EHN!!!!

Today's Butt Stomp...

This is a tabata workout.

That means eight round of each exercise and then onto the next one.

Each round is 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest.

Pretty easy right?!

Here you go

8 rounds of Lunge Crunches (alternating each side per round.  i.e. right side round one, left side round two)
8 rounds of Blade Kicks (alternating each side per round.  i.e. right side round one, left side round two)
8 rounds Push Press with 50lbs

8 rounds Ring Dips

Here are my numbers

10/10/10/10/10/12/13/13
14/14/14/14/14/15/15/15
4/9/6/7/8/7/7/6
9/5/8/7/5/4/3/4

Good luck and don't forget your sweat cup under your chin.

DarkArashi

ps. and sweat cups under your elbows too.

Diet Building Blocks.

Now that we know a little more about fats and why they are good, let's look at another diet component.

Before we begin we have to understand a basic fact about our body.  Most people will tell you that the body is an engine and needs fuel.  Yes, but that is only half.  You need to think of the body as a self-repairing battery.  What I mean is this:  every activity you do, breaks the body down.  The body will then repair itself in anticipation of the activity again.

So not only do we eat to fuel the body, we need to eat to repair and rebuild.  Protein is the body's building block.  It comes from many sources, meats, eggs, diary, nuts, grains, and beans to name a few.  You choose based on your beliefs or potential allergies.

I was raised on elk and deer meat.  It does not get better than that.  Living in the city, I tend to use eggs and turkey.  But how much protein?  Current diet recommends 0.4 grams per kilogram of weight.  That is not a lot, not at all.

Figure one gram of protein per pound you way.  Using our 150lb model, they would be ingesting 150 grams of protein or 600 calories.  You can tweak this up or down depending.  At most, you may range as high as 2 gram per pound of body weight.

Adjusting protein intake is a little more critical than adjusting fat intake.  If you are deficient you will not know until you workout.  You have had those days where doing 10 pushups is nothing, you could do 11 if you wanted to.  Then then next day you can barely do 7.  WHAT THE HELL?!

What the hell is that you did not ingest enough protein to repair the muscle.  You are working out at reduced capacity.  When the muscles are fully repaired then the body is ready for those 11 pushups.

Now ingesting too much protein could be another problem all together.  High protein intake is a major strain on the kidneys.  Be sure to drink plenty of water to help out with the passing of waste.  When your kidneys become overworked, this weakens the body.

And I also need to mention, especially for the ladies that are prone to bladder infections, you should add a glass of cranberry juice into the mix.

When is the best time to eat protein?  All through the day.  Divy out the protein in small doses and larger doses for after the workouts and before bed time.  When we sleep at night, this is when the body does most of its repair and really needs major amounts of protein.  And we all know what happens when we get a large dose of protein, we tend to slip into a food coma.  Digesting protein is a major energy drain, but it is necessary for recuperation.

Now that you have your protein goal, be ready to tweak it.  That 150 grams is an average throughout your cycle.  If you run 12 miles on day, you may not need as much protein as playing rugby all day with a 20 lb ball.  There is no way your body is going to be happy with just a burger.  You are going to need the whole cow.

Proteins, Carbs and fats, Oh my!

Now that we have a goal of calories (we'll just use 3000 calories for example), I am sure you have modified your diet. 

Breakfast: Mocha and donuts
Lunch:      X-large pizza with 42 ounce soda pop
Snack:      Whopper with Diet coke
Dinner:      Celery stick

Yeah...um no.  First you must promise no drastic changes to your current diet.  Kthanx.

I do not count sugars and caffeine as part of the equation.  Yes they give you energy, but do so by supercharging the Adrenal system.  If you think sugar crashes are bad, try adrenal system failure.  This takes time, but can be serious to one's health.

I wish to talk about the types of calories: Proteins, Carbs and fats.  FATS!  "Dude, I am already fat.  I don't need any more."

So let's start with FATS.  In simplest terms, fats are the grease that make our engines move.  They are transformed into hormones, into lubrication for the joints and so on.  Fats are the energy we use while we sleep.  Diet recommendations are anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of your calories come from fats.  This varies due to the activities involved.  Couch sitting is 15 percent max, working construction more like 30%.

Also, women will need less fat than men.  Genetically, women will convert energy to stored fat for pregnancies.  Sorry ladies, genetics.  As for men, we tend more toward protein storage.  It takes a lot of muscle to hunt down those Saber-toothed bunnies.

Fat, huh?  We spend time trimming this stuff off our porkchops and prime rib and carefully piling it up on the furthest part of the plate.  Now we have to stuff that greasy glop between some bread and eat it?  NO!  And if you were considering this, An Ick on you.

Nuts.  I found nuts are the best way to ingest the fat you need.  I know this does not help if you are allergic to nuts, but there are many forms of "natural" fats to be found.  Find one that works best for you.  Figure about half your fat intake from nuts and you should be set.

So let's say you need 30% of fat in your diet because you are so badass.  That is 900 calories based on your 3000 calorie level.  Now 1 gram of Fat = 9 calories.  So divide 900 by 9 leaves you with 100 grams of fat.  And if you get half that from the rest of your diet, you only need 50 grams of fat from nuts.  I know this seems excessive, but check this out.  Cashews, the yummiest of all nuts, has 16 grams of fat per 1/4 cup.  3/4's of a cup supplies you with your needs.  That is like six handfuls.  Pretty easy and you can just munch on them throughout the day.

Now this is just a guideline and whitewashed to appear easy.  Your diet will be more complicated, but if you maintain awareness, it is easy to adjust.

Adjustments to make.  Well, if you find too much fat in your diet, just cut back on the nuts or the higher sources of fat.  Indications are easy to spot, burgeoning waistline, thicker thighs, glutier glutes.

On the opposite end, if you are fat deficient, you will notice more joint achiness, lower energy when resting, and hormonal swings.

Yeah, I know people severely overweight tend to suffer the same ailments.  But be serious, if you are morbidly obese just start moving.  Any movement will burn calories and this is where we all start.  It is just some of us have never had the challenge of living with a 100+ extra pounds. 

Back on topic.  So like mechanical systems, remember to keep your fat intake up so we can move smoothly and continue are upward climb to optimum health.

DarkArashi

Dive bombers

Here is a quickie workout:

My time is 12:10

30 Walking Lunges total
30 Kipping Pullups
30 24" Box Jumps
30 Paralette Pushups
30 Side Squats total
30 Jumping Jacks
30 Dive Bombers

Oh, and don't forget to breathe.

Good luck and feel free to post your times and shame me properly.

Darkarashi

Men and Women

Before I get carried away on a long blahblahblah on differences between protein, carbs and fats, just a little perspective on differences between men and women.  Makes more sense later.

Take two people and have them divide up 9 oranges and 7 apples between them.  Anyway, they want without cutting them up into little pieces.  Someone is always going to have at least one more orange, but the other will have more apples.

Questions we argue about is having more orange better, or more apple.  Both are good, one has more health benefits against illness, the other more benefits against becoming ill.

So rather than being drug into these arguments, just accept your bad gender self and start living.

When you come across general statements downplaying your gender, take a moment to study them.  Is there a seed of truth or did this sprout from a seed of fear.

Good luck,

Bunnies!!!!

Here you go,

Disapproving Bunny workout (well actually more of a Disapproving Kit workout)

These totals are half of the regular workout.

4 rounds of:

100 Jump Ropes
25 Squats.

I used a 2lb jumprope for this.  My time is 7:08
Good luck, oh and bring oxygen.

Charles

First diet challenge.

Alrighty then.  Now that we know calories are both important and not really important, we can begin.

Next step is to determine how many calories we need a day to live, get through work, get through a workout.

We have all heard that if you ingest 3500 calories a day, you'll gain weight.  This is just a means and not really appropriate for you.  Three rules of thumb for determining daily caloric intake.

Rule One:  If you are sedentary multiply your weight by 10.  I weigh 180lbs so I would need 1800 calories to maintain.  Sedentary is where you sit on the couch, sit in the car, sit at the office.  Sit, sit, sit.  You are not doing much, but your body still needs energy to maintain.  This is basic life support.

Rule Two:  If you are a normal mortal and work out 3 times a week and play a sport like football or softball on the weekend, multiply your weight by 15.  I.e. 2700 calories for me.

Rule Three:  If you are an immortal and work out everyday preparing for the Olympics or work hard construction, multiply your weight by 20. I.e. 3600 calories for me.

I re-iterate, that these are rules of thumbs.  You may find a +\- of 25% on your totals depending on your bodies needs.

I both work construction and train.  I have had to cut back on my workouts since i cannot simply eat enough to fulfill my requirements.  Now this brings up an interesting point.  Average daily caloric intake is nice to spout off about, but isn't realistic.  Some days, I am putting away 6 to 7 thousand calories to rebuild my body from heavy lifting in the heat.  Other days, I maybe hit 2 thousand calories so my body can rest from trying to digest food.

Resting from eating?  What a maroon right?  Not really.  Heavy diets are a strain on the body too.  Sometimes your tummy just wants to nap in a sunbeam and relax.

We are scheduled from week to week.  We also need to schedule our diet accordingly.  We can not eat the same static diet everyday and expect to be on our game.

So now look at your "dear diary" of food from last week.  Kinda of a crazy assortment you have been stuffing in your pie hole.  This is OK.

"WHAT?" unhealthy diet is OK?  Not really.  If your diet consists of an extra large meat pizza with two six packs of coke everyday, then continue and change gradually.  If you decide the next day to switch to a diet of one celery stick, your body will rebel and mess a fool up.  This is an incredible stress on the body.

So here is your next step in changing your diet for the better.  Try to cut out High Fructose Corn Syrup.  HFC for short.  It is estimated that each American puts away 60 pounds of this stuff every year.  60 POUNDS!!!  Now you know why our pants have writing on the back like "Wide Load".

Start reading your labels and look for HFC.  You will most likely panic and go hide in the closet somewhere til HFC disappears from our food.  Not happening.  This is not meant to scare you, but bring awareness to what you are ingesting.  Juices, cereals, diet bars and canned goods are biggest culprits.  Now you have to decide what is a necessary evil to eat.  Your Noodly-O's may have to go, but the instant oatmeal can hang out longer until you find a better substitute.

By becoming more aware of what goes into your body, you can start making changes based on how you feel.  Out diet is not something we should stress about.  Small change by small change will bring about a better you.

Da