm trying to make sure my last week in Japan wont be filled with mundane moving tasks. I need to get everything done before the 15th if possible so Jeremy and I can run around like stupid tourists for the entirety of his visit. So needless to say things are happening at a furious rate right now.
One thing I have been able to take of my to do list was my last set of measurement to be taken in Japan. After I took this last set of numbers I remembered I haven't shared any specific details of my progress here thus far, vague ramblings of baggy underwear was the most I've done. So here it is what I've accomplished since November 2010.
The breakdown is this, I have lost a total of 10 1/4 inches off my bust, waist and hips. My weight is roughly 170 or 168 lb, thank you Kim for use of your scale. You can see on the chart that over the last 3 months my bust and hips have remained the same, while my waist has been gradually going down. I still have a ways to go before I reach my goal, but it is in sights. To get a better understand here is a revision of my stats
You can see I have reached the goal on my hips, I would like to get down to 38 inches in that area but I'm fine if I don't. I still have 4 1/2 inches left in the bust and waist area till my goal is reached. If I keep going as I am the waist measurement shouldn't be to hard to reach, my bust on the other hand is another story. I'm a busty girl and I may just have to accept that I might never reach a medium size in that area. For now I'm not going to worry about it, I'll keep working out as I have been and see what happens.
It's product update time, for no other reason than I couldn't think of anything else to talk about. It's been 156 days since I started using the nintendo DS personal walking trainer. As mentioned in a previous post I bought this as a christmas gift to myself. I was curious as to how much walking I was doing everyday for my job and thought this game would be a good way to track it.
5 months in and I have to say that I'm still very happy with this purchase. It has allowed me to find out just how much I move, not only getting to and from work but while at work as well. The set up is extremely user friendly. You just throw the monitor in your pocket or purse and the light will flash red below a set step target, and green once that target is reached. You can change the daily step target easily, and the system tracks all the gathered information and graphs it for you. This really lets you get a better view of your walking activity being able to see it over the long run and not just day to day.
One thing I had not expected was the mini games that came with the system. The one that I got my competitive streak going is Walk the world. It's pretty much exactly what it sound like, there's a globe and to walk all of it you need to unlock images with the steps you've accumulated. The images start at low step counts of 10,000-12,000 and by the end they're 38,000-46,000 steps to unlock an image. 1 image equals 1 percent of the globe, and today I finally finished.
I don't quite know what will happen now. If my walking will just unlock more images in earth, or if I'll start to walk to the moon. I'll let you know once I do. In the mean time I know that it took me 5 months to accomplish this. In that time my average steps per day have been 15,000, and my average time frame for walking has been between 10am and 10pm.
I can honestly say now, after having used it daily for 5 months, I would recommend buying this product. So long as you already had the DS, if you don't have one just go with a regular pedometer . Because though the tracking and mini games are fun they just aren't worth the cost of a DS, luckily I love Mario Bros.
Tara
p.s 4 weeks and counting till I return to Canada, and have access to a scale again.
Friday, May 27, 2011
I'm back , well sort of .... I still don't have a working computer but I do have access to a kind of working one .... for now at least. Well moving is going well how I expected it to go slow and painful. But it is almost done. and then I will have time to get my computer fixed. On the plus side it takes me 2 whole minutes to walk to the gym from my new place yay!! less time then I had thought it would take.
And having my own house with Inara walking and trying to get stuff done around the house is actually great I mean there is a lot to do but it feels good.... for the first time in over a year and a half I have been going outside and playing in the dirt , I know it might sound weird but it was AWESOME! pulling weeds out of my garden and playing with Inara outside in the backyard is so great, and it is great workout too.
at the same time there is so much space in our new house I don 't know what to do , I have an up stairs AND a downstairs !! not to mention the stairs are my friend it feels so good to have this much space. I am trying to commit my self to going to the gym everyday except for one day on Sundays. I am going to make sure now that I live so close to the gym that I get at least an hour at the gym when Damian gets home from work. I miss my me time at the gym.
I am really sorry to hear that you aren't feeling well Tara and hope you get better soon. Being sick and working out is not fun at all.
I'm sick. Not with anything serious just a head cold. It's reached the extremely annoying phase, but hasn't passed into "I'm not getting out of bed" territory. I'm crossing my fingers that this is the peek and when I wake up tomorrow I'll be feeling a little better.
My head cold did get me to thinking, at what stage of being sick should you stop working out? Obviously I know the answer if it's something serious like pneumonia, but what about the more minor stuff that everyone gets from time to time? So I decided to do what everyone who has an unanswered questioned now a days does, I googled it.
The answer's actually fairly straight forward. If you're sick from the neck up, meaning sneezing, sore throat, nasal congestion, and a runny nose (basically everything have) then you can workout like normal. Just be prepared to ease up if you feel dizzy or anything like that during the workout. If your symptoms are below the neck, like chest congestion, stomach issues, or a chesty cough go ahead and give yourself a break. Working out when you're this kind of sick will just do more harm than good. The below the neck rule also applies to all over muscle ache, fatigue, and fever. It all boils down to, exercise a cold and rest any type of the flu.
One thing I would add is that if you don't work out at home like me, maybe you should take a break from working out even if your illness is above the head. I just think it would be inconsiderate to go to the gym when you're sick, especially if you're not sure if you're still contagious or not. You really wouldn't want to catch the same illness back in 2 weeks time from someone you originally infected.
As all my symptoms are above the neck I'll keep going as I have been, 30-50 minutes of circuit training, the burpee challenge, and loads of walking. Hopefully I'll feel better by my next post.
The title pretty much tells it all. My parents have recently told me that they want to join me in getting fit. The problem with this is that they don't really understand about calories or BMR, so this post is going to be a basic breakdown of what you need to know for healthy weight loss. It breaks down to this, it's all about the math.
My Dad's an engineer, that explains much of my nerdiness.
I'm going to break this down into 3 sections, calories, BMR, and the basic math for losing large amounts of weight versus the last 15lbs.
Calories:
A calorie is a unit of energy, and when it comes to calories within food 1 calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. 1 lb of fat is equal to 3500 calories, so if you want to lose 2 lbs a week you will need to have a deficit of 7000 calories. At it's basic level calories are fuel for your body, like gas is fuel for a car. A car only needs as much gas as the tank will hold, anymore has to be carried around in separate containers taking up space in the trunk. So, when you eat more calories than your body needs your body creates excess fat, which is often stored in your trunk. The amount of calories your body needs in a day is found in your BMR. You can easily find how many calories are in your food, there are books with the numbers listed as well as websites and aps that all provide this information.
BMR:
BMR stand for Base Metabolic Rate. What does this mean? Well if you were in a coma BMR is the amount of calories your body would burn to keep you alive and to sustain basic bodily function. BMR is determined by age, hight, and weight. Where the BMR proves most useful is when you use you age, hight, and goal weight to find your BMR you should be eating at. My personal BMR looks like this, Age: 29, Hight: 5' 4", Goal weight: 135lbs = 1778 calories per day. So long as I eat slightly less than 1778 calories per day I will lose weight even without exercise because I will need to burn my existing calories to maintain basic functions like breath. Exercise on top of this will accelerate you results which will help motivate to stick with this calorie limit.
One important, the reason age is a factor in the BMR calculation is because as you age your BMR will decrease. Meaning when I can 39 my BMR to maintain a weight of 135lbs will be 1400 calories per day. This explains how someone can eat everything in sight and be skinny as a rail in their 20's and suddenly find that they don't fit into the same size once they reach their 40's when they're still eating exactly the same. If you don't have time to go online and use a BMR calculator (LINK HERE --> http://www.bmrcalculator.org/)
A quick and dirty way you can find how many calories you shouldn't eat below is this. For women 100 calories for the first 5 feet of hight, and 5 calories for every inch past that, then multiply by by 10. For men 106 calories for the first 5 feet of hight and 6 calories for every inch after, multiply by 10 and you have the number you should never eat below. Eating below this number will damage your body, and sabotage yourself in the long run. For more information feel free to check out the lecture found at the link, http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/special/NutritionFreeLecture.aspx.
Math:
The math is really what brings everything together to allow you to achieve health and effective weight loss, and maintain it in the long run. The basic mathematical formula for weight loss is this,
A + B - C = D
A = Is your BMR.
B = The number of calories burned outside of your BMR.
C = The calories you eat.
D = A positive number is how many calories you've burned. A negative number is the number of calories you have added.
So long as D is in the positive numbers you will lose weight, the larger the number the more weight you will lose. When you have a large amount of weight to lose you can have a large end number without any problem. When you are at an unhealthy weight your body wants to shed access calories so you wont freak it out. When you have a small amount of weight to lose the story is very different. If you have a small amount of weight to lose you're probably already healthy, this is something your body wants to maintain. Burning large amounts of calories in this situation will only make your n=body think it's in danger causing it to hang on to it's energy reserves. So, if you want to lose between 5 and 15 lbs you're better off keeping your end number around 500 calories per day, your body will give this weight up without being pushed into panic mode.
Your B number ca be figured out a couple of ways, the most effective is via a heart rate monitor, or bodybugg type gadget. There are also aps that will calculate this for you, and websites that offer estimates on how many calories certain exercises burn.
There you are, everything you need to know for calories, BMR, and basic weight loss... or really as much as I understand.
Now for a treat for all of you who stuck around this long.
No one actually enjoys working out, and anyone who says that they do is lying or mentally ill. Exercise is something you do because you have too, admit it there are a load of things you'd rather being doing than exercising.
The key to keeping up a successful workout routine is to find something you hate a little less than everything else. For me, I seem to feel the least amount of venom for circuit training. I can do 30 minutes, I don't get bored, and it's easy to increase the difficulty over time. The contrast to that is yoga. No matter how many times I try it, no matter how many different variations, I just can't get into it. Don't get me wrong I can do the moves, I just don't care. I gave it a final valiant try, but I'm admitting it here, I don't like yoga and I'm probably not going to do it again.
Oh, and to make up for my last somewhat depressing post here are some rainbows and kittens.
So yes Judgement day is coming but the end of the world isn`t until October 21st 2011 , so we have some time to send out our post end of the world cards. what was that you ask? yes they do have post end of the world cards just like this one :
so you better get out there and start sending your post end of the world cards to people that just don`t give a rats ass. But seriously people come on?
I guess we`ll see if we really should have listened to Jesus.
sorry gotta run baby is crying ........... by the way I suck
Along with being zombie awareness month, May has the distinction of having a biblical apocalypse happening init this year. Saturday the 21st to be exact, so if the zombies don't show up at least you can use the recommendations from my last post to combat the hordes of demons that will be showing up soon.
I love clever counter protest signs.
I'm not really that worried, mostly because I'm agnostic, and that the bible says only God can know the "true" end time. I guess this group missed reading that line with all the "math" they were busy doing to find out the day hell on earth would happen.
Is that why there's so many Police Academy movies?
What this all means is that I don't get an easy out on my latest challenge. Speaking of which, today was day 11 of the burpee challenge and I'l still with it. I get a little winded after I'm done, and I see that soon I'm going to have to start added a sort of schedule or rhythm to the burpees. I'm thinking One minute of burpees and one minute of walking till I'm finished that days number.
There is a real ending coming in my near future. In roughly 40 day I'll be ending my year in Japan and returning to Canada. I don't know how I'll react to the jet lag on the way back to Canada. Going to and from England I had not trouble, slept for one day and I was back in the swing of things. Coming to Japan was another story altogether. I was feeling the effects for a couple weeks afterwards, I really hope to avoid going through that again. I'll just have to wait and see.
First off, I would like to apologies for my extremely late post. I have been trying to get access to Blogger since thursday, (thursday in Japan, wednesday in Canada) but kept getting a message that maintenance was being done making the site read only. With that out of the way, on too the blog!
May is zombie awareness month. Yeah, you heard me right ZOMBIE AWARENESS MONTH. This fact has only recently come to my attention, and as a hardcore horror fan I would be remiss if I didn't find a way to write about zombies here. Oddly enough finding information wasn't hard, just go google "zombie fitness" and you'll find a load of sites dedicated to the subject.
Got to work those brains off some how.
Both The zombie survival guide By Max Brooks, and Zombieland make persuasive arguments in support of physical fitness. With Zombieland's statement "Fatty's die first", though blunt, is probably true one when it comes to escaping a horde of the undead. The next question is, what kind of fitness is best for a post zombie apocalypse world? That all depends on the format of the zombie survival fitness class that you take, and yes, there is more than one.
They may have numbers on their side, but you have cell regeneration.
There seem to be 3 general areas to concentrate on if you want to be prepared for the day that the dead walk the earth.
1. Running
In Night of the living dead Barbara had it right, you want to live you kick off your heels and run like hell. We're talking sprinting, running while being grabbed onto, and endurance. To help with this you can try running while attached to a resistance band, while carrying weights, or dragging another person. Not only is this good cardio, but adds a strength element into the work out. Speaking of which....
2. Strength
Strength is the jack of all trades when it comes to surviving zombies. The most obvious use is in dispatching your rotting enemy. The weapon that first comes to mind, is of course, the gun. But, let's be honest, not everyone has access to a gun. You have to be able to use what you have at hand, be it baseball bat, fire iron, or shovel. You better be abel to swing it like you mean it, because you only get one shot. The second area that strength comes in hand is evasion. Remember zombies can't eat you, if they can't reach you. Climbing over obstacles, or to higher ground quickly and efficiently could just save your still beating heart. Exercises that can help in this area are of the old school variety, pull ups. push ups, general arm exercises. Kettle bell training can also work well, as it involves fluid, quick movements with heavy weights.
3. Balance and stability
Any fan of horror can tell you that a stumble during a chase can spell doom, and a twisted ankle can be the kiss of death. We all know you don't need to out run the zombies, just one of your friends. Improving your balance and core stability can help prevent injury and will maximize the impact of your other workouts. General abdominal and back exercise are all you need for this are, if you want to get fancy try doing your upper body workout on one leg. This forces your balance to improve, because if it doesn't you fall, simple as that.
There you have it, the three areas you need to focus on if you want to increase your chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse. Fitness is no guaranty of survival, but it's better than being lunch.
yepp so by this time next week we will be in our new place. And with that comes a lot of boxes and things in disarray. As well Inara took her fiirst steps all by herself last night. so now the fun begins. But what I'm trying to say is with packing and running around with Inara and going out for walks and and and , is that I'm being very active and it feels great : ) , hell I am so tired at the end of the day but it's so worth it. After next week this whole craziness of moving will be over and I can enjoy my new house with Inara and Damian, plus the gym everyday !! so excited to get back into a normal routine again. That and no one can tell us to do anything or that they have to come in if I don't want them to, you know why ?? because it's OUR house!!! haha
so ya it's getting warmer here and that's so awesome ! so glad that I don't have to worry about the weather anymore and I can just go for a walk down by the lake and have fun with Inara. I feel great and eating way better and less, but that`s probably due to the weather and me able to get out more and being way more active.
My clothes are fitting better and I feel like slowly but surely I am getting back to the old me and that feels great.
anyways I gotta go , but I will write again on Monday.
by the way next Friday and the following Monday will be hard for me to get my posts up so I will try to write a few during the week before I move, since I don`t know when I will get the internet at our new place. just wanted to put that out there.
I know that I have been less than positive lately and well I just don't want to be like that. I hope you can understand. I have had a hard time as well getting to the gym and making time for the gym. Not to mention picking the right choices in my diet has kinda sucked lately.
But the other day something really crazy happened , it was as if someone just flipped a switch *click* and my eating habits went back to the way I ate before I was pregnant. Just like that. It was weird, but I am not complaining, I feel better and even lighter since the switch went off , plus I have lost a few pounds already.
But I am still doing the video's you gave me and walking a hell of a lot more. As well as soon as we are done with this whole moving thing I will be going to the gym almost everyday b/c I live 5 minutes away from it and I can walk!!! I can't wait wooooooooooo!
I am just really happy that the switch went off , I feel like the old me but still a mama. So my first mother's day was more interesting than I really wanted to be , we went to Alliston last night woke up had mother's brunch and blah blah blah , then we left. On our way home we got rear ended by some Douche bag in a truck on the QEW, and now I am sitting at home with Inara while Damian is reporting the accident at the cop shop in Port Credit. WOOOHOO.
But non the less I am happy that I got to spend the day with my little girl Inara :)
As I've mentioned before I work at 4 different locations, one location in particular is very out of the way. So much so that I need to take a taxi to the train station at night so I can get home. Last night how ever my taxi didn't show. It wasn't the worst thing to happen, as it was Saturday my class had ended at 7:15 so I wasn't in trouble of missing the last train. The weather was also quite nice so I decided to walk rather than go to a store and try and pantomime "call a taxi" to the employees.
My original guess on how long the walk would take me was an hour and a half. This guess was based on the taxi usually taking about 20 minutes and the fact that I would be walking in the pitch dark (Japan doesn't have a lot of street lights). In the end I wasn't to far off, I got to the station in 80 minutes.
Update on the burpee challenge! So far so good. Really I'm only 4 days in so I don't have much to say. I'm guessing once I reach 15 or 20 I'll start to regret starting, but we'll have to wait and see.
In the effort to find something I could add to my routine I came across something called the 100 burpee challenge. The concept is simple, you go from 1 too 100 burpees over the course of 100 days, with a buy in if you miss a day. Meaning that if you were to miss day 3 on day 4 you would do 7 burpees. A burpee is a cross between and strength and aerobic exercise. It Begin in a standing position, drop into a squat position with your hands on the ground, kick your feet back while lowering yourself without a pushup, return your feet to the squat position while straightening your arms, leap up as high as possible from the squat position with your arms overhead.
There are multiple variations, some have different jumps, or no jumps. While other involve push-ups of different styles. I'm just going to be doing the standard version as this isn't something I've been doing in my other workouts. This also works well for me as burpees can be done in a small space and really at any time. I'll give you occasional updates on how I'm doing with the challenge.
woo I am not at home yay , the weekend was awesome we made to my aunt's without me letting Smelly out on to the highway, which did cross my mind once or two. But yep it was so beautiful outside and we spent most of the day on Saturday playing in the grass and me chasing Inara.
So, today I was going to have a nice relaxing day at home while packing and cleaning and such but after my shower to my surprise the management of my building came and showed the apartment with me in my towel which was totally AWESOME! not.
While I was away we went out for dinner at a local restaurant and well it was interesting to say the least everything had "with bacon" or "chicken fried" on it. It was kind of ridiculous. But , the best was I saw chicken fried macaroni !! that got me laughing. I stayed away from all that which wasn't hard but I was curious as to how it tasted.
this is what fried macaroni looks like
it just amazes me how that shit can still be on some menus but I'm not one to judge.
I was looking around the internet at when I stumbled across this little invention.
It's supposed to help with portion control. I personally think it looks like a giant baby bell with holes drilled out of it.
Though the intention is good, the product itself isn't exactly practical. Not to mention the 15 dollar price tag. You can get the same result with a measuring cup or serving spoon that you already own. Another trick is to use your hand as a frame of reference, it's something you always have with you and has the added bonus of being free. As for eating in restaurants and easy approach is to just eat half of what is served. You can then take the rest home and enjoy a 2 for 1 meal. I've started to notice a running theme, I'm cheap..... I can live with that.
Yepp that's right we're going a road trip, to see my aunt in Ottawa. I haven't seen her in about four years and well it's frikken time to make the trek to see her, that and she hasn't met Inara or Damian and well I think that she should. Oh , did I mention that Smelly is going to live with my aunt too , ya there's another reason why we're going up there too , but mainly to actually spend time with her and meet her new boy friend Gary.
I am writing my blog post now b/c my aunt doesn't have the net and well I won't be able to get to anywhere that has net until I get home On Sunday, so here it is.
Nothing is new ha! other than 21 more days till we move WEEE!! and I am sooo happy for that and the fact that you are coming home soon :) this makes me happy. so basically my house is full of boxes and no where to go. yay. On the other hand, all this packing is good exercise.
I go see my dietitian tomorrow as well and we'll see if I made it to my 10 pound goal , I have a feeling that I didn't make it but, I shall not lose faith.
I will be returning to Canada in about 2 months. Because of this I'm trying to eat my way through my cupboards. So over the last week I've been eating steel cut oats every morning. Oats are no my favourite food, but in a pinch they'll do. This has go me to thinking about how many people never bother to eat breakfast. Under normal circumstances that's a bad idea, but when you're trying to loose weight it's basically self sabotage.
One of the keys to effective weight loose is to boost, or at the very least, maintain your metabolism. Skipping meals, or eating to little, will slow the metabolism. Basically when you don't eat frequently, or enough, your body thinks it's starving and will slow the metabolism to preserve it's energy reserves i.e fat.
In other news, I may not be abel to post on Sunday. See, here in Japan it's Golden week. Long store short I have a week off, and will be traveling down to Shizuoka to visit with friends for a few days. I don't know what kind of computer access I will have there. I will try to post, but I make no promises.
